Wierdoes being Weird

There are a few constants in all the world. The sun will rise come morning, the seas will wax and wane through the year, and fans of things will be total unbelievable creeps on Social Media. It's as though people want to desperately to reach out and feel with others that they share overinflated hyperboles of themselves and their own social limits in hopes the exaggeration will overcome the physical barriers and touch others out there. At least, that's my working theory as to why people just plain forget how to act like functional human beings when interacting with each other over a wi-fi connection. And I'm not even talking the penchant to send unsolicited risqué pictures to one another- I don't even know if that's a symptom of social media or just something deeper. Are we certain that wasn't a unspoken about trend of mailing photos of one's privates to one another once photography became popular? I need historians on this one, stat!

I'm talking more about the way that people choose to voice their criticism- they never seem to match the the situation nor the mood. I mean, when I let loose on someone in one of these blogs they are a truly degenerate cretin deserving of my ire- I don't pen my disdain for my own health- I do it to convey the height of my ire. If I'm irked at something miniscule and insignificant, such as- the overall mediocre performances of the English cast of Crisis Core Reunion, I try to be a lot more understanding. I figure- no one wants to disappoint with the work they put out, so that was probably a case of low investment from the publisher to secure proper VA environments, like performance guidance and proper recording conditions. (I'll bet they even had some actors phone their lines in.) What I would never do, is harass the actors themselves in hopes they themselves see mean words I wrote about them. Because that's demented.

And yet that was exactly what the new voice actress for Ada Wong was subjected to upon release of the previews for Resident Evil 4. Lily Gao was brought abroad the cast from Resident Evil 4 Remake following her role as Ada in the live action Resident Evil movie 'Welcome to Raccoon City', which marked the very first time in history the Asian-American character was played by an actual Asian-American! (Well, Asian-north American, if we were to include Canada, but you get the idea.) It was a smart move to bring the distinct mediums of the franchise together and to refresh the cast somewhat. But there was just a little bit of a problem. Resident Evil 4 Remake's Ada had a pretty bad performance. Like- noticeably bad.

It's particularly flat and wooden in a manner that would actually be right at home in Crisis Core Reunion, but alongside the otherwise solid performances of everyone else it actually sticks out like a sore thumb. And it's an anomaly to be sure, but one worth dog-piling on the actress for? Mocking ruthlessly until she is chased off social media? Why? What does that achieve? Honestly, she is the only recast member of the cast and I suspect that decision might have been made pretty late into development. My guess, she was rushed through her sessions and wasn't given a chance to actually perform. It's not as though Lily doesn't have talent. The woman is an actress, she has demonstrated an ability to act several times before. This is a situation of process, without a doubt, letting her down and ruining an otherwise solid casting. It just sucks that she won't get a chance to redeem herself until Resident Evil 6 Remake, which is a ways off considering Code Veronica is next. (Which is the one game they swore they wouldn't do! Might as well do Survivor at this rate!)

And, of course, there is the whole 'Mary Jane' debacle from Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Insomniac decided to remodel Mary Jane between games and what they ended up with was a character who looked like an entirely different woman to the MJ from the original, and given how painfully obsessive people are with the unquestionable 'perfection' of that original game- tensions would soon flare. Fans have harassed and harangued Insomniac over the change, (as well as a great many other bizarre choices by the team. Not least of all to try and white-wash the entire Spanish language.) and the chaos spilt over to the actress. That's right, the actress for Mary Jane has had to deal with nattering and poking from the audience of this game that has spilled into her private life and resulted in people calling her up at her day job. Actual criminally liable stalker behaviour here, from Spider-Man fans! (This is what happens when you don't give chuds their Game of the Year awards!)

This particular controversy is so ridiculous in particular because of the subject. The voice actress has nothing to do with the art departments choices, and though it was her face used as a basis for both models- (apparently, as unrecognisable as they are) that doesn't mean it's her responsibility to bear the brunt of fan dissatisfaction. Of course, these same fans are still harping on about the fact that they changed Peter's face to appear more young, which fits in line with the motion capture artist, although they still insist it is to bear a resemblance to Tom Holland. (Which it doesn't, by the way. Just looks like a young guy and Tom happens to be young. How bad do you think the modellers are that they couldn't properly depict one of the most famous actors in the world if they wanted to?) What I'm trying to say is- Spider-Man fans need to keep their critiques limited to the game itself, they got a bit loopy when they try to comment on anything wider.

And though it has literally nothing to do with the world of gaming whatsoever, we might as well throw in an honorary mention to Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran who committed the crime of- being in The Last Jedi. (That is quite the sin, to be fair.) Everything about The Last Jedi has generated nothing but misery and conflict, which is why I don't think I'll ever be in the mood to finally watch it. One such miserable conflict was around Kelly and the every encroaching boogey man that haunts the dreams of scared white folks- diversity! (Woo!) Kelly is Asian, and that is scary to people, therefore she became one of the reasons why The Last Jedi was bad in the minds of people who wanted to burn the movie to the ground. Literally, I haven't heard a single comment about her performance or role or anything substantive- just the race thing and 'diversity quotas' or some such guff. Just weirdoes being weird, I guess.  

Of course, it isn't lost on me that many of real life people caught at the centre of my examples today are women, which no doubt had it's own influence in the respective dramas- emboldening the aggrieved to poke where perhaps they might have otherwise merely seethed in silence. But of course the issue touches male celebrities as well, just look at Kpop stars! It's the illness of being in some form of contact with the blinding glitter of stardom that touch something feral in people, something dark and nasty- that most people would never have discovered were it not for the supposed anonymity of being online. (Most of the time they don't even take the time to be actually anonymous anymore, they'll post their insane lunacy on verified accounts with their real names on it- because the physical and virtual distance alone is a shield in itself.) And the solution to all this? Play more games, whine less.

The best and the worst

 

This year in the world of gaming should probably win some sort of unique commendation, for not only bringing to life some of the greatest examples of the medium to feast our eyes, but also some of the absolute most degenerate spawns of Satan to torment us incessantly. Actually, no- Satan is too easy of a get-out card. In fact, from what Televangelists preach, Satan would probably make really sick video games if he could just slap together a development studio. I'd totally follow 'SatanSoft.' (Bet he'd make really cool and long-winded JRPGs where the final boss is killing god.) The worst of this year was birthed within the heretical maw of The Archenemy, spat out to corrupt and taint our perception of what a half decent game even is. To engage with one is to forever sully oneself. And to buy them is to directly fund the enemies of Mankind.

So as you can likely deduce from the ratio of my introduction, in this space you get a lot more mileage starring sideways at the terrible than you do wistfully smiling on the grand. And it makes sense, there's always so much more to talk about on the buffering waves of 'potential' and 'what could have been'- then there is praising what is already there. Afterall, we're pretty much pulling our examples of what could be improved from the completed and gleaming, which makes all of these conversations somewhat circular. Still I strive for something resembling balance and so I'm going to try and dance on the blade's edge and capture the best and the worst of what is the 2023 slate of Video Gaming- which from the look of things right now, might just be the last 'hurrah' before an impending dry slate. (GTA 6 won't be there to save 2024 unfortunately.)

One of the early big wins of this year was the very controversial Dead Space Remake which did the impossible and was actually good whilst the spiritual successor, The Callisto Protocol, was only 'alright'. The game took what it needed to from the original and updated everything else to bring the franchise roaring into the modern era with frightening deftness and aplomb. The game was almost as solid of a remake as Resident Evil 4- which took the premise of it's game and totally remade the meat of the game to better fit the modern sensibilities of gamers. The Resident Evil Remake franchise has been nothing but hits so far though, so I guess I shouldn't have really been surprised that they made their splash once again. Love myself some Resident Evil, who doesn't?

Unfortunately this year also saw us finally reach a game that was threatening to hound us for years now. Forspoken, the last hurrah for the team behind Final Fantasy XV, managed to sneak in near the end of January with a game that just didn't fit it's era. Writing from the mid 2000's, a premise from the cliché bucket and gameplay that failed to inspire in any significant fashion- it's failure felt somewhat predetermined, and it's consequences for that failure proved depressing as the makers were dissolved. In fact, this year (excluding Dead Space) it really wasn't too hard to see the disasters coming from a mile away. Forspoken never managed to inspire confidence in it's marketing and neither did Redfall, which failed to rise beyond the lukewarm reveal presentations and slipped in a 'rough launch' just to sink any chances the game might have had. Just another miss on the Xbox road to exclusive AAAs.

But back to some of the best. This year saw the drop of a game that no one saw ever actually happening- the definitive Harry Potter game which brought the open world wizarding school experience the franchise begged for up until now. The game made wizard play fun, brought the movie environment of Hogwarts into a tactile 3D space and laid the groundworks for a new revolution of Harry Potter games to come. Personally I find all the datamined info about everything the team left out even more exciting than what they managed to keep in. Proper RPG choice and consequences, managing reputations- Hogwarts Legacy 2 has every potential to be even better than the first game was, and that is the mark of a fresh game developer with legs under them- when their initial success is paved in their future. Portkey games ruled the spring.

And then Gollum came to ruin the Summer. Gods, who has managed to do the impossible and forget Gollum? A game that felt so ridiculously doomed from conception that our minds kind of did all the leg work in lieu of marketing and just said "This is obviously going to be some sort of high-art game like 'The Last Gaurdian' or 'Death Stranding'. It can't be as dumb as the concept sounds.' And then when it launched, incredibly the game was so much worse! (How'd they do that?) Hardly functional, creatively catatonic, systematically bare- the game was probably morally bankrupt too, but I've never met anyone who survived long enough to see the credits. To think this was the game destined to win worst game of the year for months, only to be outdone by two even worse releases in the following months! I used to think Gollum was a tragedy, now I realise: it's just tragic.

Which brings us to the best game of the year. The one which reminded the entire damn industry what gaming is about. Baldur's Gate 3, you knew it was making the cut! Spectacular replayability, reactivity, choice and consequence, great gameplay, gorgeous presentation- a straight A in practically every variable. Baldur's Gate is the kind of game that goes down as decade defining, and I have no doubt that every other game this year has been made to look just a little bit worse for sharing the same year as it. Baldur's Gate turned out better than I could ever imagined and the endless acclaim and success it has received are endless testaments to that fact. People are still trying to second guess themselves about how deserving of all it's awards the game was, and the conversation keeps falling back into the positive. Somehow, someway, Baldur's Gate ruled supreme.

And then The Day Before happened. You know, I think we all needed a game like that just to put things in perspective. Out of all the trash games, the disappointments, the hardly functional trainwrecks, at least all of those games were touched by people who cared at some point about anything. But The Day Before can never claim that title. Because it was a scam. From conception to birth. And in an inverse to the Baldur's Gate situation, I kind of think that all the rest of 2023 is made better in comparison. So yes, even in the throws of absolute defeat- some positive notes of worth persists. Because out of every game we received, all are made better by the existence of The Day Before, however briefly it touched us. Talk about a genuine Christmas miracle!

The gaming tech race-ism

 

Technology is a wonderful thing, isn't it? Ever improving, ever developing, ever scaring the absolute daylights out of everyone who just wants the world to move a little slower so they can get used to all of the AI written scripts and AI produced images before the AI designed videos and AI mind-reading rat experiments start up. (That last one is a trip, I suggest looking it up.) Sometimes it can feel like tech is caught in a massive arms race against itself to forever improve under fear of being left in some sort of terrifying 'dust' that will render the subject utterly useless in the face of far more capable, and forever arriving alternatives. It's a perception that leaks out of tech development rooms and into the minds of the public, because why use old slow technology when you can use new faster stuff? It seems like a very linear and unambiguous mindset, but everything changes when we look at art, doesn't it?

Because art, in this case video games, uses quite a lot of technology in it's construction, and yet the definition of a 'good game' doesn't begin and stop with whichever title uses the most terraflops to render the most impressive raytraced hair follicle bouncing off a raindrop- because there's more to game development and art than who wields the bigger stick. But bizarrely this is a thorny issue among game enjoyers as the argument of 'better graphics means better game' has persisted for decades and flared up at certain points time and time again. In the time of the disc drives for the original Playstation, the increased processing power meant far more impressive renders could be constructed than what the cartridge based Nintendo console of the time could manage, leading some to believe that Nintendo were soon to be left in the dust. (FYI: The Switch uses Cartridges to this day. Albeit, vastly improved derivatives.) Saints Row 2 versus GTA 4 was simplified in the minds of some by the fact that GTA 4 took several steps towards looking realistic whilst Saints Row remained stylistically cartoonish and exaggerated; and yet the Saints Franchise would go on to last several years and many sequels later before killing itself last year. You see where I'm going with this.

These days the graphic debate is not quite as loud as it was back in the day, because we've got a new representative of graphical authority; frame rate. The rate at which frames are projected onto our screens thus improving the smoothness of the video quality- and a badge of superiority lauded by the PC master race. Better hardware components allow for more frames resulting in smoother gameplay making for, in an apparently objective fashion according to these people, a better game. And to be utterly fair, there's a cohesive logic there. A game that runs faster will generally be a better experience for the player to enjoy and as 60 FPS tech becomes more prevalent the lack of any gameplay option towards reaching that smoothness can be a telltale sign of bad optimisation leading up to launch. But is that the be-all-end-all?

No, of course it isn't; there's more to gaming than that as we've covered. And yet to this day you'll find people chuckling into their sleeves whilst posting that one bearded wojack meme that at this point is becoming more pathetically oversaturated than the rick roll; slamming those loving 'The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom' which runs in the paltry 30fps capable of the Switch, instead of a real game that can hit 60 with 2K! Like... Fortnite? Wait, that's really the comparison we've going for here? Fortnite? The Internet's whipping boy? First off, Fortnite is a competitive multiplayer shooter, so 60fps is kind of like a requirement for fair competition, and secondly- Fortnite is entirely stylised in an, increasingly bland, bubblegum-cartoon animation style- what can that really benefit from being 2K? Tears of the Kingdom looks as gorgeous as Breath of the Wild did- how would upscaling evolve that experience? Would it? 

Now I love a good graphical masterpiece of a product, don't get me wrong; which is partially why I've come to really love this new generation of consoles. Now being able to choose between a 'commonly accepted' decent framerate and the beauty of 4k visuals is a feature built into most every current generation game, and when it comes down to it I'm going to choose to buff the graphics every single time. (Assuming, of course, that the game still hits at least 30 even in 'quality mode') Because at the end of the day I want to be impressed and drawn in by the visuals- but then, I am someone who likes to use my current gen console pretty much exclusively for those titles that lean the direction of realistic visual depictions that actually benefit from higher resolutions, whereas my trusty PC can handle pretty much anything else.

Take, for example, Resident Evil 4 Remake and it's utterly resplendent visual mastery that renders everything from the muddy pools of water forming in the boot treads in the ground to the squirming mass of living carnal tentacles frothing out of the stump of recently removed limbs. It's a spectacular action-packed roller coaster of gory blood- but it's also a single player only survival game. Whilst not exactly slow-paced by any stretch of the imagination, Resident Evil 4 isn't ever throwing it's players into situations of split-second reaction times against enemies who will slay you the very second you fail to do the exact same to them, it's not that sort of game. In such an instance, how important really is 60 frames per second when 30 is totally workable?

On the flipside you have a game like Redfall, which has a little more nuance to it. Again, Redfall is an non competitive PVE shooter game that will never quite throw it's users into totally unwinnable 'split second or death' moments of gun duelling- but it is a first person shooter. Games like that, where you're thrust into the head of the player character, have a different set of operating rules than most others. When your actions are meant to line-up one-to-one with the avatar, even the slightest latency delay can throw you off just that little bit, it's one of the responsibilities of creating a First Person Shooter in the modern age. It's a difference that is really hard to 'just get used to' after experiencing what the alternative could feasibly be in another other 60 FPS hitting game. Which is probably why the choice to launch without it was another of Redfall's many serious blunders.

There's a theory that the hypothetical 'final generation of games consoles' will be turning consoles into specialised gaming computers that can be upgraded with parts like any desktop can be- and in that age the tech race will explode into the stratosphere, but I wonder what might get lost in the actual development process along the way. Some of the greatest games of any generation are created at the tailend of the generational life span, when tech is reaching it's breaking point and artists have to be clever with how they make their dreams come true. Adversity breeds perseverence which breeds quality genre-defining games, and that's the kind of will power that can't be replicated in a machine by a trained AI running on a thousand processors.

Pulling from the past

 Burn the past.

We've touched on this before, but given the increasing success of remakes over the brand newly conceptualised titles of the current year, I can't help but ponder the idea of remakes and their place within the world of modern gaming more and more. I mean just look at the past few AAA titles to come out: Jedi Survivor, Hogwarts Legacy, Redfall- all terribly broken and buggy at launch, a few broken far beyond repair. (But still those developers want to try and stick with it, because people don't know when to put down a lame horse anymore I guess.) And then look at the AAA titles that were remakes which launched around about the same time. Resident Evil 4, Dead Space- fantastically reviewed, beloved titles that few people have anything substantively bad to report about. And yes, The Last of Us Part 1 has it's place in there, shill cash grab of a remake that was, but right now it's the exception rather than the rule.

Given recent empirical data it would seem we've rubbed up against that wall of compounding development teams and costs- where the vast ambition of the final products simply can't be met within development windows. Of course, Redfall had something else clearly going on that we've yet to uncover as a community, but for the most part the issues are bare and obvious; games can only feasibly get so big without it reflecting badly against the typical time to develop. Just as how big high-CGI Marvel movies simply can't be pushed out in such close proximity as they have been over the past two years without crimes against visual design coming out the pipe-line, giant games can't be cobbled together to working order in that old 2-3 year cycle that our industry loves to tout. Especially not in the present when every other game and it's mother wants to be the new 'biggest game ever'.

Whatever happened to nailing a simple premise for all to love in some small degree? Picking a niche, taking an idea, and expanding on that to it's core-most ideal- providing some small experience unlike anything else available to the masses? No, now we have to make everything a grand open world sweeping adventure that shoots it's players giant fully-developed narratives, side games, meta games and an online competitive scene. Every new game has to be the 'next generation of open world games', so giant it will swallow up your entire life and leave you a gasping husk of an empty human, totally devoid of any personal thought and drive. Which is... I mean is that a good thing? Yeah... yeah I'm sure that's the natural endgame everyone yearns for. We all want that GTA Online money, right? The money to literally buy our own Cayman island and live away from society for the rest of our natural lives. Not that the developers would ever that kind of money even if they could make those sorts of games.

So instead of focusing on the big new releases and their unrestrained ambition, we can instead look inwards to the influences of those games. The incredible confined yet polished stories that inspired the developers of today back when they had free time and hopes for the future, to pursue game design themselves that they one day might create something as special with their own hands to inspire a new generation some day. Resident Evil 4 revolutionised it's franchise and third person action games, so let's get back to that. Dead Space refreshed the horror scene with a new almost lovecraftian-meets-body-horror take. (Lovecraft actually is a bit body horror on it's own, now I think about it.) And if we're to take the rumours and 'leaks' of the past few weeks, this trend is only going to extend in the years to come as what was old is destined to become new again.

The most obvious example to pull from would be Persona 3 and it's long rumoured and recently leaked remake which is being worked on at ATLUS. (Allegedly.) Using the meteoric momentum built up by the explosion of the Persona franchise in popularity and funnelling it towards a game that many of the die hard fans still consider to be an unsung masterpiece. Using a story framework that exists, developing within that constraint and punching up everything around it to a mouth watering degree- the winning formula of all these recent remakes. Of course, I would personally also push for some narrative rewrites and reworks to incorporate some of the elements that weren't so well explored in the original, as well as a total restructuring of all Social Links to not be quite so... limiting. But it's a product with a pre-existing fanbase and a perceived quality attributed to it- you won't see remakes of failed games to try and fix what was broken, but retreads to capture that post glory and share it out for the crowd. 

Just as what would be the case with Knights of the Old Republic, if that remake ever ends up actually being made. A game that already had a smaller audience than your typical Star Wars fare simply by warrant of it being an RPG in the vein of DnD; but which has a place of honour for how it retold and remixed a familiar Star Wars narrative formula and played on audience expectation in a way they didn't anticipate. To this day fans yearn for a day when KOTOR could be reintroduced back into the canon, with all of it's fan favourite characters and lore tidbits largely intact; and that's the promise that this remake would have provided. More than a proposed adaptation either in film or movie; a remake would have been the perfect way to bring back what fans loved whilst heralding the modern world of Star Wars who had only heard of this apex of creation into picking up the, presumably decently more accessible this time around, port.

And now, I can say this with a bit of excitement once again, there's the Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake. Yes, apparently it's actually happening this time around, no take-backsies, for real-reals. After Konami demonstrated how pathetically incapable they are at carrying on the Metal Gear franchise by themselves, and to even hold their own in  a market that roundly hates them, remaking MGS3 is kind of like a last ditch attempt to score nostalgia points. Using the masterful work of Kojima for their advantage and almost certainly without his involvement overseeing it all. But by god is it a good choice. Even as a cynical ploy I can't help it- MGS 3 is literally my favourite game of all- I have to get excited about this. Even knowing I'm being manipulated, there's not a damn thing I can do about and that irks me to absolutely no end.

We can see the strings of what a Remake does to us, but what I find just fascinating is the way it lays the bodywork for the best games of this generation. As if the sheer over-ambition of modern games is what scuppers them, and by following a simpler framework from a more sensible time, new games can be created to that impeccable standard the AAA market has established for itself. What was starting to become a begrudging reality of the industry is steadily becoming it's sole saviour, and I for one welcome our new remake overlords as long as they don't start getting lazy with it- oh wait, the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters just dropped with their boring unified UI design and ugly text proportions- well there goes the new standard!

Where's next for Resident Evil?

 What is that chill running up my spine?

So I said it before and I stand by it: The decision to remake Resident Evil 4 probably wasn't one of the best one's that Capcom could have ever made in their pursuit of revivifying the Resident Evil franchise. Now, I'll be honest that they did actually surprise me in what they put together, not that it was quality- I think we're at a point where the RE Team put out consistent enough quality products for us never to doubt their abilities there- but that it was toned down from the campiness that made the game work. RE4 retains some of the ingredients of that campiness, but swirled into the broth of much more serious machinations which make this Resident Evil revival more tense and threatening- the result being a product that sometimes doesn't know what it wants to be. Still fantastic, but tonally confused, shall we say? Which was what I was worried about.

But if I'm going to be totally honest with you- there was never any doubt in my mind that RE was going to hit 4; but just as with Mass Effect Andromeda, my actual complaint was simply that we weren't ready yet to receive such a game. Mass Effect Andromeda attempted to be the next generation's answer to what Mass Effect was for us, but the team failed to wait enough time for the dust to settle and for Mass Effect to become a lusted after commodity once again. (They failed on a bunch of other regards as well, but that's not the comparative point today.) Resident Evil gave itself a lot more time before diving into their 'remake' series, but they're speeding across Resident Evil history at a break neck pace which is destined to leave this sub-series drying up in no time.

I know that the Japanese gaming industry has this peculiar image of a 'healthy franchise' being one that outputs a new entry every single year, but Ubisoft as an entity exists as a living cautionary tale as to why that is not necessarily the case. Squeeze yourself for that kind of content output and you'll end up totally without ideas and inspiration until you have to suck everything you have out of work and ideas of your competitors; turning your once high-level competitive company into an industry complicit joke. Just look at Gamefreak with their Pokémon game output, for an example that might be a little closer to home for Capcom. Those games tried to turn up the ambition dial by a few scant notches and it threw development into an utter turmoil; because the developers don't have the room to be experimental in what they do, stifling the possibility for creativity.

I fear that with the procession march towards the Resident Evil Remake franchise, we're heading towards another dark period for the Resident Evil franchise when the creatives in charge just run out of ideas for what they're planning. And with the rate we're going, ironically enough, I'm actually expecting this to occur most aptly at the exact same place it did last time - with the launch of Resident Evil 6. You know, the game that lacked any core direction thanks to pulling minds everywhere, leading to a game that wanted to be a traditional horror game, a Call of Duty competitor (seriously), and a anime-style beat-em-up game at the same time. (I will never understand what Jake's chapters were supposed to be.) All this is occurring whilst there are still valid opportunities for Capcom to slow their role and explore other aspects of the Resident Evil franchise for remake potential whilst they buy some breathing room for themselves.

There is little sense to be made out of the callous decision to utterly skip by 'Code Veronica', the connective tissue between Resident Evil 2,3 and 5, except to perhaps imply that the team somehow couldn't think of a good enough way to make a Code Veronica remake feel different. But dammit, these developers weren't above making Resident Evil 3 an underpowered sequel- so what's the matter with Code Veronica? Or heck, how about a remake of Resident Evil 0; itself already an experiment in controlling multiple protagonists for problem solving- are you telling me a modern team couldn't figure out something special to do with a premise like that? The series has it's options, Capcom just aren't in the mood to go and take them!

Oh, and did I mention the fact that we still haven't got a modern day RE engine remake of Resident Evil 1? The freakin' original! All these new fans to the Resident Evil mythos, drunk on the sheen and polish of this serious yet spectacular renewal of the old faithful franchise, have to start their explorations at 2. Only really having the HD Remaster of the 2001 Remake to connect the dots and that... well, that game really doesn't live up to the hype of the newest games anymore- for obvious reasons. By this point I really do think the ship has sailed- there's no way the team could go back and make a Resident Evil 1 port without it being a let down from where the remake games currently already are- unless Capcom went totally nutso with it and made the game a First Person true survival reimagining of that first game. That might be cool.

But where are we headed instead? To Resident Evil 5? Really? I don't think that's a location any fan is ecstatic to be heading, given the fact that Chris Redfield's African expedition wasn't really chockful of anything revolutionary for the franchise except... black people? Nah, Resident Evil 2 already had Marvin- guess that leaves 5 with nothing at all... Okay, I guess 5 did bring us the Matrix rip-off edition of Albert Wesker, and all the hilarity that ensued consequentially, but it also primed the series for it's greatest mistep yet- that of RE6. If I'm being absolutely honest right now- I actually think a Resident Evil 5 Remake shouldn't exist. What the team should do instead, is make a totally distinct sequel to the RE titles they've been making. Resident Evil 5 in name, but with a different story, setting, characters, and a vibe better fitting the level of quality the franchise has defined itself to stand for. That, is how Resident Evil keeps fresh.

Because really, what is the alternative? I've said it before but I'm deadly serious- under the current trajectory we're looking at Resident Evil 10 Remake being announced before Resident Evil 10 is, this is an unsustainable model. Unless the team manage to neatly combine the new vibe of Resident Evil with the remake franchise, overlapping series' is an inevitability. Look, I'm not asking for much-just give us an entirely new Resident Evil timeline of games that focuses on what we love and entirely sidesteps the deviation into abject insanity that this franchise would love to sorely forget. Is that too much to ask for? Knowing Capcom at this point- yes it  is. Guess we can regroup here after the release of Resident Evil 5 Remake, at which point we can really begin panicking about what is, at the point, around the next bend. 

The Resident Evil 4 Remake

My name is Leon. S. Kennedy; No way ___

So the time has come. Our most sincere warnings have not been heeded and against the best judgement of all the world we're currently looking at a Resident Evil 4 Remake rocketing towards us at speed of the ancients. (Which is to say it's due next year. Guess we're having a game free year for 2022.) At this rate we are absolutely going to see a Resident Evil 5 and 6 Remake, at which point they'll have successfully rewritten all the franchise to fit the RE7 model and they can stop? Nah, then they'll remake Revelations 1 and 2. Then... Umbrella Chronicles? We're well past the point of reasoning with the madlads and Capcom, and only abject insanity can inform their bizarre business decisions now. How else can we reconcile with a world that is threatening to re-release a game that was perfect where it was at. Not because of how it was made, or what it said, but because it was exactly what was needed when we needed it. You can't just replicate that magic! You can't remake it! All you can hope to do is preserve it. And I... heck, I just don't know.

To be clear, Resident Evil is actually on something of a hot streak recently. The likes of which I seriously couldn't have expected after the suicidal leap-into-the-abyss that the franchise was on before this renaissance. After Resident Evil 6 and Umbrella Corps it was really starting to seem like Capcom had lost the plot completely, even after 7 most were looking to one another nervously, rationalising the successful outing as little more than a flash-in-the-pan fluke moment. But Resident Evil 2 Remake? Resident Evil 8? Resident Evil 3: Remake? (Though it was lamentably short.) These ain't no one and dones. Resident Evil is back as the premier name in horror and I'm actually a bit chuffed to be able to say that. Walking around abandoned factories and being jumpscared by various off-brand rips of children's properties is fine and all, but the excitement of fighting for your sliver of health bar against an army of monsters is unmatched. (We really need a remake of The Suffering. Who owns those rights? Midway? Bugger.)

We're in exactly the right flow theoretically for Resident Evil to remake one of it's magnum opi, but does that translate into the real world so neatly? Maybe some products are just that smidge too perfect for any remake attempt and so it should never be tried, and maybe the very success streak in the horror market that Capcom are on is the problem that is going to bring RE4R down. Take for instance the fact that the original RE4 isn't even a hit for it's horror. Sure, there are horror elements to the game, such as the Sewer chase scene and the Regenerators, but the bulk of the game was this miss-match between traditional gothic horror elements and bombastic action set-pieces that should have clashed into a train wreck but instead synergised into- (wait, is this a Hegelian Dialectics moment? Am I ever going to understand that nonsense enough to be able to use that useless philosophical nugget?) 

In some ways the prevailing heart of horror that Resident Evil has been nailing lately is the very antithesis of what made Resident Evil 4 work. I mean just look at that reveal trailer, dour and brooding with a typically PSTD protagonist suffering from his past experience but swearing that this is the time he's going to set it right. All these modern reiterations and new versions of old game properties copy that exact same formula, it's really rather wild. Resident Evil 3 Remake had a tortured and haunted Jill who was brooding over the events of the one game that Capcom have skipped right past remaking, Rise of the Tomb Raider started with Lara in therapy for all of the super natural violence she perpetrated in the last game and 'Deus Ex: Mankind Divided' was spurred by the nihilistic declaration of 'I tried to save the world once, now look at it!'. The failed and/or tortured protagonist is a real edgy and avant-garde approach to take, or at least it is until it's been done so often it's wrapped back around into being a predictable trope again. This isn't going to be our happy-go-lucky, Zombie suplexing Leon Kennedy from prime RE.

I mean just think of what this more serious tone means for the game we already know and love! Can you imagine this 'Punished Venom Kennedy' quipping back to the call "I'm sending my right hand after you" with "Your right hand comes off!"? How about a laser-beam knife fight on an Island after gunning down monks with a minigun turret. (Or did the Monks have the minigun? RE4's craziness is starting to screw with my recollection again!) What if this whole new serious slant to the narrative causes us to more properly examine the premise of Resident Evil 4 and confront, as we've all joked in the past, how this narrative quite literally tells the story of an American Secret Service Agent far out of his jurisdiction wiping out a small Eastern European village because he thinks they're kind of weird and sort-of remind him of zombies. They weren't actually zombies, remember! They were just werido villagers who happened to be in a cult! Isn't that a little harder to swallow with a serious face?

But maybe that's the secret sauce we're not expecting. Maybe this renewal with straight faced seriousness is the tee-up that will make the ridiculousness of the premise and it's characters stand out even more starkly than they did before! How much more incredible would it be if Mr serious, PTSD suffering Leon, was caught fielding clumsy advances from the president's daughter, or getting uncomfortably flirty with his over-the-radio handler just because it's a female voice that isn't Ashley's. (Wait until he meets Hannigan and finds out she's not Asian. Quickest dropped romance sub-plot ever) Maybe this time the writers will remember to seed the player with some precedent as to Jack Krauser's existence so that his appearance holds some vague weight to it. (Have Leon off-handily mention that he owes his marksmen skills to Jack or something, I'm not your parent!)

Of course, new Resident Evil remake means new remake faces, and whilst we're getting what looks to be the same Leon from the previous Remake (and presumably the same Ada) our supporting cast is going to be brand new and photographically mapped to some increadibly attractive face for unclear Capcom reasons. This time we've seen Ashley who borrows her likeness from a Dutch Instagram model and I have to admit- this girl actually looks like the original model a little bit. It's not as jarring as the Russian super model face now stuck on Jill's head, at least. I mean, Ashley has lost a lot of her frumpiness in favour of morphing into this homogenously classic depiction of 'attractiveness', which is certainly going to make her a little less charming to hate; but what are ya gonna do? Capcom will Capcom.

At the end of the day do I have faith that Resident Evil 4 will be a good game? Of course I do, I know how good this new line of Resident Evil has been and have no evidence to infer they're going to falter anytime soon. But will it be the right kind of good, to match the ethereal fame of a Resident Evil game that totally rewrote third person action gaming and the overall narrative tone of one of gaming's oldest horror franchises? I just don't think so. And no matter how polished the game is, how professionally sealed the product ends up; it won't ever live up to what to a game which was as much a movement of culture as it was an entertainment product. is failing to live up to that a point of shame? Perhaps not, but it does leave me wondering how Capcom could be so utterly hubristic as to try. I'll still play it though, why not?