Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

[Vito]

And don't care.

True that, I actually like Ginovaef better.

[News Bot]

More credible than "Hey guyz I'm a fanboy, I say what is canon and not". Besides Mike Jones is a Capcom Producer according to the article, so it wasn't actually Slant 6 saying it was canon, but Capcom.

Mike Jones is a member of Slant Six, so no.

Slant 6 are working with Capcom and have stated Capcom is making it fit with canon.

Cool. Except it doesn't fit. It contradicts, despite Mike Jones' insistence that there are no contradictions and that it's perfectly in-line with the games before it. It's fucking not. Not one single detail has been correct thus far, and many of them are tediously minor and have been common knowledge for over a decade. If Slant Six "know the story" and "know the timeline", they'd surely know these small details. Right now it doesn't look like they know jack shit. If you can't see the issue there, you're either willfully ignorant or truly don't have a clue what you're talking about. From your previous history, I'd say it's probably a mixture of the two.

[Mr. Rod]

SPIN OFF.

Dear God.

[News Bot]

SPIN OFF.

Dear God.

This is what I've said since the beginning.

[Mrox2]

No way it can be canon , NO NO NO WAY , This shit cant be canon !

[Smiley]

And don't care.

Was just about to say that.

[alexdz]

You know what this whole issue with Slant Six saying they know the timeline and all the facts reminds me? Paul Anderson saying he's a big fan of the games and that he understands their true meaning and... well, you get the picture.

[[STARS]TyranT]

Just because someone holds the keys to a franchise doesn't mean they are always right. Joss Whedon imfamously made a massive continuity error during Buffy Season 8 that the fanbase had to point out to him, and that error remains in print to this day. Kojima has made a number of errors during the MGS continuity which he both acknowledges as mistakes. MGS2 HD Edition will ship with one of the translation errors still in it to this day.

So Capcom are hardly correct if they are going up against facts. Chris Kramer's ridiculous verdict on Barry being a classic example. I can appreciate where people are coming from by saying its Capcom's franchise and they can do the hell they want with it, but it's the fanbase that's made the quite frankly massive gaps in the storyline work and give it a coherant history. (Where is Marcus referenced in the files in CODE: Veronica? Where is Ashford mentioned in the files in Zero - It was the fanbase that put it all together and made it work originally - I believe the first time in a game their names were mentioned together in the same document was as last as Umbrella Chronicles - I could be wrong about that).

Just a couple of examples.

[Darkmoon]

I'm taking the simple approach - I'm taking Capcom's word for it. Currently that word is, at best, not necessarily canon. And most likely not.

Let's be fair here - do you really think Capcom will scrap the game if they see a ton of errors? And cost themselves money? Of course they won't. They might try and get Slant Six to change them, but if costs too much and risks the game schedule and budget? They'll let it slide. This is a game where you're meant to be shooting the faces off zombies with heavy weaponry - the plot is irrelevant. We still don't even have a really good reason why they're hunting down RPD cops! 'Well...because' seems to be it.

Can you imagine that human resource meeting? 'So...what you're saying is you ordered one of our best trained, best equipped teams to remain a city that was partially on fire and, needless to say, so full of our own product that the cockroaches were somewhat larger than buses and decided that rather than evacuate them they should be hunting cops?'

'Well...the cops might know something.'

'OK, fine. It's incredibly unlikely they'd know anything, and even more unlikely they'd escape a city full of rampaging undead that was under quarantine but sure. How were they meant to find them? You could have an entire brigade walking down the next street and never know, and there are only six of them. They'd never find more than a few cops! And only when they stumbled on them, or caught a radio transmission telling them where to go!'

'Uhh...well...'

'Not to mention this is a PR disaster! We've just shown that six soldiers, equipped and trained in the right way, can obliterate our multi-million dollar bio-weapons, surviving in the devastated remains of, again, our own virus' outbreak! Kinda screws up the whole selling point, doesn't it?'

'...I'm gonna be a test subject, aren't I?'

The plot doesn't even make sense on the most basic levels. It's an excuse to shoot Mr X and Leon.

[TheSelfishGene]

It's really obvious that Capcom don't care what's canon, and never really have.
Actually let me qualify that - Capcom don't care what's canon to audiences outside of Japan. They probably care about the integrity of the canon to the Japanese audience at least to some degree.

The evidence for this is all the material that doesn't come out outside of Japan, and the sloppy and inconsistent translations of what does. If they really cared for us (ie. Outside Japan), they'd make sure that it was much more consistent.

So to think that they will give a Western dev creative licence over their canon is ludicrous. And that's just the backbone story. That doesn't even begin to address the problems of altered geography with what's known from the core games, or the access to technology which simply didn't exist in 1998. All this suggests to me is that it's a flight-of-fancy 14 year old boy's wet dream, rather that something that is even trying to fit in with what is already established.

The most obvious explanation by far is that the western devs had access to what most everybody else in the west has, ie. poor translations of official sources - and this is what they've based their work on. (and with the nemesis = T-02 thing, unofficial sources too if I'm correct?). If Capcom really cared about the canon outside of the Japanese market, they'd address this by giving the devs good sources. But they don't, so they won't. The idea that something which comes out more recently over-rides existing canon is absolutely ridiculous.

And of course Capcom are going to come out and say it's a canon game. It's inherently more interesing that way. If this game ended with a 14 year old boy who fell asleep on the couch watching Anderson's Resident Evil Apocalypse waking up and saying "WOW! That was a cool dream" - it instantly undermines the whole game. No one would care either way about it. (That's a lot of exaggeration there but I hope you get the idea). If the title screen said "RESIDENT EVIL OPERATION RACCOON CITY: Where nothing portayed here has any real story relation to anything you know about or care about from this entire series" people would inherently be a lot less enthusiastic about it.
To me it even looks like they are trying to spin the situation when they conceede that it can be canon. When really, it should be self evident that it can't be canon if the events of the games that were released prior are. I just can't imagine they'd use something which can be percieved as negative (ie. The game not being canon) as a marketing technique.

[Darkmoon]

I think they'll be a path through the game that won't fuck up major events - Leon and Claire will never even see the Wolfpack, they don't kill Nemesis, etc. That won't stop the issues with geography and poor details, but it'll be as close as they can manage to making a game with the goal of shooting Leon canon. Sorta like an Outbreak story - nothing directly contradicts the events of RE2 and RE3, at least until you get down to the guide book level source material.

[News Bot]

I think they'll be a path through the game that won't fuck up major events - Leon and Claire will never even see the Wolfpack, they don't kill Nemesis, etc. That won't stop the issues with geography and poor details, but it'll be as close as they can manage to making a game with the goal of shooting Leon canon. Sorta like an Outbreak story - nothing directly contradicts the events of RE2 and RE3, at least until you get down to the guide book level source material.

The Outbreaks fit perfectly with the events of 2 and 3 so there's no real comparison. They are pretty much what Operation Raccoon City describes itself to be. They were written specifically to fit with the events of 2 and 3, with all information and details intact, while ORC only claims to be.

Actually let me qualify that - Capcom don't care what's canon to audiences outside of Japan. They probably care about the integrity of the canon to the Japanese audience at least to some degree.

I'm pretty convinced this is the reality. They can't NOT care about the canon as they release a fuckload of supplemental material which focuses solely on the storyline and expand it on a regular basis with new revelations and details, many of them minor but holding heavy significance. The games themselves are also fairly well written. An absurd amount of material and general information, even, especially for a video game series. But they release most of it only in Japan. They definitely take pride in the story (they established a company just for writing) and go to a lot of lengths to make it coherent and fit between games, and they've done a pretty good job for a series which regularly changes directors, writers and so on. This is in contrast to say, Metal Gear, which has pretty much had one development team, one writer and one director but the plot is so convoluted and filled with holes that it's hard to believe that the same person wrote it.

[Dark_Chris]

Don't you dare even compare MGS story with RE story....MGS is FAR superior to RE.

[Zombie Fred]

Don't you dare even compare MGS story with RE story....MGS is FAR superior to RE.

Superior in what way?

[Dark_Chris]

RE has B movie story, MGS has Oscar winning story. Also MGS has no plot holes, yes there are retcons but no plot holes. To understand story in MGS games you just need to play it. To understand story in RE games you need to play it, buy it Archives, read it and still it doesn't make much sence in whole...