Some cool 1.5 exclusive screenshots (**As seen on TV!**)

[Renard]

The reason for the city's design is that most of the streets were cordoned off. So you spend more time in alleys than actual streets. Layout wise it's more European or Japanese, but I prefer that because it gives the city a certain uniqueness and charm you can't find in a typical American city (see Watch_Dogs).

Chicago. And it varies from the real location.

anybody have good summer these day?

My friend and I both applied to work at the same shop. He got the job, I didn't. Even though I had two years of experience and he had none. But oh well! In other news, I got a PSX emulator to work on my phone.

[strikedio84]

anybody have good summer these day?

in fact not so good hahaha but well, Mr. Bzork i have one question i hope this infomation dont mind you, i know that the TEAM IGAS are working with WHEN IS DONE method, and to be honest, its fine with me.

but could you at least tell us what % of completion its the proyect up to this date? its well Known that the vanilla Build its about 40% i dont care if the game its about 90% of completion and releases 4 years later, what i want to know its how much of the game its already done.

other thing that its been my interest its the booklet and cd case desing your team are working on, that would be a nice update too.

hoping its not too much to ask. thanks for taking the time to read my questions.

Regards. From Mexico

[Jimmy_Jazz]

If you look at RE2's locale, it really doesn't come across as a city centre. The roads are particulary wide, the buildings aren't tall and the amneties on offer are small, local shops. However it works.

3's approach to the city is unrealistic (the European comparison doesn't really work, you find odd entrances / exits to public spaces, the roads aren't curved to support) and unmemorable. They really could have done with a landmark or building being a central point that you work your way out from. By the time you end up in the church and hospital you've really got no idea how it relates to the earlier parts of the game. And the RPD revisit just feels like padding.

[News Bot]

(the European comparison doesn't really work

Haven't been around much of Europe, eh?

There are tall buildings and the size of the roads vary. The entrances/exits and lack of curvature on the roads only seems apparent because most of the city is covered in barricades. Of course it's going to look off. There are small, local shops, but there are also larger ones. You visit landmarks throughout the whole of BIO3. The clock tower in particular is set up as a landmark right from the beginning of the game, as one of the earliest files you find is a postcard of it.

[RaccoonSurvivor]

Haven't been around much of Europe, eh?

There are tall buildings and the size of the roads vary. The entrances/exits and lack of curvature on the roads only seems apparent because most of the city is covered in barricades. Of course it's going to look off. There are small, local shops, but there are also larger ones. You visit landmarks throughout the whole of BIO3. The clock tower in particular is set up as a landmark right from the beginning of the game, as one of the earliest files you find is a postcard of it.

This ... I mean, how hard is it to understand. Look at the MAP screen and you'll see there are plenty of corners, T-Junctions that are blocked off by cars,police baracades etc..

And they DO match with RE2 quite easily in some places, mainly around the R.P.D. For example, the bus crash area - you can see on the left the R.P.D exterior courtyard wall (which is the other side of the area where you retrieve the valve handle, at the bottom of the helipad stairs)
And anyway, Raccoon City is more like a large town, rather than a city.. no massive skyscrapers here .. most buildings are 2 or 3 floors.
Only when they retconned it with ORC and Darkside opening FMVs, did we see any taller buildings on the skyline.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

Haven't been around much of Europe, eh?

I'm from and live in London, have travelled extensively through Europe (and North America) and used to be a proffessional CG city builder. I'm not coming at this subject from an amatuer or anecdotal point of view. Look at the RE3 maps and you'll see gridded roads, with odd alleys and turns that don't fit into the grid, nor look like the more chaotic and curved European (and older parts of North American, such as central Boston) roads.

bThere are tall buildings and the size of the roads vary. The entrances/exits and lack of curvature on the roads only seems apparent because most of the city is covered in barricades. Of course it's going to look off. There are small, local shops, but there are also larger ones. You visit landmarks throughout the whole of BIO3.

I'm not complaining about the size of the buildings or roads, but the layout. It felt contrived for me, even before I started my career, because of illogical dead ends, turns and junctions, even before the barricades were let in.

The clock tower in particular is set up as a landmark right from the beginning of the game, as one of the earliest files you find is a postcard of it.

There is a difference between finding an image of the Clock Tower, and being able to see it in the backgrounds of various locations as you pass through the game. The latter would allow you to build a mental map of the City and how all the parts fit together. I always felt that the game was the result of having the pressure of creating something in a city, which was so heavily demanded by the fans, whilst retaining the claustrophobic feel of the older titles and being limited by hardware and time (notice how most roads in 2&3 disappear into darkness, rather than continune into the distance and create a skyline) and as a result, RE3's city didn't do it for me. It's ok if you liked it though.

I have no problem with you disagreeing with me, we all view things differently, but please don't assume that all because someone disagrees with you they don't know what they are talking about.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

This ... I mean, how hard is it to understand. Look at the MAP screen and you'll see there are plenty of corners, T-Junctions that are blocked off by cars,police baracades etc.

It's not about understanding, it's about how things are logically placed. Uncanny valley doesn't just cover animations. People are great at spotting issues with architectural and landscape oddities in games. Jonathan Blow did a great talk about that, I'll try to dig it out, but I can't find it at the moment.

And they DO match with RE2 quite easily in some places, mainly around the R.P.D. For example, the bus crash area - you can see on the left the R.P.D exterior courtyard wall (which is the other side of the area where you retrieve the valve handle, at the bottom of the helipad stairs)
And anyway, Raccoon City is more like a large town, rather than a city.. no massive skyscrapers here .. most buildings are 2 or 3 floors.
Only when they retconned it with ORC and Darkside opening FMVs, did we see any taller buildings on the skyline.

They match in temrs of layout, but not so much in terms of style. In 2 you were weaving around one main road. It's harder to build up a mental map of how you're moving through RE3. Yes, you can see it make sense on the map screen, but if the player is always relying on the map to get around, you've failed as a Designer to create an area that players can learn. The layouts of the buildings in 1&2 were easier to remember, not because they were interior of buildings, but they had a central pinch point that you would always return to during the first half of the game. I think RE3 would have benefitted from a central area like that.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

http://kotaku.com/5871431/braid-creators-the-witness-gets-an-intriguing-architectural-update/

Even if you don't know the first thing about architecture, you have been in enough buildings in your life that the deeper parts of your brain have distilled plenty of patterns about those buildings. Your brain knows the difference between a real building and a nonsense building that wouldn't occur in the real world. It can feel the difference in veracity between carefully-thought-out structural details - on the one hand - versus stuff that was just placed by a level designer* to look cool

The only thing he leaves out is that each individal notices slightly different things in the world around them (behaviours, reactions, locations etc) so different people will different things from each other. This affects both how game environments are built and how they are percieved.

*It's worth noting that Environment Artists tend to place details, not Level Designers. But a Level Designer can lumber an Environment Artist with inaccurate / odd proportions that can't be changed due to design restrictions.

[Guest]

anybody have good summer these day?

Always good summer.

[News Bot]

I'm from and live in London, have travelled extensively through Europe (and North America) and used to be a proffessional CG city builder. I'm not coming at this subject from an amatuer or anecdotal point of view. Look at the RE3 maps and you'll see gridded roads, with odd alleys and turns that don't fit into the grid, nor look like the more chaotic and curved European (and older parts of North American, such as central Boston) roads.

There is a difference between finding an image of the Clock Tower, and being able to see it in the backgrounds of various locations as you pass through the game.

You're playing a series which is 50% fixed camera angles. Of course you're not going to see everything. The layout isn't contrived because your visual scope is limited. Which illogical dead-ends? Literally almost every dead-end between BIO2 and BIO3 is a barricade or wrecked car or some such.

That said, the city is also inspired by Japanese architecture. The developers did not venture anywhere besides Europe and Japan for their setting research.

[RaccoonSurvivor]

^ I suppose this is ALOT like the Silent Hill games .. while the map fits together (from several games set in the same general areas) some areas are blocked, have giant holes, or do not match previous games (retcon)
The town was based off several types of settings too, leading to a mish-mash of layout and styles. But hey, it's a game at the end of the day..

[NEOMEGA]

There is a difference between finding an image of the Clock Tower, and being able to see it in the backgrounds of various locations as you pass through the game. The latter would allow you to build a mental map of the City and how all the parts fit together. I always felt that the game was the result of having the pressure of creating something in a city, which was so heavily demanded by the fans, whilst retaining the claustrophobic feel of the older titles and being limited by hardware and time (notice how most roads in 2&3 disappear into darkness, rather than continune into the distance and create a skyline) and as a result, RE3's city didn't do it for me. It's ok if you liked it though.

Yes this. I cant contribute that much to this topic because besides Italy, I havent really been outside North America. I live and see a lot of New york city however I know Raccoon isn't supposed to be as grand as New York. It's hard to know whether my feelings of RE3's rendition of a city are biased but I do get this rushed for design vibe.
This picture isnt to blame but it certainly didn't help with an image of the city.

[News Bot]

That image is, like Chris' other one, set in New York City. That's where Chris is from. The other image shows him near the Brooklyn Bridge.

Basically, those ending screens are all "alternative" outcomes to each character's story. Chris returns to New York after exposing Umbrella. Jill goes on holiday. Leon returns to Raccoon with reinforcements and takes back the city from the monsters. Claire and Sherry become biker bffls.

[NEOMEGA]

Leon returns to Raccoon with reinforcements and takes back the city from the monsters.

Oh my gooood I always wanted a game mode where you could retaliate and push them out of the city with others, both players and npc backup. Didnt know about Chris coming from new york city.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

You're playing a series which is 50% fixed camera angles. Of course you're not going to see everything. The layout isn't contrived because your visual scope is limited. Which illogical dead-ends? Literally almost every dead-end between BIO2 and BIO3 is a barricade or wrecked car or some such.

The fact that the camera angles are fixed is irrelevent. There are already plenty of shots which which show vistas and skyline beyond the playable area, but they fade to black pretty pretty quickly in most cases. Whilst this is partly a solution to a technical problem (not being able to show enemies in neighbouring 'rooms'), they could have had landmakes above the silhouette, such as the Clock Tower and Hospital, to create a more cohesive, surprising and rewarding exploration.

If you look at the density of the road blocks, they seem so high that it actually starts to feel wrong that the City has been so easily overrun. The down town area has effectively been broken up into lots of neat little chunks that could easily be cleared out.

The long vehicle pile ups look comical in areas where they're in straight lines and each driver looks to have just gone into the back of the next. It's obviously serving a function, turning larger roads into smaller areas for gameplay, but could have worked better if it was clear that the traffic flow was in the direction of leaving the city and other details were added to support this traffic flow (one way signs, road cones etc).

As for specific dead ends, I'll get back to you with a few goes on the PS3 port. It's been a long time since I've touched 3 properly but I do remember the exit from Jill's apartment having an odd dead end to the left of it, the maze of alleys around the factory having odd turns, the dead end with the zombies behind the barricade and the two explosive barrels infront of it that you come across before entering the RPD, how the curved road that leads to / from the RPD ends in unusual junctions. I seem to remember something odd about the Gas Station, Clock Tower and Hospital too, but will have to boot the game up first. Individually, these points seem like nit-picking, but when put together, it doesn't create a great City for me. Although, I do wonder what people were expecting Raccoon City to be like in terms of size and scale. I've only been to Minneapolis in the mid-west and that's alot larger and built to compared to what's hinted at for RC in RE3.

I feel that whilst 2 suffers form the same issues, gets away with all of this because you're in the streets very briefly. I don't think 3 does when so much of the game is set there. I respect the teams behind all the games but, for me, 3 is the weakest in the PSOne trilogy for so many reasons, and much of them stems from trying to balance giving people a game in the city whilst trying to maintain a claustrophobic experience and dealing with the technical limitations of the engine and hardware.

Silent Hill had a similar approach of splitting a larger town up into smaller areas, but its street sections were much more open and larger (with less monsters though) so it feels like I'm exploring a town. To me, RE3 felt like corridors dressed up as a town.

One of the things that interests me about the layout of 1.5 is that alot of the rooms in and around the Precinct are larger but have more open spaces and objects to run around, such as rows of desks and chairs, allowing you to circumvent zombies more often.