darthhomer said:

edgecrusher said:

gamingeek said:

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

WTF? Bearded? Why kill the horror Capcom?

Is that Sam L. Jackson?

NO MOTHERFUCKER! I'M NOT IN SOME LAME ASS ZOMBIE SHOOTING GAME, I WAS BUSY PARTYING TO CELEBRATE THE RELEASE OF MY NEW VIDEO GAME AFRO SAMRUAI! YOU BUY THAT SHIT!

gamingeek said:

Nice impressions Dvader. What's the release date on this?

March 13th, 2009.

It's a Friday.

Played the RE5 demo.

Its ok but I wasn't blown away at all. Definitely seems like more of a co-op game the way the demo is set up, which is cool but I don't really want a co-op RE game.

Controls are the same as RE4, but what's with the default aim speed? Slow as fuck. Had to turn it all the way up and then it finally feels like RE4 on Cube. I'm totally spoiled by Wii controls so this feels cumbersome to me.

The tag along chick kind of annoys me....again I can see already how its going to make co-op the better option for a smoother play. It doesn't feel like a natural partner, like say Dom from Gears, or your squad in Crysis or Halo. She constantly stays RIGHT next to you to the point of annoyance. Its like get out of my fucking way bitch. She moves unnatural.

Already had to save her ass 2 times and watched her get her head chopped off once.....this is exactly what I don't want to deal with for 20 hours. They should have just let you play ALONE in Single-player, like a normal RE game. Its different from Ashley in RE4.....she's almost not an issue because she stays behind you....this chick on the other hand is supposed to hold her own, but its just bothersome.

I see they threw some Arab looking dudes into the game for the "don't kill the blacks" people. I think I shot the same Saddam looking guy like 10 times.

Graphically, this confirms I never want to see another game set in Africa. Its just like Far Cry 2; solid technically, but totally bland looking compared to the last game artistically. Everything is boring looking in Africa apparently. It doesn't have the WOW factor that RE4 visuals had.

Ummm, what else.....guys now erupt into an even stranger pile of goo after you kill them. Not really a fan of that. Makes it feel arcadey.

I guess that's it. Its still good but I just wasn't floored. Its more of a copy-paste B-level RE game from what I can tell as I thought it would be. The apparent changes I'm not big on, like the focus on co-op (you'd think Zero would have taught them something...oh it did, add online) and the seeming removeal of the last few bits of true RE atmosphere. Maybe later in the game it feels more like RE. Because as it is, yeah it copy's RE4's gameplay style yet the game itself doesn't give off a Biohazard vibe and atmosphere like RE4 did.

I would not be surprised if some mags and sites say they like this as much as RE4 just because of the online though. Works for every other game.

I rate the demo an 8.3

darthhomer said:

gamingeek said:

Nice impressions Dvader. What's the release date on this?

March 13th, 2009.

It's a Friday.

Cool. Thanks.  

I read this preview, it's 3 pages long, I picked out the juiciest bits to save you time.

EXTRACTS

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/resident-evil-5-hands-on-chapter1to3

THE FEEL

You know who the unsung hero of the Resident Evil series is? The guy who moans "Resident Eeeeeevil" at the start of each game. I like to think that it's the same person, and that for each sequel he puts years of practice into making each number sound as spooky as possible.

Loading up a preview build of Resident Evil 5, containing the first three chapters of the game, that booming introduction is one of the few elements still remaining from the traditional template that defined the series throughout the 90s. Following on from Resident Evil 4, this fifth sequel (actually the nineteenth in the series!) is far more action shooter than survival horror, and most of its triumphs and failures stem from trying to serve these two goals at the same time. Much like the bizarre T-virus mutated creatures, this is a series mid-evolution.

SHEVA

Playing offline, Sheva falls under AI control and the results are mixed. Assuming she has the items in her inventory, she's able to hand over ammo for the current weapon you're using, heal you when your health is dangerously low, and even combine red and green herbs automatically to create more powerful healing items. However, she's also a bit dim when it comes to combat, and since her death spells game-over even in single-player mode, she can be as much hindrance as help. In the midst of a scrum, the sight of her blithely standing around while the executioner readies his axe right beside her is most unwelcome. Played with a human partner it's probably a real blast, although when you have to rely on Virtual Sheva's rather flaky responses it's hit-and-miss. If you're the one doing the shooting, she's not always illuminating the areas you need to see. If you're handling the lamp, there's no guarantee that she'll do a good job of shooting the enemies. In a game where ammo is at a premium, watching her waste shots can be frustrating.

Boss: giant mutant bat-scorpion. It's a tricky encounter, and once again shows up the limitations of the partner AI and real-time inventory. Sheva has a habit of picking items up without your permission, but if she grabs an explosive she'll hoard it rather than use it and cause you damage.

This is problematic, since you need to use proximity mines to stun the creature and if Sheva has grabbed them you need to stand next to her, open the inventory, navigate over to her side, select the mines, request them, wait for her to hand them over, open the inventory again and equip them. It's a horribly long-winded process, and sometimes proves fatal when there's huge monster stomping around.

It's also a fight clearly designed for co-op play, since the creature's weak spot is only vulnerable from behind. One character must lead it away while the other shoots.

You can change her stance from defensive to aggressive, but the difference is minimal. Playing on Normal difficulty, it's very easy to run out of ammo and explosives while trying to get your computerised partner to assist in the fight. It's rather telling that when this section was last demoed to the press, the infinite ammo cheat was activated.

THE CONTROLS

With the game now an over-the-shoulder co-op shooter more in the style of Army of Two or Kane & Lynch, the decision to stick with the rigid run, fast turn, shoot, repeat approach to combat seems more bloody-minded than creatively inspired. It's not unworkable, and it may be traditional for Resident Evil, but it does leave the game feeling clunky and inelegant in contemporary context. Maybe Capcom needs to have faith that the series has endured for reasons besides the way the characters move.

IS IT LIKE RESIDENT EVIL?

It's all incredibly action-packed and breathless in its pace, served up with the polished production values you'd expect from Capcom, but nothing up to this point has felt very Resident Evilly. There have been almost constant gunfights, but nothing you could really call a puzzle and no adventure elements at all. That changes slightly in Chapter 3 as you venture into the marshlands in pursuit of Irving and must locate four quarters of a plaque to open a doorway. In the Resident Evil games of old these pieces would be hidden away, unearthed by moving statues or matching patterns. Here, they're just marked on your map and you zip off to find them in a rather nifty airboat. It feels like the vestigial remains of the old Resident Evil, paying lip service to a more varied experience, but with little interest in developing anything beyond the gunplay.

Where the game seems weakest is in its reliance on a wonky AI model for the single-player, and a noticeable lack of scares. There are plenty of gory moments, some agreeably wacky monsters and enormous amounts of bullets fired, but the series' famous sense of dread and horror-movie pacing has been completely ditched in favour of all-out action. That your character is wandering around in broad daylight, with a constant and shapely companion, hardly helps to nurture a feeling of paranoid terror.

ON RACISM

There's also the spectre of the old racism debate, hovering the background.

One of the first things you see in the game, seconds after taking control of Chris Redfield, is a gang of African men brutally beating something in a sack. Animal or human, it's never revealed, but these are not infected Majini. There are no red bloodshot eyes. These are ordinary Africans, who stop and stare at you menacingly as you approach. Since the Majini are not undead corpses, and are capable of driving vehicles, handling weapons and even using guns, it makes the line between the infected monsters and African civilians uncomfortably vague. Where Africans are concerned, the game seems to be suggesting, bloodthirsty savagery just comes with the territory.

Later on, there's a cut-scene of a white blonde woman being dragged off, screaming, by black men. When you attempt to rescue her, she's been turned and must be killed. If this has any relevance to the story it's not apparent in the first three chapters, and it plays so blatantly into the old clichés of the dangerous "dark continent" and the primitive lust of its inhabitants that you'd swear the game was written in the 1920s. That Sheva neatly fits the approved Hollywood model of the light-skinned black heroine, and talks more like Lara Croft than her thickly-accented foes, merely compounds the problem rather than easing it. There are even more outrageous and outdated images to be found later in the game, stuff that I was honestly surprised to see in 2009, but Capcom has specifically asked that details of these scenes remain under wraps for now, whether for these reasons we don't know.

I really don't see why you have to have an NPC in single player.

The article's writer says on the race topic:

There will be plenty of people who refuse to see anything untoward in this material. "It wasn't racist when the enemies were Spanish in Resident Evil 4," goes the argument, but then the Spanish don't have the baggage of being stereotyped as subhuman animals for the past two hundred years. It's perfectly possible to use Africa as the setting for a powerful and troubling horror story, but when you're applying the concept of people being turned into savage monsters onto an actual ethnic group that has long been misrepresented as savage monsters, it's hard to see how elements of race weren't going to be a factor.

All it will take is for one mainstream media outlet to show the heroic Chris Redfield stamping on the face of a black woman, splattering her skull, and the controversy over Manhunt 2 will seem quaint by comparison. If we're going to accept this sort of imagery in games then questions are going be asked, these questions will have merit, and we're going to need a more convincing answer than "lol it's just a game.

SteelAttack said:

The inclusion of a couple characters with a lighter skin tone after the first race controversy just shows that the dev team KNOWS shit is going to fly on this subject come release date. Even though I don't agree with the more radical stances, I do think that it was a clumsy approach from the dev team.

Yeah, I see what they are doing, this IGN write up made me laugh though.

5) Stay True to the Setting

So, Resident Evil 5 is set in Africa, only it's not really Africa – it's some mystical, magical land where African slums are filled with people of all races. Oh, look over there, it's a white villager! And ooh, who's that? Why, it's an Asian villager! It's political correctness gone mad, and to be frank, we think it hurts the game.

This is such a species-ist representation of dogs. Where are the dalmations, the labs, the poodles and the labradoodles? I SAID GOOD DAY, CAPCOM!

In fact, there really isn't any need for Capcom to bow to the pressure. The company should stand firm behind its game and its setting. How having African people in African villages could be construed as racist we have no idea. The game simply uses Africa as a canvas for a drama. It's not set in one particular country. It's not saying 'people from Cameroon are crazy and evil'. A film set in Africa with some kind of contagion that's turning the populace into fiends sure as hell wouldn't have to include all the colours of the multi-cultural rainbow, so why should RE5? It's just a setting. Get over it and take the token white people out.

SteelAttack said:

That would require the mainstream media and the general public to hold games in the same esteem than movies, and that just hasn't happened. Capcom is going to take flak anyway you slice it.

I dumped a thread on the Ask capcom boards. Should be interesting to see their reaction. I can see both sides of this argument. I think they could have just negated the whole problem by having a black african (accent and all) character as the main guy and have a white character as the AI NPC. Some people will find that cheap or "bowing to pressure" and all that, but sometimes you just have to be sensitive and air on the side of caution. Imagine playing this game on co-op on Xbox live with some asshole?

"Yeah! Take that N*****! Die N*******!" etc.

SteelAttack said:

gamingeek said:

"Yeah! Take that N*****! Die N*******!" etc.

Oh God. I am already hearing that in a prepubescent, high pitched voice. Check out the GAF thread on the subject. I think all this weekend's podcast will be of RE5 and its implications.

Capcom locked the thread on their boards and some guy joked that they were K-K-K-apcom.

SteelAttack said:

Do me a favor and check out this lik. Tell me explicitly what happens at 2:30 because I haz no youtube at work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1W6aPbZ9c&feature=related

Okay I will watch it.

Ugh........... black guys with spears and tribal shields and those funny skirt things made from plants? Spearchuckers? Er........... is Capcom idiotic? And Chris and Sheva basically shooting them to death? What? Half of me is LMAO, half of is thinking WTF?

Read this in the GAF thread: