ART S
The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, April 12, 2000 -- 11
Capcom
gets very
se uel
In the last year, Capcom has pro-
duced a shelf full of "Resident Evil"
games; "Resident Evil 3: Nemesis" for
the Playstation, "Resident Evil 2" for
the N64 and the Japanese Playstation
game "Biohazard Gun Survivor" (keep
*ind that when you see "Biohazard"
TNaked Truth' exhibit an
evocative Main St showing
i
t
By Neshe Sarkozy
DaIv Arts Water
u'iy rusV~t
"The Naked Truth," Gallery 212's
most recent art exhibit, pushes bound-
aries both intellectually and artistically.
This show unites pieces of an avant-
garde style. With the exception of two
standout artists, the art appeared skilled
yet possessed conceptually borderline
aesthetic quali-
ties.
Grade: A-
Resident Evil:
Code Veronica
For Dreamcast
Capcom
Reviewed by
Daily Arts Writer
Ted Watts
in relation to a
Japanese
videogame, read
"Resident Evil").
Add to these the
Japanese release
of "Biohazard 2"
for the Dream-
cast, and that
makes "Code:
Veronica" the
fifth release of
the franchise within a year, and the
third all new game in that time..
"Code: Veronica" is the most
advanced "Resident Evil" so far. Most
game play is at something of a distance
from the characters; that's good for
fighting, of course. If you're close up
appreciating the number of polygons
used in a character then you can't
reciate the frame of the monster
Wancing on you just off screen. That
is still a problem, however; in spite of a
better camera that follows you to some
extent, there is still no player control of
the view.
And it's a shame, because the view is
the best yet. The Dreamcast's abilities
are used to the advantage of "Code:
Veronica." It takes two of the system's
li h capacity discs to hold the code
L~rlying the smooth models, environ-
I earn
ments and full-motion video scenes.
Filter those through the Dreamcast's
advanced hardware and you get some
of the highest quality survival horror
you've ever seen. Lighting effects dur-
ing gameplay can be spectacular; when
spinning red lights fill the hallways
intermittently or lightning flashes
through a window it changes the look
of the environment. Unfortunately there
are only a handful of times when you
can look at the surroundings closely,
like when you have the sniper rifle and
have an in your face first person view of
your surroundings.
The game is difficult. Ammo and
healing items are scarce, zombies are
hearty and plentiful. They reset at a
brisk pace, and have a number of varia-
tions. The bloody rotting dogs are back,
of course, to nip at your forearms and
intestines, as well as a host of other ene-
mies, including a large number of huge
bosses who take huge amounts of pow-
erful ammo. And when you think part
of the story is over, say at the end of the
first disc, it's not. And you've used up
most of your ammo. That's a lot like the
insidious first installment of the series.
The game begins with Claire Red-
field, heroine of "Resident Evil 2,"
being captured and imprisoned by the
undead service provider Umbrella, Inc.
on some remote base Someone attacks
the base and Claire ends up running
around the prison and throwing in with
an idiot Industrial teen named Steve
who keeps looking at her ass.
Eventually, Claire's brother Chris,
hero of the first "Resident Evil," shows
up looking for Claire, who by this time
is elsewhere. "Code: Veronica" then
implements a newer zapping system,
where things Claire has done affect
major story points for Chris. Moreover,
the stories do not run over each other
but run fully serially and integratedly.
Not only do the stories work together,
but the overall story line continues to
improve on internal story cohesion and
believability. As a zombie based video
game, the believability is the type you
can feasibly have in a zombie story that
doesn't end like a "Scooby Doo"
episode by pulling the latex mask off
the evil gardener.
So between the technical niceties and
fictional polish (for a video game),
Code: Veronica is the most advanced of
the flagship line of survival horror
games. Someday the undead won't be
coming out of the ground; but as long
as Capcom keeps improving the fran-
chise, that day isn't in sight.
The Naked
Truth
Gallery 212
Through April 16
The artists in
this particular
exhibit are from
around Michigan
or work in the
area. Some of the
contributing
artists from Ann
Arbor include
Allison Conner,
Alvey Jones and
Kirk Roda. Jean
Wilson and Kyle
M. Stone from
Palubinskas from
dancing person making finger gestures
on either side of its head, almost as if he
were mimicking the horns of an animal.
Another artist, relatively new to the
Ann Arbor art scene and who has a few
paintings in "The Naked Truth" is Palu-
binskas. Originally from Lithuania,
Palubinskas is trained in art restoration.
One of her pieces "Thirst," done oil on
canvas, is as intriguing as it is disturb-
ing. The painting's zenith is the little
pink frogs, which hop towards the mid-
dle of the light green piece.
Speaking about "The Naked Truth,"
Part owner and artist himself, Kit Eagal
said that it's "not so much provocative
as it is evocative." Most of the artistic
style leans toward expression but there
are elements of a desire for meaning
embedded in the various art forms.
The wide array of artistic style and
variation of design is not unknown to the
reputation of avant-garde Gallery 212.
Eagal said he wanted "works (in the
exhibit) that don't pull any punches."
Gallery 212's guest board of jurors
decides on the various pieces that make
it into the exhibit. Eagal started Gallery
212 in an effort to go beyond the poli-
tics of the art scene here in Ann Arbor.
The art that Gallery 212 wants to be
known for is expression, rather than
commercial acceptance, is displayed.
Similarly, the jurors don't care about
art credentials or an artist entire collec-
Detroit and Renata
..,::.y::::....... ...
Grosse Point Park. Roda and Palubin-
skas' pieces stood out from the rest.
Roda, in particular, is someone to
watch for. Roda's "Minataur" bronze
statue stands about 13"x 3" x 3" tall.
There is so much detail and texture in
his figurative sculptures that somehow
it holds a life like quality to it. It is of
Courtesy ofGalery 212
"Portrait With Apple" is one of the
works on display in "The Naked Truth."
tion of their works. Gallery'212 is
"open to artist's regardless of pedigree,'
said Eagal.
Gallery 212's next project, "The
Painted Mile," will consist of elaborate
body painting, which will use art to
offer different take on the University's
Naked Mile. On April 14, artists will
come from all "over the country, both
students and professionals, for "The
Painted Mile." When they did this last
year, it was the first time body painting
was done on Main Street. Eagal
expressed that body painting is some-
thing that goes beyond a school activity.
'Stalkers' makes for
solid playing 'Time'
Role playing games are a tricky
medium; people who like them tend to
swear by them and nothing else. Those
who aren't in that corner tend towards
diametric opposition, finding superde-
TURNER
Continued from Page 11.
God bless you please, Mrs.
Robinson.
Turner seduced preview audiences as
well with her boldness and female
form. A glance around the theater
reveals that most of them are middle-
too. Many of those who identified
with Dustin Hoffman's alienated col-
lege graduate in the film are paying
more attention to Turner's bored Mrs.
Robinson when she delivers the killer
line, "Do you want me to seduce you,
Benjamin?"
"The idea of a seduction of a
younger man is still very attractive to
men, but now more than ever to women
t " Turner said.
But while the alcoholic Mrs. Robin-
son may be interesting, she is not a nice
woman, and the character gave Turner
trouble at first: "I don't like the way she
treats her husband, her daughter, Ben-
jamin. She is not a woman I admire."
Turner has often complained about
the scarcity of roles for women in their
40s, although she has so much work
that she may not find time to take "The
Graduate" to Broadway. After "The
Graduate" completes its West End run
at the end of July, she will take "Tallu-
lah!" her one-woman play on the life of
actress Tallulah Bankhead, on tour in
the United States.
There is no contradiction, Turner
insists. She is arriving at an age for
good female stage roles, but film offers
are few and far between. Especially for
lead roles, which go to younger women.
"I love doing film. You can be so
incredibly'precise and exact when the
camera is right in your face. It can be
brilliantly exciting work. So yeah, I
kind of mind not having the choices
that I want, that excite me. But I don't
really know what to do about it," Turner
said.
"The film industry is very much
controlled by its marketing research,
which is youth-oriented, where the
market is for tickets, clothes, drinks,
whatever might be promoted by a film,
which is a lot of things," she said.
When it comes to Mrs. Robinson,
"I think they're more accepting of a
sensual older woman probably than
we are. It will be more of a shock in
the States."
formed characters,s
Grade: B+
Time
Stalkers
For Dreamcast
sega
Reviewed by
Daily Arts Writer
Ted Watts
dungeons, elves and
turn based fight-
ing to be nearly
below contempt.
"Time Stalk-
ers" succeeds in
being fairly
accessible to the
n on - R PG er.
While many
game sprites still
fall into the fan-
tasy world of
puffy. The turn based fighting in the
game looks and handles very well com-
pared to the somewhat dicey fare often
found in the genre. And while the dun-
geons still snake through fakely
medieval environments, they are less
annoying than the freakish labyrinthine
environments traditionally so hard to
navigate because of your smooth move-
ment through them and the readily
available mapping function.
You start playing as Sword (pointy
ears), some jerk running around fighting
a big mechanical or just heavily
armored something or other in a clock
tower. Soon, however, Sword discovers
the tower has been spirited away to a
place where people from different eras
have been stitched together into some
sort of community. Thus the title of the
game. From Paleolithic hut dwellers to
people from the '80s, there's a wide
range of inhabitants in the patchwork
environment. There're even some
anthropomorphs, like Sword's sheepser-
vant and various bunny people around
town. Well executed for typical fare.
The game does have some prob-
lems. The cinemas are unavoidable; if
you want to quickly move through the
rendered scenes, you're out of luck.
Text appears on the screen instead of
being spoken. And while advanced,
the game seems to fail to take advan-
tage of what is presently useable on
the Dreamcast platform. That
shouldn't bother the RPGers at all.
And, on balance, it probably won't
bother the rest of us all that much.
goblins and short pointy eared people,
the next generation hardware allows
them to be more fully formed and
therefore less distastefully short and
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