So one or two mags say its 7, others say its 17, it will probably be in the middle. RE4 took me 16 hours on my first go, now I can finish it in 5 or 6 easy.  It depends how you play.

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/02/23/four-million-demo-downloads-later-resident-evil-5-producer-talks/#more-20145

In a wide-ranging interview, Capcom’s Jun Takeuchi discussed player reaction to “Resident Evil 5“’s controls, the lack of a Wii version of the game, his expectations on the race issue and much more.

***

Last week in Las Vegas, I had what was probably my last chance to interview “Resident Evil 5” producer Jun Takeuchi prior to the game’s March 13 release on the Xbox 360 and PS3. It was a good opportunity to see how a top game developer reacts to the feedback he’s received from the demo of his game and hit some other issues one last time.

Right away I found out that the demo has performed superb, having been downloaded more than four million times on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 worldwide in just a matter of weeks.

Here’s what we ran through during our conversation…

Split-screen: One reaction we got to the “Resident Evil 5″ demo on MTV Multiplayer was a complaint about the demo’s split-screen options.  On a single TV, the co-op is rendered as two stacked  widescreen views of the game stacked unevenly, one pushed to the left and one aligned to the right. That leaves a lot of black space. (See it here.) Takeuchi explained the reason for that. “It was technically more difficult to make it like it is now than to split the screen in half,” he said through a translator. Other options were inferior. Eliminating the black space would have made the players’ view of the action to wide. And it introduced another problem. Without pushing one view to the left and one to the right, the lead characters stood in one column: “Having them on top of each other made it a little difficult to play,” Takeuchi said. “We felt that having the characters on different sides of the screen was the best way to play.”

Controls: The other complaint we fielded here about the demo was that even the new westernized “Resident Evil” controls had disappointed some gamers looking for a scheme similar to a “Gears of War.” “We knew it was going to come up,” Takeuchi said. “When you get your hands on the [full] game you’ll understand the choice we made with the controls.” He added: “We understand that there are many people who want to run and shoot at the same time, but it’s not the right alignment for the game.”

Race: Reactions to the depiction of black people in “Resident Evil 5″ have been wide-ranging, dating at least as far back as this blog’s interview with reporter N’Gai Croal about the “RE5″ debut trailer. Recent previews have suggested that the retail release of the game will trigger a round of mainstream criticism from people well outside the gaming press. Takeuchi disagrees. “I’m not expecting it,” he said. “When the game is out to the mainstream and on the shelves and being played by users, I’m not expecting it to be a problem. People will be able to play the game and see what it is for themselves.” And if people do complain, he said, “I guess we would respond to that and point out our intentions in making [the game].”

Loading Times: Write-ups of preview builds of the game have raised another issue with the game: frequent loading times. “I do think there is potential to improve them in the future,” Takeuchi said. “There are a lot of problems when you make a game like this. Loading times on Blu-Ray and DVD are not the same. The memory on the consoles are not the same. When it comes to having slightly longer load times or a worse gameplay experience, we’ll take longer loading times.” Takeuchi said that the finished game should have shorter loading times than the preview builds currently being written about. “No loading times, of course, is the ideal.”

After all that, I threw in three questions of my own:

The Wii: I wanted to know why “Resident Evil 5″ isn’t being released for the world’s most popular gaming platform. “When we set out to make ‘Resident Evil 5,’ the guys knew that if you want to make the most powerful, most pretty game, the Wii isn’t the best choice,” Takeuchi said. “From a business perspective it may have been, but after making this game we are happy with the choice we made.”

Mercenaries: One of the most-imitated parts of “Resident Evil 4” was the game’s bonus Mercenaries mode, which threw a rush of enemies at the player in the same way that “Gears of War“’s Horde Mode and “Left 4 Dead” would. Takeuchi wouldn’t say if it’s back, but did promise “some kind of bonus” for finishing the game.

Lonely ‘Resident Evil’: Lastly, I wanted to know if the introduction of online co-op into a core “Resident Evil” game meant that the days of lonelier single-character “Resident Evil” adventures were over. Can you have a single-player, single-character “Resident Evil” game in the future? Takeuchi replied: “Yes.”

Archangel3371 said:

Nice interview. Of course I'm really glad with the choice they made in putting RE5 on the 360/PS3 as well. Man I'm so pumped for this game. We're almost at the 2 weeks away point now. Woo hoo!

As am I. *ducks behind Angel and lets him take the attack*

Archangel3371 said:

Dvader said:

Archangel3371 said:

Nice interview. Of course I'm really glad with the choice they made in putting RE5 on the 360/PS3 as well. Man I'm so pumped for this game. We're almost at the 2 weeks away point now. Woo hoo!

As am I. *ducks behind Angel and lets him take the attack*

Bring it on their 'waggeling' won't phase me.

But my angry penis jerking will!

*avoids spelling joke*

Archangel3371 said:

Ah so many funny things I could say about why your penis is angry.

You would be angry too if you had to sit there unwashed and unused, neglected for long periods of time.

Archangel3371 said:

SteelAttack said:

Archangel3371 said:

Ah so many funny things I could say about why your penis is angry.

You would be angry too if you had to sit there unwashed and unused, neglected for long periods of time.

And there's one of those jokes.

Still on your trips?

Yeah, just stopped by to say hello before heading to south america, in my endless search of the Golden Phallus, a strange device that will grant me absolute power.

From a joystiq interview with Takeuchi:

Was creating the game as a fully co-op-compatible adventure always the goal, or was that something that was added mid-way?

It was I guess something that we included part way through the development of the game. I always had the idea that co-op was something that was going to be necessary in Resident Evil 5. But just when we started planning and making the game right at the start, the pressure to outdo Resident Evil 4 was so strong that it was difficult to get everybody in the team behind the idea of doing a co-op focused game.

Once we got everybody on the same page and decided that this was the way to go, things went pretty smoothly after that. But just getting everybody to realize that it was something that was necessary took a little bit of time.

Proof that co-op was added later.

Has the lack of Shinji Mikami involvement affected this game? Do you think it is something that he would want to play? Would he approve?
Obviously the fact that Mikami is not involved in the title, especially in the early stages of making the title, did have a big influence on us, and it put a lot of pressure on us right at the start. As for what he would say if he was to play the game, I guess I can't really say. Of course because he is not involved in the game, it has gone in a different direction than I am sure he would have taken it himself.

So I am not really sure I want to know actually what he thinks of it. Probably, he is the last person whose opinion I want to ask about the game.

He always says the reason they didn't go with the wii was cause they wanted to push the series as forward as they can and that does include graphics.