Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

[Scream]

Most definitely. I enjoyed MGS4, but no one can deny it's icky moments. I too believe that the characters (and music), is what makes the game. So hard not to love Sniper Wolf and Boss But eh, I think MGS is superior to Resident Evil. It's all in the matter of opinion, I guess.

They revived Sniper Wolf for MGS4? Or are you talking about MGS1? And yeah I would agree MGS1 was absolutely fantastic... not better than RE but still great.. it gets much more emotional. ;)

[Gambit]

Oh no! She wasn't revived. I was talking about MGS1 The game is my all time favorite, and I enjoyed going back to Shadow Moses in the 4th installment. Talk about pure nostalgia :-P

[GuardhouseMusic]

I always felt like I was in the minority as a huge mark for MGS2 both gameplay and plotwise. At the time it released, from the demo to the 2001 launch, I couldn't stop playing the game just to interact with it. Rearrage certain parts of the background, shoot random things and shoot their shards. To this day, I've yet to find a game so immersive, although the recent Deus Ex has tried to grasp it with a little admirable effort.

In terms of the story, I'm a sucker for conspiratorial authority, and the Patriots were another good one in the line of shadowy entity devices. MGS3 and 4 were enjoyable but telling us "oh yeah, it's this guy, that guy, this guy, that woman, this woman, that guy, and now an AI," fuck that.

With RE, Scream summed it up nicely. I always saw the series as lacking a substantial plot, but the storytelling in the early games shone. The surrounding outbreak, the files, the pre-rendered mis-en-scene, the visually vague information we get in game about characters such as Birkin, Wesker, the design of the BOWs. All of it leaves you wanting more.

[Smiley]

Metal Gear Solid is a good series, I agree. But it did take a huge plunge, especially given it was a great stealth series, until MGS4 come along. The only best thing I love about that series is its characters and wacky humour. The plot is all over the place.

Keep in mind even when it comes to some of the retcons they were the result of translation issues. In Japan Dr. Clark and Olga's child were never really specified as men. It's assumed as such, but never stated. They even tried to lean people into the knowledge with products like the MGS novel which has an opening chapter dedicated to Dr. Clark.

A lot of people also say that the unexplained mysteries that were finally delved into for the series were retcons just because there were ideas from past titles that made these reasons seem to go a certain direction. Not really. Unoriginal perhaps when you find the answers to most of these questions connected through the same answer, but since they were unexplained any theories fans created were just that.... theories.

And if you didn't feel any sense of stealth from MGS4 I'd recommend you give Peace Walker a try whether it's HD or PSP. That is a game where, unlike Resident Evil 5, the co-op game play isn't forced to deviate the genre' nor does it break the plot.

EDIT: On a different subject, MGS: Rising is coming out. This will be a spin off, but will attempt to connect itself between MGS2 and MGS4. It will also have some drastic changes to the game play to the point where it's being marketed as "Lightning Bolt Action" as opposed to "Tactical Espionage Action". Did I mention that I'm not exactly holding out much hope for this game to do things right in the canon spectrum of things? It's being handled by one of the writers behind the MGS Database.... which if you've read that has a lot of errors in the canon.

But still if the game play is solid (no pun intended) then I'll be happy.

MGS and RE are apples and oranges. I think both are compared because they were prime examples of their genre' at a time that had memorable boss encounters and fun characters. But if we're talking plot and narrative then MGS has a meatier approach. Not just from the cutscenes, but the game play as well.

Think about this. What game play segment fits the narrative more exactly? Rebecca and Billy fighting a giant scorpion on a train or Snake going through the Sorrow's river? I'd say the river. You can't kill Sorrow since he's already dead and right off the bat this isn't a typical boss encounter with a member of the Cobra unit. It's a trek through the waters gazing upon all the ghosts of soldiers you killed. Initially a gamer would want to avoid these creatures reaching out to you because as a survivalist you're not thinking about dying. Once you reach the skeleton of the Sorrow and "die" a clever trick is implemented to revive yourself and continue the game.

Now I don't know about you guys, but sections like that really add a lot in the game's artistic direction. With Resident Evil I'm fighting monsters cause I'm a cliche' in a horror movie. Bad guy wants money or world domination. You play a survivor that stops it and in the process uncover the truth. It's basic, but that's not bad.

About the only meaty thing I could see for a game like REmake would be the files. It gives you a better understanding of the monsters and mansion as well as introduce characters that have much more personality to them than the people you associate with. George Trevor for instance. REmake also gives you a sense of what kind of monsters you're killing. With Nemesis he's just a tool for Umbrella that hunts you during RE3. Lisa Trevor however has this story of her past layered throughout the files. If a gamer ignorantly skipped them he wouldn't feel any kind of sympathy when fighting her. You only get an in-game sense of what she's feeling during the end of her boss encounter when she "seemingly" takes her life at the bottomless pit. Then Umbrella Chronicles comes along and all of a sudden you're Wesker making wise cracks at her while she goes on a rampage to kill you and you finish her off in the most insulting way possible.

Sorry for my walls of text fellas.

[Vito]

MGS has many retcons? cmon now.

I bet many of these "retcons" are just translation errors just like RE.

[Gambit]

Eh, if anyone had a problem with the stealth in MGS4, they'd know to play Big Boss Extreme mode and catch the Big Boss Emblem. But either way, it depends on how you play the game. Just runnin' in, guns blazing totally takes away the fun :/

[News Bot]

MGS has many retcons? cmon now.

I bet many of these "retcons" are just translation errors just like RE.

They aren't. The Japanese text has already been gone through.

In Japan Dr. Clark and Olga's child were never really specified as men. It's assumed as such, but never stated. They even tried to lean people into the knowledge with products like the MGS novel which has an opening chapter dedicated to Dr. Clark.

Actually, as I recall, this was just the explanation they gave for it (Ryan Payton on the KojiPro podcast). But in reality, they are classified as men in the Japanese versions (Dr. Clark was definitely, anyway).

[Smiley]

All I can take is the word of people like yourself that have gone over the material and told me otherwise. I don't read Japanese, so any "errors" or issues with the translation will always be forgiving if the game does not suffer from them.

For the MGS series the game doesn't suffer from Dr. Clark or Sunny being women. Attempts were made in the source material to explain why people would assume Clark was a man (such as the prologue in the novelization), and at the time of MGS2 it was assumed the child was a boy until being rescued from the patriots.

I'm not going to excuse nanomachines being over done, but it was the ultimate plot device to explain everything in a series that didn't need explaining. We've seen nanomachines used in MGS1 to prevent Snake from using weapons and in MGS2 to clot Raiden's wounds. If there was a way to write off any mystery then that was the way to go. Lazy perhaps, but I didn't bat an eye lash.

[Vito]

They aren't. The Japanese text has already been gone through.

Actually, as I recall, this was just the explanation they gave for it (Ryan Payton on the KojiPro podcast). But in reality, they are classified as men in the Japanese versions (Dr. Clark was definitely, anyway).

Prove it.

[News Bot]

Kojima also admitted that he caused many inconsistencies and retcons. He acknowledged the issue personally.

Eurogamer: "Given the volume of games that you're involved in and the complexity of the subject matter, how do you go about organizing your thoughts?"

Hideo Kojima: "I personally get confused too about the whole timeline and saga of Metal Gear Solid. This is especially tricky when you create the future first and then go back in time to create something new."
via Eurogamer

Kojima then admits at the consequences that this confusion can lead to.

"There are a lot of small aspects where sometimes it doesn't match completely."

If you want a good read on the state of the Metal Gear canon, go here: http://thesnakesoup.org/?section=art...tent=freecanon

Otherwise, stop talking about MGS here. Go make a topic in General Gaming dudes.

[Smiley]

Your passage doesn't specify which ones he's referring to so that doesn't excuse legitimate translation errors. For all you know he could be talking about the small stuff like Big Boss' age in MGS3 as opposed to MGS2.

Dates and age issues that are apparent in Resident Evil.

[News Bot]

Your passage doesn't specify which ones he's referring to so that doesn't excuse legitimate translation errors. For all you know he could be talking about the small stuff like Big Boss' age in MGS3 as opposed to MGS2.

Dates and age issues that are apparent in Resident Evil.

The passage wasn't in response to the "translation errors". The only two examples you gave (Clark and Sunny) don't justify anything considering Clark was not a translation error, she was outright stated to be male in all versions (then they gave the excuse that nobody knew her gender and just "assumed" she was a man, which is fine I guess) and Sunny was only referred to as male because the original script doesn't reference the child's gender in general. Vito's assumption that every other retcon and inconsistency in the series is a mistranslation is just that: an assumption, with nothing to back it up. Saying "prove it" doesn't suddenly put the onus of providing evidence on me. That's equivalent to me saying the Earth is flat and then saying "prove it" when someone contests it.

Also one year missing from Jill's age because the development team decided to have the game take place in the present and forgot to make the appropriate changes is a little different from a missing decade or so. The dates in the series have all been consistent so far. And it doesn't matter much at all since the age of the characters is never set in stone on account of the series spanning several time periods. Taking their age at one point in time is something I find silly as fuck, which is why we only use birth dates.

[Smiley]

The passage wasn't in response to the "translation errors". The only two examples you gave (Clark and Sunny) don't justify anything considering Clark was not a translation error, she was outright stated to be male in all versions (then they gave the excuse that nobody knew her gender and just "assumed" she was a man, which is fine I guess) and Sunny was only referred to as male because the original script doesn't reference the child's gender in general. Vito's assumption that every other retcon and inconsistency in the series is a mistranslation is just that: an assumption, with nothing to back it up. Saying "prove it" doesn't suddenly put the onus of providing evidence on me. That's equivalent to me saying the Earth is flat and then saying "prove it" when someone contests it.

Also one year missing from Jill's age because the development team decided to have the game take place in the present and forgot to make the appropriate changes is a little different from a missing decade or so. The dates in the series have all been consistent so far. And it doesn't matter much at all since the age of the characters is never set in stone on account of the series spanning several time periods. Taking their age at one point in time is something I find silly as fuck, which is why we only use birth dates.

You have yet to show Clark was stated to be a man in the Japanese version. I've had people go over and tell me the opposite even to the point of checking guides, manuals, etc. It's an assumption, just like Sunny was. And the bad translations didn't stop there. Characters show up with accents and then lose them on account of bad translations. This is nothing new.

And yes RE5 messed up with the age and setting. Umbrella Chronicles had similar things with its RE3 scenario, but again if Capcom wants to sweep it under the rug as a summary then that's fine.

The problem with Capcom's canon in the Chronicles series is that it still exists and breaks the canon from the full game in general. With the rise of new gamers to the series the flow of information will be considered by which games are played. If you have a Wii gamer who is playing Umbrella Chronicles to follow the series then the "summary" left by Capcom will be a mess. "Who is Barry, Edward and Nicholai?" "The Red Queen is now a part of the game's plot." "Why have the T-02 tyrant when Ivan is a much more reliable and advanced form of B.O.W.?"

I don't know about you, but these unnecessary changes do lessen the quality of the story. Sure Ivan might be a fun fight for the game, but in the scheme of things he wasn't needed in 1998. And this is Capcom working on the game. This was their display of a summary with behind the scenes information. Did we need to know how Ada escaped? Was it crucial to see her ride down below a Umbrella helicopter on top of a crate holding a B.O.W.?

This is why the Resident Evil canon shouldn't even be taken so seriously. So for ORC all I can suggest is take it as you would with the Chronicles games. If there's pieces you just have to integrate into the canon then be my guest. And if there's flaws just chalk it up to an already messy plot.

[News Bot]

I can't copy and paste from the Japanese text in the game to show you, can I? What good would that even do, considering you can't read Japanese?

And the bad translations didn't stop there. Characters show up with accents and then lose them on account of bad translations.

...accents don't have anything to do with text translation. The accents were personal choices of the developers, but at some point they decided that Mei Ling's American background would warrant her not having a Chinese accent, while Naomi never actually had any background in Britain so why she had a hot British voice was odd to begin with (but oh so good).

I don't know about you, but these unnecessary changes do lessen the quality of the story.

I agree.

[Smiley]

Nope you can't. I'm taking the word of the people I trust on this. If they're wrong I can't be the one to argue against it. We'd have to save it for a separate MGS discussion.

The accents were a translation error that Kris Zimmerman mentioned when she was re-recording for Twin Snakes. For MGS4 they used those recordings for flashback scenes as opposed to maintaining continuity of the original and still had the characters speak with no accents.

I do agree though about British Naomi. Much preferred Jennifer Hale's performance from that game.