Resident Evil 5 Comments by Dan Whitehead

Racism there or not, I can't believe this actually passed USK in Germany. It's killing like it has never been before.

Sounds like it might be a game to play co-op with a friend. Suits me. Shame on Capcom for shonky AI in single player though.

/skirts racism debate - there be dragons

Finally on a more troubling note, I suspect that a large number of gamers around the world are probably racist or ignorant, or already have these stereotypes about Africans and Africa deeply ingraved due in our cultures.

I don't think gamers should be singled out especially, as our media push these stereotypes on us already. It doesn't help when video games back them up though.

I'm a big fan off RE and I really, really tried to find something to like about the demo, but just couldn't.
This demo has me worried about the full game and that's not what it's supposed to do, right?

Based on the demo and this preview I'm actually considering not buying RE5. God I hope I'm wrong ...

@mainaman

When you say what?

99% of black r&B artists look white? sure you're not watchin kerrang? and maybe sheva isnt dark enough to look like she was born in africa but she is actually based on black actress Michelle Van Der Water, not something capcom artists just dreamed up

No matter how I count them, I can't get this to be the 19th in the series. Friendly warning, it's LIST TIME :D

1. Resident Evil Zero
2. Resident Evil
3. Resident Evil 2
4. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
5. Resident Evil 4
6. Resident Evil: Survivor
7. Resident Evil: Survivor 2 Code Veronica
8. Resident Evil: Dead Aim
9. Resident Evil: Code Veronica
10. Resident Evil Outbreak
11. Resident Evil Outbreak File#2
12. Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles
13. Resident Evil Gaiden
14. Resident Evil Degeneration
15. Resident Evil Assault the Nightmare
16. Resident Evil: Confidential Report
17. Resident Evil: Genesis

I've not counted any of the following, since they're just different editions of others, but right enough if you count RE: DS that'd make 5 the 19th. I'd still argue it's a remake, and there are more than one debatable ones above.

Resident Evil: Directors Cut
Resident Evil: Code Veronica X
Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition
Resident Evil Deadly Silence

"Dan is right, there will be a shitstorm when the ignorant people who like to divide us by colour see this game. Sadly.... "

Actually no. Dan Whitehead & co are responsible for actively encouraging a shitstorm, because it's good copy and probably endears them to their pal N'Gai. If the mainstream press do pick it up, it'll because of the irresponsible shit stirring by the videogames press.

Sounds a bit like single-player was ruined by the recent coop hysteria.

Actually the more I think about it, the more this game seems fundamentally broken in many ways.

Resident Evil game, even the ones which had more than one playable character, were about the single player game... the struggle between you and an army of undead was the key to making the game exciting and occasionally scary.

The reliance on your partner for a good part of the game, and the fact that your partner more often than not gets in the way when playing solo, is a real pain. Takling the chainsaw guy in the shanty town demo was made more complicated than it need be due to bloody sheva standing in my line of sight all the time.

The control system is shafted. Version B seems to be the only one that I can use without walking into walls constantly or aiming in the air all the time.

The real time inventory system is the worst feature update for this game. As the article mentioned, swapping items between the two characters, especially in the heat of battle, is comical at best and tragic at worst. And she insists on taking all the bloody items that I want to get and then using them herself :(

Without wanting to sound like an OAP, this is not the resident evil I remember or wanted.

Looks nice though ;)

Actually no. Dan Whitehead & co are responsible for actively

I find ignorant people who refuse to even see that there might be an issue and something worth debating a far bigger problem. Exactly the naive "it's only a game lol" crowd.

/awaits inevitably confused free speech argument

"Actually I doubt it, I can't believe the mainstream press is as fickle as you lot. I mean are you suggesting that a white woman's skull being splattered is perfectly acceptable? Are we only allowed to splatter the skulls of our own race? Or if Chris were black, would he have discretion to splatter the skulls of anybody he chooses? Ludicrous. "

You have missed the point so comprehensively that I'll be coming back to this post for weeks to chuckle at it.

Didn't enjoy the demo at all - very clunky.

Like it or not, Resi 5 will probably be held up by the mainstream media (Daily Mail anyone?) as an exampe of why videogames are a nasty, horrible and corrupting plauge on modern society. Unfortunately, Resi 5 does seem to be quite willing to utilise some very nasty racial stereotypes. Whether this is intentional or not is a moot point; Capcom are going to be facing some very difficult questions and from what I've seen so far, I don't think they'll be able to give any particularly reassuring answers.

I find ignorant people who refuse to even see that there might be an issue and something worth debating a far bigger problem. Exactly the naive "it's only a game lol" crowd.

+1

Hmmm... some were criticising the demo for being TOO multi-racial for an African setting! Interesting.

Where is the Racism contoversy over the 50 cent games? Now thats steriotyping for ya.

The only real racists are people finding games like Rez5 racist.

"seems more bloody-minded than creatively inspired"

That sums up much of the series in my mind. Didn't realise there were 19 editions. It makes some of the frankly appaling system design all the more unforgivable.

"You have missed the point so comprehensively that I'll be coming back to this post for weeks to chuckle at it. "

Ah claims of a higher understanding with no counter argument. If there's a cohesive 'point' being made in that part of the article please explain. /files under arrogant tosser.

I can't speak for anyone else, but honestly if it requires a human co-op partner to get the game to play well, I'm not really interested. A compromised single-player experience is not acceptable for a RE title. Not for me anyway.

Not going to get into the whole racism debate as this is hardly the forum to discuss such a sensitive topic, however, I did like Dan's article. Resident Evil 4 was a very good 8/10, but incredibly overrated (best game of the last generation, my arse!) and although it took the series into a different direction visually, it was still saddled with the problems from the very first game, namely, the 'tank' controls and ridiculously comical puzzles. It also removed the fear element, from a series that was viewed as the standard bearer for 'Survival horror' and was not atmospheric in the slightest - RE2 (best in series) Silent Hill 1-4 and the Project Zero games have iit curb-stomped in that department.

Still, I'm sure '5' will be a gorgeous, thrill-a-minute action title and I'll still pick it up.

William Birkin > Saddler, Salazar and co.

Back in the early '00s I played the Resident Evil game with the lightgun (not sure if it was Survivor)

And that had horrendous controls BUT it still was more playable than the demo!

No merchant ?! Disaster. "Wodrryaboyin ?" is one of the best phrases ever uttered. As for his haggling skills "I'll buy it at a high price". Genius.

@Dynamism

Ever since Silent Hill came out, Resident Evil has always failed to be scary. Not counting the last two Western developed ones of course.

Horrid controls, clunky gameplay, RE4 deja vu...

MEH

Wow - Capcom, you seem to have failed

Terrible clunky demo, for an apparently very clunky game. Next.

Will it be racist if Carol Thatcher plays it?

So, it seems the controls aren't the biggest problems with the game, after all. I wish I had a friend to play it with, now.

And I guess I'll need to buy it as soon as it comes out, just in case it gets pulled from shelves after the media erupts in accusations of racism and copies start going for hundreds of whatever currency is fashionable at any given point on whatever auction site is on top these days.

EDIT: bad sentence structure made even worse.

Kudos to you, Dan, for not being afraid of attacking the issues at hand. Resi 5 is clearly not intended to racist, there's no way in Hell that Capcom could be that stupid. But the result can certainly be interpreted in certain non-flattering ways. Still, playing the demo, I seemed to be killing people of every possible race all the time - it's like they were having a multi-cultural gathering or something. I hope that the inevitable backlash over the game will not judge it completely out of context, but I think we all know that this won't be the case. However, we do get the chance to have the whole racism debate once again, and in a way, that is a healthy outcome. These things need to be out in the open - taboos are far more enduring if everyone averts their eyes from them.

More to the point, as a gamer, I am disappointed with the demo. It seems to play exactly the same as Resi 4, but with the added hassle of item swapping and a useless AI companion (since I'm not really that keen on co-op in my scary single-player game, but perhaps having a friend around will make all the hurt go away), who really doesn't seem very interested in keeping her pretty head attached to her body. If only there was a revival mechanism instead of the Game Over screen. And then there's the general problem with the clunky controls - I feel like Chris is a damn forklift. If Capcom could do something about these two issues instead of insisting on the moronic idea that poor controls add to the tension, I would be happy. Proper game design adds to the tension, proper controls add to the playability. As it is, Resi 5 infuriates me far more than it scares me. Someone should send Capcom a copy of Dead Space for reference. But technically, Resi truly looks the part. I want to play it. I'm just not sure that it wants to let me.

Good point up there re the 50 cent game....that's Fiddly actually wanting to present an image which is undesirable though, but that game does appear to involve shooting A-rabs which no one has a problem with

Good article, Dan.

Having the single player ruined by a mandotary AI bot will mean its a no go for me, make her invincible in single player ala COD4 yeah but to have a killable idiot dictating how far you get would annoy me to death, especially if its still checkpoint saves.

the biggest thing that concerns me is the apparent ignorance of the artistic direction and the heavy focus on action. the demo too felt less "RE" because it.

On another point about casual videogame racism, I tried once again to play Far Cry 2 last night but had to give up after a seemingly endless horde of Africans - white and black, so no issues there, - tried to mercilessly slaughter me on sight. What sort of message is that sending? Are all Africans, irrespective of skin colour, determined to gun down all newcomers to the continent?

My favourite moment was driving into a small town marked with a health icon, thinking I might be able to heal my wounds, and then being assaulted by every resident of the community - forcing me to massacre them all.

Shortly afterwards, a zebra looked at me funny - so I shot him too.

Surely the African tourist board have something to say about all this stereotyping of its populace as gun-toting psychopaths. Plus, do their travel brochures now warn all foreigners to pack flamethrowers, just in case?

Do you think they should have Devil May Cry-ised this? That was a concept for a new Resi game that got it's on series. A new action-horror series would've been nice, so the core Resi series could be left alone.

look, i'll shoot anything, white, black, yellow, brown, orange or fucking pink

i'm an equal opportunities murderer

but this is bullshit. The claim that the Spanish weren't sub human monsters? I'm fairly sure that a few hundred years ago Spaniards weren't flavor of the month in Britain. The fact is, there isn't a country in Europe or Africa that hasn't at some point been victimized and enslaved by another country.

Are those crimes forgotten because they happened before the enslavement of Africa? Who decides then when its appropriate to move on?

lol liberal guilt

"If Capcom could do something about these two issues instead of insisting on the moronic idea that poor controls add to the tension, I would be happy. Proper game design adds to the tension, proper controls add to the playability"

Every time I read a comment like this it lifts my heart, because I honestly sit there sometimes listening to millions of people rave about ResEvil thinking "Is it just me, am I bad at my job? When I look at this control and system design and shudder am I in fact just completely out of touch with what gamers really want?".

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who sees past the hero worship that is allowing this series to continue singing "LALALA" loudly with its fingers in its ears, year after year. I'm starting to Wonder if ResEvil isn't in Sonic's shoes 8 years ago.

Maybe Chris Redfield should have been replaced with Mugabe. Instead of fighting virus infected Africans, he could have been hunting those who didn't support him in the election. We could do away with the accusations of racism then and just call it the Zimbabwe simulator?

Seriously, the racism issue is a non issue for me. I would be just as happy with the game had the lead being an african guy walking around the streets of London, kicking several shades of crap out of bowler hatted city gents... in fact I would have been really happy to play that game.

People can read too much into things. Everybody has the ability to twist the facts to suit their own agendas. This game is probably being quite brave and not chosing to have red colour guys fighting blue coloured guys.

but this is bullshit. The claim that the Spanish weren't sub human monsters? I'm fairly sure that a few hundred years ago Spaniards weren't flavor of the month in Britain.

What Dan's article was pointing out, if you had bothered to read it properly, is that right now, at the time this game is being released, the Spanish are not the targets of constant negative stereotyping by the media as brutal, uncivilised murderers, whereas Africans are... and this game appears to be reinforcing that particular stereotype.

I watched a documentary a few weeks back on South Africa shanty towns (louis Theroux) the residents were more scary than anyone I saw while playing this demo. Well done Capcom for getting things so accurate.

They dared set this game in the worst area of the world's most uncivilized continent what did you expect the outcome to be?

I suppose this doesn't bode well for my game idea: "Resident Gayville: I'm Here To Chew Bubblegum And Shoot The Homo Zombies In The Crotch...And I'm All Outta Nonlethal Ammo"

Its quite amusing to see quite so many non-African people categorically stating that this game has no racism in it.

And anomagnus, there is no comparison between the history of the Spanish and Africa. The Spanish were not habitually depicted as comparable to gorillas. They were not subjected to Aparteid. They were not treated as subhuman within living memory in the world's last remaining superpower.
Nor is Spain routinely depicted by Hollywood as a brutal and violent place.

@Bartacus
I watched a documentary a few weeks back on South Africa shanty towns (louis Theroux) the residents were more scary than anyone I saw while playing this demo. Well done Capcom for getting things so accurate.

They dared set this game in the worst area of the world's most uncivilized continent what did you expect the outcome to be?

So, from your position of complete ignorance, besides what you have seen on television, you have formed the view that Africa is "the world's most uncivilized continent".

You sir, are a classic example of a racist.

"They dared set this game in the worst area of the world's most uncivilized continent what did you expect the outcome to be?"

Eh? Oh dear ...

"Eurogamer once again trying to stir the pot for some cheap hits like a tabloid rag. The game is not racist, I killed 10 million Amazonian black people in Uncharted because I'm a greedy white person who wants their treasure. Yet you never said that was racist. Yet here we are trying to save the world in Africa from Zombies and you want to play the race card. Fuck off and get off the PC train. RE5 is GOTY, you have no credibility and I fully expect you to mark the game down because you take offence to black zombies. "

Idiot.

Can you really not tell the difference between a game in which you shoot people of the ethnicity in which the game is set (a la Uncharted) and one in which the game depicts stereotypical examples of behaviour which tie into old, racist depictions of a location or people (which showing Africans beating someone in a sack or dragging off white women certainly does).

Racist? I think you're reading too much into it.

'Can you really not tell the difference between a game in which you shoot people of the ethnicity in which the game is set (a la Uncharted) and one in which the game depicts stereotypical examples of behaviour which tie into old, racist depictions of a location or people (which showing Africans beating someone in a sack or dragging off white women certainly does). '

I don't know. I have a hard time thinking that Capcom, when developing the new game about the undead or virus infected, deliberately chose to root through the history books and pick some fine examples of African behaviour as reported by the white foreigners and use them as set pieces in their game. If I was working at Capcom and had some clout, I would be asking why the hell they were trying to cause a shitload of problems for the game and company by placing the game in Africa and making Africans look bad.

Because of that, my opinion is that Capcom have been perhaps naive about the setting of the game or just think that it isn't a problem. I doubt they have tried to be racist on purpose as that would make no business sense whatsoever.

@Eurytus
so, wait, you have to african to spot racism now?

the japanese are relatively isolated culturally, so they don't tiptoe around this area like the west might. it's our guilt that's placing this videogame in the context of the slave trade/oppression.

the "problem" here is everything to do with our reception of the imagery, rather than the imagery itself.

Capcoms attitude towards Africa is a dated as their gameplay. ;)

"@Eurytus
so, wait, you have to african to spot racism now?"

A bunch of people who have probably never suffered racism in their lives lecturing everyone else how something is not racist at all when it is so clearly questionable at the very best is about as trustworthy as listening to male high finance workers lecturing everyone on how the environment is not sexist at all.