August 9^th, 2002 (12:00am) - While not much, I have learned a few interesting tidbits about this long-awaited Resident Evil sequel.

Hiroyuki Kobayashi, producer of RE4, has stated that RE0, the soon to be released prequel to the popular RE series, is a "fully evolved" addition to the series. It features two players which can be controlled simultaneosly if desired, the ability to drop items on the ground to be picked up later (as opposed to placing them in hard to find storage boxes), stellar full-motion backgrounds superior even to those found in the recent RE1 remake, and more.
Mr. Kobayashi considers RE4 to be "fully overhauled". He feels RE0 is taking the series as far as it can go, and RE4 is going to be his chance to make a fresh start in a whole new direction. He feels it’ll be beyond anything you can imagine.

Also under consideration is the addition of a new control scheme. For a long time gamer’s have complained about RE’s unmanagable, clunky control scheme. Kobayashi even admits that after working on Devil May Cry the RE control’s confused even him. He concede’s he will give serious consideration to a new control setup for RE4. *note- as a RE veteran, I’ve grown accustom to the old control scheme, and while a new one would be welcome, more of the same would be fine by me...

Also, of lesser concern to anyone who does not own an HDTV, RE4 will support progressive scan. This will allow for a much sharper picture, although, again, not many people will even benefit from this feature. It’s nice to know that Capcom is seeking to please EVERYONE with this kind of seemingly insignificant, yet largely requested feature. Kobayashi is considering adding this feature to RE0 also, as he says the feature is easy enough to implement. (It was not implemented in RE1 due to time constraints)

That’s all for now. GamersMark will be sure to provide you with new information as it develops.