1.5 Early Alpha thread

[Dark Biohazard]

I also love this build and dream with playing it some day!

Here's an update of my recreation of this build, my friend DXP has improved backgrounds and I have done some minor changes to the Alpha Leon model (made originally by Rusty):

I hope you like this.

[Alzaire]

I think the alpha version is a little more atmospheric and realistic in some way. It still looks modern, but also like a police station for a small town that utilizes both wood and concrete. It reminds me of old police precincts you'd see in old movies, especially from the 80's or so.

I love this angle:
I like how the corridor off by the mini-office is dark and gives it an ominous look.

I think the lobby design is better as well. The later version of the lobby is very... easy? Granted we don't know how enemy spawns in that room would have worked, but unless they changed spawning positions after the zombies break in, it seems too wide and easy to just slip past the zombies. But in the alpha lobby, it feels a little more challenging due to the chairs and narrow hallways. Feels more claustrophobic in a good way, to me.

[Graco]

I think the alpha version is a little more atmospheric and realistic in some way. It still looks modern, but also like a police station for a small town that utilizes both wood and concrete. It reminds me of old police precincts you'd see in old movies, especially from the 80's or so.

I love this angle:
I like how the corridor off by the mini-office is dark and gives it an ominous look.

I think the lobby design is better as well. The later version of the lobby is very... easy? Granted we don't know how enemy spawns in that room would have worked, but unless they changed spawning positions after the zombies break in, it seems too wide and easy to just slip past the zombies. But in the alpha lobby, it feels a little more challenging due to the chairs and narrow hallways. Feels more claustrophobic in a good way, to me.

Indeed. Early RE2 designs are my favorite in the entire series. The colors, the lighting, the camera angles...I still have a hard time understanding why the development team felt these were no good. Truly a shame.

[News Bot]

Indeed. Early RE2 designs are my favorite in the entire series. The colors, the lighting, the camera angles...I still have a hard time understanding why the development team felt these were no good. Truly a shame.

I doubt they actually thought they were "no good", just weren't what they wanted.

[BiohazardFE]

I also love that claustrophobia, Alzaire. There's that one part in the video where Leon is cornered by the group of zombies and basically had no chance to survive, one shot here and there then he's attacked. This is probably just for dramatic effect for the presentation but I remember REmake did a similar thing in one of the early trailers for Chris, the final game didn't have that many zombies in that area. But it's still a great concept, that "one wrong move and it's all over".

[Marvin]

yeah that "claustrophobia" is excellent. I also noticed this when checked that video long time ago.

[Guest]

I can see why they scrapped this build, since the character model looks almost exactly like chris redfield from the first game, but who knows perhaps he was supposed to be chris before they scrapped his role and introduced leon kennedy instead !

I wouldn't say scrapped.... Its a super early alpha version of course there's gonna be weird character place holders and other things that will be changed.....

[Guest]

I've always been interested in these builds, in some ways more than the 80% build, as it's always been about the prototype atmosphere for me, something which seemed to become more and more generic as the development went on. Eras 1-3 had some really nice backgrounds I think, the camera angles were more dynamic and the colour tones, with what we can see, seem to be a lot more natural.*

I think the alpha version is a little more atmospheric and realistic in some way. It still looks modern, but also like a police station for a small town that utilizes both wood and concrete. It reminds me of old police precincts you'd see in old movies, especially from the 80's or so.

I love this angle:
I like how the corridor off by the mini-office is dark and gives it an ominous look.

I think the lobby design is better as well. The later version of the lobby is very... easy? Granted we don't know how enemy spawns in that room would have worked, but unless they changed spawning positions after the zombies break in, it seems too wide and easy to just slip past the zombies. But in the alpha lobby, it feels a little more challenging due to the chairs and narrow hallways. Feels more claustrophobic in a good way, to me.

I agree, the alpha builds had a much more realistic look. It might be partly due to the way the pictures have been shot, but the lighting seems to be matched a lot better and everything seems to blend in, like the textures on Leon and the zombies actually look as if the light from the environment is being cast on their clothes and skin, like in this image, it's as if the moonlight coming through the shutters is casting on the characters.



They might not be much to play, but they'd still be interesting to see, even as rooms they look pretty good to me like others have said up to RE1 standards. And to be honest I don't mind the character design, it does look like Chris but he has his own look about him, perhaps he is Grant Bitman? I wonder if they used the RE1 engine, what its item menu is like, whether it's a demo like the Biohazard alphas with To Be Continued! or just some random build. They'd be fun to play despite being buggy tech demos, the item screen on the Biohazard alpha is a treat, it will be interesting to see what they're about.

[imacwesker]

This small animation was made by Inflames and posted in Bioflames forums, a few years ago. I remember he said he made it from a few screenshots he found in a magazine (and that explain the odd frame rate). Quality is extremely poor.
And like everybody else in this topic, I really like more the backgrounds from the early beta than from the final build.

[Carnivol]

iirc, there was some magazine that had a film reel of still frames on the sides of their RE2 (1.5) article.

[BiohazardFE]

Well, to touch upon Geluda's post, over at the 1.5 thread a video was posted about some 1.5 information and during it they mention the character was called "Grant Bitman". I was part of Bioflames since 2003 and to be honest I was surprised as I'd never heard anything about this before, unless i just missed something. Is it safe to assume we can now officially treat the Alpha's "short haired Leon" as this completely new character? I'd like to think he became Leon with the new design.

[Darkness]

Well, to touch upon Geluda's post, over at the 1.5 thread a video was posted about some 1.5 information and during it they mention the character was called "Grant Bitman". I was part of Bioflames since 2003 and to be honest I was surprised as I'd never heard anything about this before, unless i just missed something. Is it safe to assume we can now officially treat the Alpha's "short haired Leon" as this completely new character? I'd like to think he became Leon with the new design.

That was his name in the beginning, when he became leon, his name became leon. When they switched from flat top creepy looking chris copy to civilian clothes leon, was when the name switch was made I'm pretty sure.

[Kegluneq]

Well, to touch upon Geluda's post, over at the 1.5 thread a video was posted about some 1.5 information and during it they mention the character was called "Grant Bitman". I was part of Bioflames since 2003 and to be honest I was surprised as I'd never heard anything about this before, unless i just missed something. Is it safe to assume we can now officially treat the Alpha's "short haired Leon" as this completely new character? I'd like to think he became Leon with the new design.

No. In every era build, the male protagonist was always known as Leon S. Kennedy.


Weekly Famitsu Issue #403 (6th September 1996) page 126

EDIT: Further evidence can be found on Biohazard Archives (Reprint Edition) page 266 (official source, if you need it in the future)

[doriantoki]

To be honest, this is the first I've ever heard of this Grant Bitman, as well. I've always known Leon as Leon.

[Rick Hunter]

Same here. I've never seen anything else than Leon Kennedy in all artworks/magazines.