Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City Releases High Tech Trailer
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Capcom have gone all out for their Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City cinematic. But is it really Resi Evil?
Last year’s news that Capcom would be trying something quite different with their survival horror IP, Resident Evil, were met with a mix of cautious hope and hefty suspicion. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City goes against the traditional “survivor vs zombies & biological killers” angle and instead focuses on hot human vs human action with zombies seemingly just thrown into the mix.
Set in the events during Resident Evil 2 and 3 (ie: where Raccoon City goes to hell) RE:ORC pits the US special ops military units against Umbrella’s Special Services (US spec ops vs USS – hmm, not confusing at all!). Umbrella’s tough nut types are hell-bent on destroying evidence of the company’s naughty experiments gone wrong, and the US special forces are there to stop them and expose Umbrella’s corruption to the world.
Here’s the eye-poppingly gorgeous trailer that’s 5:41 minutes of explosions, acrobatics and trademark Resident Evil bad dialogue:
Well, that was pretty. However, there’s a number of elements to RE:ORC that gave me unease back when the idea was first announced and those fears have only grown with time.
Firstly, I hate to be one of those people who say “Get your ‘X’ out of my game!” where ‘X’ in this case is sci-fi high tech wizardry. I don’t like to judge games before they’re out, especially based on their trailer, as we all know that these are usually full of hype-inducing bullshit.
Unfortunately, the trailer is so choc-full of magical stealth-suits, acrobatic ninja-flip action and such that it really can’t help but give the impression that Capcom are moving even further away from the grittier survival horror of the early Resident Evil games and more into the realms of near-future sci-fi, Metal Gear Solid style.
I understand that Capcom need to take risks with their IP as apathy towards the Resident Evil series threatens to set in. However, I think a lot of fans would have been happier if greater emphasis was put back on the “horror” element that has made the series a household name.
For me, the brilliance of the Resident Evil games was in their ability to make you feel fear before opening every door, making you count every bullet carefully as you struggle to survive. With several thousand bullets being spat out in this trailer alone, something tells me that RE:ORC will not make the player feel the need to think “survival first”.
Perhaps the team based co-op multiplayer approach will put a fresh perspective on the Resident Evil series, but I can’t help but feel that a Capcom should be trying harder to scare us again, not impress us with gadgetry and clean-cut acrobatic action.
If you want to scare a player, you don’t start things off by arming them to the teeth and sticking them with a bunch of equally-tooled up buddies. You put them on their own, in the dark, with a handgun and only 8 bullets… that’s where survival horror is born.
