Player A: "The GameCube is all kiddy games! No good games are cel-shaded! Blah blah blah, bitch wang bitch."
Player B: "Here. It’s called 'Killer 7'. Now shut your trap."

This conversation may not have actually happened, but I highly doubt that it won't at some point in the future. Killer 7, one of the illustrious "Capcom 5" exclusive titles for GameCube, puts to rest any complaints people might have that cel-shading is strictly kiddy stuff and that the Cube fields nothing outside of the "Fun For The Whole Family" arena.

Killer 7 tells the story of the mysterious assassin Harman Smith - a.k.a the "God Killer" - , a man who gives good reason to start using the term "differently abled". Smith is an elderly man confined to a wheelchair in his normal form. However, while most old men collect war stories over the course of their lives, Smith has collected personalities. Seven, to be precise:

Something tells me that that ain't Kool-Aid...

"Garcian" Smith - a man Herman once killed, Garcian has the ability to see into the future.
"Dan" Smith - a man with telekinetic powers that allow for changing a bullet's path with but a thought
"Con" Smith - a child with heightened natural senses. This one is used to instill a false sense of compassion in the enemy
"Masked" Smith - a retired wrestler, this personality manipulates fire in order to become invincible
"Coyote" Smith - the son of "Masked" Smith, he can teleport through things
"Kaede" Smith - a woman with a love of both causing blood showers to appear, as well as the "Coyote" and "Dan" personalities.
"Kevin" Smith - little is known about this one, save he has special orders from Herman. Perhaps he can call on Jay or Brodie for assistance?

In Smith's world, violence in the nations of the world is on a dramatic rise. A virus is sweeping the world called "Heaven's Smile", which turns its victims into extremely aggressive near-drones with no face save a disturbing grin. The victims attack anyone within arm's reach and - in order to not completely plagiarize the plot of "28 Days Later" - are forming into vast armies to overthrow the various governments of the world. Harman finds himself involved as the crisis becomes doubly personal - these mobs killed his girlfriend, and an old acquaintance of his, Kul Lan a.k.a. "God's Hands", is the man responsible for the release and course of Heaven's Smile. If he is to gain vengeance upon Lan, Smith must utilize all of the abilities of his "friends" in order to assassinate him.

HERE I COME TO SAVE THE DAYYYY!!!!...uh...The Day's this way, right?

Capcom has been tighter than a snare drum when it comes to details about the gameplay, hell, the game in general. I came very close to having to learn Italian in order to pick up some extra information here. That's the level of dedication you can expect from me, folks. But I digress. Leaked screens lend the impression that parts of the game will take on a first-person shooter aspect, in addition to the action/adventure aura lent by prior reports and media. The game itself spans across multiple time periods, worlds, and storylines. Time has been said to play a crucial role in the game, with actions taken during the present time affecting things in the year 2005.

Graphically is where the game really makes its mark. Utilizing cel-shading, Killer 7 delivers a stark, film-noir atmosphere to the game, not totally unlike what Capcom worked in Product Number 03. All characters seen to date are painted with a few solid colors and pitch-black shadows. Shadows-black and blood-red are the most proliferate colors in the game, which when combined with the simplicity of the character color schemes and plain definition, enforce the idea that this world is one on the brink of total anarchy. Hope is gone from here, and the only desirable objective in one's life is that they go after everyone else. Personally, I hope Capcom stays with the graphics they've shown us, though there always remains the possibility of changes before its slated June 30th, 2004 release.

See how my hand glows? That means "I own you." Understood?

In all, this game looks very impressive. A beautifully unique graphics engine combined with an interesting concept never fails to score points with me. As I said, it's slated to drop at the end of June, but depending on the market, I wouldn't be surprised to see it pushed back to the 2004 holiday season to give a little sales oomph. We'll see, I suppose.

Mike Twomey