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

[Darkness]

At least I never said that. I still love the game and its very interesting. Many things should have carried over that didn't.

[News Bot]

At least I never said that.

Indeed, so you don't need to apologize or justify for anyone else.

[Kegluneq]

Buuuuuuullllshiiiiittttttt. There is an unprecedented amount of wishful thinkers that have bitched and moaned over the years about the supposed superiority of an incomplete and scrapped game. And there continues to be some trying to make excuses and cop-outs out of thin air in order to somehow justify it's badness. Some people will just never be satisfied that it is a game which simply didn't reach the high level of quality expected of it. An interesting and perhaps even fun look into the development of BH2, but a very flawed game.

Hope you don't mind me asking. But what was the first BioHazard title that you played, and when did you become aware of BH2 Prototype?

Speaking from my experience, I began by playing BH1 when it was released and I first saw BH2 Prototype in an imported videogame magazine a friend of mine used to collect. A few years later, I came across bioflames.com and learned a lot about this unfinished prototype. The thing that fascinated and mesmerized me the most about it was its creepy and eerie atmosphere. It pretty much setup my lifetime pleasure for stories about survival (not limited to zombie apocalypses) and with horror elements. Not only that, but BH2 Prototype featured many things that back then where still in experimental stages. Things that we had never seen in a 3D game before. The key word here is context.

Looking back at the evolution of it, there is no doubt that from a technical point-of-view, BH2 retail is superior in every aspect to BH2 Prototype. The same could also be said about BH3 after it was released, and it did not have the luxury of being scrapped and reworked on. That much is expected from an extended period of development. To anyone who has worked on projects before (not just videogames projects, but any kind of), anything that undergoes a long-period of revision tends to become superior to the previous work. Inferior concepts are removed and new ideas infused during the fresh development, resulting in a better thing.

That does not mean that, for its time, BH2 Prototype wasn't a magnificent game. So many ideas and features that were scrapped (much likely due to the development team's incapacity of implementing them properly and as they envisioned) eventually made way into other games of the franchise (and of Capcom itself). Just because the execution of those ideas was poor (as we have now learned from the PSM build), does not invalidate the greatness of these ideas. Some things are, sometimes, too ahead of its time. BH2 Prototype might have been too ambitious and that was its greatest flaw. Or virtue. Because it was thanks to it that we got BH2 retail and BH3.

[Guest]

Buuuuuuullllshiiiiittttttt. There is an unprecedented amount of wishful thinkers that have bitched and moaned over the years about the supposed superiority of an incomplete and scrapped game. And there continues to be some trying to make excuses and cop-outs out of thin air in order to somehow justify it's badness. Some people will just never be satisfied that it is a game which simply didn't reach the high level of quality expected of it. An interesting and perhaps even fun look into the development of BH2, but a very flawed game.

The quality of the outcome is relative to the amount of effort that went into it. Many of BH1.5's environments are better than BH2's environments imo, anything can be made to work with enough love and effort, there is no reason why 1.5 couldn't have turned out better than retail had the same amount of money, work and effort went into it. Bad scenario doesn't equal bad game, change scenario, change whatever else gets on your nerves and carry on with the development (which is exactly what they did, although they went further than they needed to go with the changes).

Even after the scenario was rewritten many aspects of 1.5 could have survived. You could have had street sections leading up to the 1.5 RPD, with 1.5 zombies, 1.5 BOWs, 1.5 menus, 1.5 items, 1.5 weapons, 1.5 accessories, you could have had Claire Redfield, a STARS office, where John Kendo gets eaten alive and Marvin turns into a zombie, with a smoother engine and higher res graphics, all the good things from retail, plus all the good things from 1.5 as well.

To say 1.5 couldn't have been a better game is absolute nonsense, 1.5 was a prototype at an undefined point in development where anything is subject to change, essentially we could say they are both the same game as retail was an evolution of the prototype, but we can see just how much changed and how different the games actually are.

Despite how nice looking BH2 is, 1.5 will always look better than BH2 to me because the environments are more vibrant and the art style is more to my taste. No matter how much people want to think other problems can't be fixed, I will always like these aspects more and know that something in retails level of quality with 1.5's art style would have been equally amazing. After all, it's kept me coming back for more for all these years, if BH2 was leaps and bounds above 1.5 in every way I don't think I'd be so captivated by it for this long.

[Zombie_X]

I find that lots of stuff from 1.5 could have been salvaged and brought over to 2 for it's redesign. They probably cold have kept every area, maybe make small changes to the levels, and still have them intact with the new story. Some areas would probably have to be changed but that is fine. I don't see a reason to switch to a new engine and make all new areas for 2. They could have recycled everything and had the new and improved story along with retails gameplay.

Geluda, I feel 1.5 is much closer to BIO1 than BIO2 ever was. It played nearly the same, the environments were just as eerie or maybe more so due to the more realistic look of the game. I always said BIO2 felt a bit cartoonish, and it does. 1.5 seems more down to earth and scary. It appeals to me much more than retail.

[Guest]

I find that lots of stuff from 1.5 could have been salvaged and brought over to 2 for it's redesign. They probably cold have kept every area, maybe make small changes to the levels, and still have them intact with the new story. Some areas would probably have to be changed but that is fine. I don't see a reason to switch to a new engine and make all new areas for 2. They could have recycled everything and had the new and improved story along with retails gameplay.

Exactly. There's no reason why it couldn't have been Claire Redfield who crashed her bike through the main entrance of the RPD, or that the sewers couldn't have lead to the Factory before junping on the rail network to the Labs. It didn't need to be changed as much as it did, there was nothing wrong with the look of the game at all, besides perhaps the quality of the renders at the time.

[doriantoki]

Eerie? Scary? Parts of the RPD, maybe. The outside areas were pretty ... blah, and the Lab didn't change all that much. The only scary thing here was just how godawful the sewers looked in 1.5 It's like they were developing the BGs using antiquated 3D models and texutres from the 80s.

I will admit that I was one of those nay sayers. But honestly, people who still claim otherwise after having played this build, ignoring all the bugs, are just in straight up denial and need to take off the rose colored glasses. When you investigate 1.5 further, the decisions and changes they made were all essentially good ones.

The argument that they game could have been better given more time is pretty flawed. I mean, look at the turn around time for retail 2. They had way less time to essentially rework and remake 80% of the assets, and the jump in quality was pretty immense. Put yourself in the designers shoes. They had been working on 1.5 since basically they finished production on RE1, and even such a late stage in production, the product just wasn't that impressive. Even if we account for it being 1997, the developers definitely had a point that this game was barely a step up from the first game. There's no contest with features that didn't make it into retail 2. It doesn't mean they weren't good ideas, and my thought is that a lot of 1.5 stuff they probably wanted to bring into retail 2, but didn't have enough development time.

Again, sewers. Just look at how awful the sewers look. I can not emphasize that enough. Some of the design components unfortunately present in the RPD and other areas as well. Backgrounds are just barren and lifeless. Where items are scattered, such as in the offices, they just feel like random clutter. There's no sense of the organic, and thus, no sense of fear. It just feels cold and sterile. But that's the point! you say. No, it's not. The game is just not scary. The atmosphere is very ho-hum. Further evidence in how essentially all the boring, lifeless and plain backgrounds were all changed. This obviously wasn't the developer's intention. It only worked for the lab because this was supposed to be a sterile environment to begin with. The 1.5 RPD doesn't look lived in, it just looks like a bad Hollywood set piece. Say what you want about retail 2 RPD, but it has character, and even if it's not as "realistic" as the 1.5 environment, it genuinely feels lived in.

I don't want to give people the impression that I am some sort of basher, or that I've reverted sides in the nay sayer argument. Am I going to play the shit out of the restored 1.5 when it is released? Hell yes. But I won't continue pretending that the developers made an earth shattering mistake by cancelling and reworking a large part of 1.5 and creating 2 in its stead, when it's pretty obvious now that it was definitely a good idea. I can see 1.5 for what it is. An incomplete beta, that while fun, is more or less a sort of novelty at this point.

[News Bot]

Hope you don't mind me asking. But what was the first BioHazard title that you played, and when did you become aware of BH2 Prototype?

Speaking from my experience, I began by playing BH1 when it was released and I first saw BH2 Prototype in an imported videogame magazine a friend of mine used to collect. A few years later, I came across bioflames.com and learned a lot about this unfinished prototype. The thing that fascinated and mesmerized me the most about it was its creepy and eerie atmosphere. It pretty much setup my lifetime pleasure for stories about survival (not limited to zombie apocalypses) and with horror elements. Not only that, but BH2 Prototype featured many things that back then where still in experimental stages. Things that we had never seen in a 3D game before. The key word here is context.

Looking back at the evolution of it, there is no doubt that from a technical point-of-view, BH2 retail is superior in every aspect to BH2 Prototype. The same could also be said about BH3 after it was released, and it did not have the luxury of being scrapped and reworked on. That much is expected from an extended period of development. To anyone who has worked on projects before (not just videogames projects, but any kind of), anything that undergoes a long-period of revision tends to become superior to the previous work. Inferior concepts are removed and new ideas infused during the fresh development, resulting in a better thing.

That does not mean that, for its time, BH2 Prototype wasn't a magnificent game. So many ideas and features that were scrapped (much likely due to the development team's incapacity of implementing them properly and as they envisioned) eventually made way into other games of the franchise (and of Capcom itself). Just because the execution of those ideas was poor (as we have now learned from the PSM build), does not invalidate the greatness of these ideas. Some things are, sometimes, too ahead of its time. BH2 Prototype might have been too ambitious and that was its greatest flaw. Or virtue. Because it was thanks to it that we got BH2 retail and BH3.

BH1. The prototype never struck me as anything special outside of its general neat factor. I don't buy the "too ahead of its time" excuse one bit, it was a functionally dull game. Not very many 1.5 features really made it into anything else, those that did were implemented elsewhere because they better suited that game overall (armor in Dino Crisis 2) and most of the examples of "recycling" are really stretching it in terms of how true they could have been. Absolutely none of its "features" were unique or ground-breaking.

The quality of the outcome is relative to the amount of effort that went into it. Many of BH1.5's environments are better than BH2's environments imo, anything can be made to work with enough love and effort, there is no reason why 1.5 couldn't have turned out better than retail had the same amount of money, work and effort went into it. Bad scenario doesn't equal bad game, change scenario, change whatever else gets on your nerves and carry on with the development (which is exactly what they did, although they went further than they needed to go with the changes).

Even after the scenario was rewritten many aspects of 1.5 could have survived. You could have had street sections leading up to the 1.5 RPD, with 1.5 zombies, 1.5 BOWs, 1.5 menus, 1.5 items, 1.5 weapons, 1.5 accessories, you could have had Claire Redfield, a STARS office, where John Kendo gets eaten alive and Marvin turns into a zombie, with a smoother engine and higher res graphics, all the good things from retail, plus all the good things from 1.5 as well.

To say 1.5 couldn't have been a better game is absolute nonsense, 1.5 was a prototype at an undefined point in development where anything is subject to change, essentially we could say they are both the same game as retail was an evolution of the prototype, but we can see just how much changed and how different the games actually are.

Despite how nice looking BH2 is, 1.5 will always look better than BH2 to me because the environments are more vibrant and the art style is more to my taste. No matter how much people want to think other problems can't be fixed, I will always like these aspects more and know that something in retails level of quality with 1.5's art style would have been equally amazing. After all, it's kept me coming back for more for all these years, if BH2 was leaps and bounds above 1.5 in every way I don't think I'd be so captivated by it for this long.

1.5's environments look absolutely dull and lifeless to me. Not memorable in the slightest and I can see the full R.P.D. being a confusing mess because few of the areas are really identifiable. The zombies were goofy, the B.O.W.s sucked (precisely the reason they were scrapped), the weapons were flat-out too much, the menu is cluttered garbage, etc. It's 100% true that many aspects *could* have survived, but they were deliberately dropped because they were lacking in quality; whether functionally or aesthetically.

1.5 could have been a better game. It turned into BH2. That's a better game. The point is that "1.5" as people know it was a mess and that is why it was changed to something almost completely new. You and some others are so captivated because of the prototype's mystique. Not because of its purported quality.

I'm really finding the "they could've salvaged it!" nonsense to be a bit tedious now. Of course they could have. But they didn't. Because most of it sucked. Trying to hop your way around that with hypothetical drivel simply doesn't suffice.

[Gemini]

isnt the disc limited in space?

Think of RE2 for N64 and how it crunched all the data into 64 Megabytes. With a few changes to the engine (i.e. compressed data like it rains, CAPCOM didn't really use any other than for background masks) you can literally start pushing in the disk 10 times more data and still be able to fit in there a whole chicken. Considering the approximated size of the whole data (sans padding) almost hits 100 MB with tons of backgrounds in there, you can literally have 5 times more contents than the public build. Compress the most redundant data and that amount becomes much more, a whole lot more.

[Darkness]

Think of RE2 for N64 and how it crunched all the data into 64 Megabytes. With a few changes to the engine (i.e. compressed data like it rains, CAPCOM didn't really use any other than for background masks) you can literally start pushing in the disk 10 times more data and still be able to fit in there a whole chicken. Considering the approximated size of the whole data (sans padding) almost hits 100 MB with tons of backgrounds in there, you can literally have 5 times more contents than the public build. Compress the most redundant data and that amount becomes much more, a whole lot more.

Fucking sweet to learn this. In addition to the cool unlockable bonus game they are showing I think they should add more handgun models!

[DSC]

This is a bit random, perhaps it was covered already, but after playing this WIP build the beginning to the story is a bit more clear after piecing some cut scenes together. A while back many of you guys and gals were theorizing as to why Leon was on the roof and uttered his opening phrase (That's just freaking great, now what am I going to do?...).

I think what he saw was a motorcycle cut off an R.P.D. van causing a huge wreck in the side of the building as well as through the front gate (Elza's starting point). Leon goes to the Chief to report what he had seen and is sent to the Lobby, where he sees the emergency shutter although closed, has been broken through with shattered glass and a motorcycle in front of the reception desk. As he explores he sees the "recently" crashed Van burning on the East side of the building with someone screaming for help inside, after using the fire extinguisher he opens the side door and meets Ada.

I explored the outdoor B area on ground level and a cut scene occurred I have yet to see anyone talk about. A "Woman" is calling for help. it all kind of fits nicely I guess...

Sorry if You all knew this and I am just wasting my phalanges away.

[Kegluneq]

BH1. The prototype never struck me as anything special outside of its general neat factor. I don't buy the "too ahead of its time" excuse one bit, it was a functionally dull game. Not very many 1.5 features really made it into anything else, those that did were implemented elsewhere because they better suited that game overall (armor in Dino Crisis 2) and most of the examples of "recycling" are really stretching it in terms of how true they could have been. Absolutely none of its "features" were unique or ground-breaking.

The execution of the ideas was flawed. But we only have era 4 build to judge. A point of the game's development that has not reached yet half. An experimental build. So much is still missing from it, such as the item placement, layout, enemy positions, ammunition allocation, etc. Having played a "functionally dull game", I can tell you that the zombies design had the potential to turn BioHazard into a Metal Gear Solid type of game and fuse the puzzle elements with the action. What did BioHazard 2's gameplay offer in contrast? Nothing. What's there? Better graphics. Elaborate cutscenes. Neat characters. Acceptable dialogue. That's pretty much it. It wasn't until Nightmare Mode and Extreme Battle Mode came into existence that BioHazard fully explored its engine.

Plenty of BioHazard 2 Prototype made it into other games. Animations? BioHazard 1 Gamecube had the handgun animations (Elza's for Idle position, Leon's for Motion position, if I'm not mistaken) and BioHazard 3 had the shotgun animations. Puzzles? BioHazard 3 had MD Player and Disc items for the Hospital segment and BioHazard Code: Veronica had the Fire Extinguisher in the Antarctica. Weapons? BioHazard 4 introduced the grenade and its different types. Armor? Dino Crisis 2 had two different types of Battle Armor suited for different things. Saving Feature? Dino Crisis 2's save points were computers. And there's plenty more I can't be bothered to think of at this moment. Was it recycled? No one said that. However, it was there in BioHazard 2 Prototype long before these games were being thought of. Regardless of how you spin it, BioHazard 2 Prototype was the pioneer of these ideas.

[Wrathborne]

.Not very many 1.5 features really made it into anything else, those that did were implemented elsewhere because they better suited that game overall (armor in Dino Crisis 2) and most of the examples of "recycling" are really stretching it in terms of how true they could have been. Absolutely none of its "features" were unique or ground-breaking.

Body armor, grenades, various enemy body types(skinny,fat, etc), and interactive background environments made it into the next few games, though the shutters seem to be about it for 1.5 that was expanded into red barrels and other things to shoot.

Actually characters showing signs of physical damage that remain through out the game was unique and groundbreaking back in 1997. Back then it was 1-2 character models for about anything and that was it. Extra details like showing physical damage from cuts, gashes and bruises was unheard of. Its been almost 15 years since this game was cancelled and only recently in the past 5 years or so have more developers been implementing physical damage to character models.

Artistically the PS was kind of limited because it was still somewhat new technology for developers having only been around for about 3 years or so, so the fact that the team was doing this was unheard of.

[Deus Flux]

Again, sewers. Just look at how awful the sewers look. I can not emphasize that enough.

It just looks like a real sewer looks imo. RE2 glamorizes it, complete with a conveniently-placed exploding canister. I'm not a sewer expert, but do those things even exist in real sewers?

It just feels cold and sterile. But that's the point! you say. No, it's not. The game is just not scary. The atmosphere is very ho-hum.

I feel the same way about retail RE2. The thing about me is, I don't have that special attachment to retail 2 that so many others have. I could say those people are the ones who have the rose tinted glasses on. The retail version is a copy of the first game, I can't say that enough. I recently played through all 4 scenarios to give the game a fresh, new chance and in the end everything feels like i've played it all before, just in a much better version -- the original Resident evil. I've played the mansion already. I don't want that same experience in a 'new' game/sequel.

Resident evil: Mansion, keys, emblems, herbs.
Retail Resident evil 2: Mansion, keys, emblems, herbs. Deja Vu, Yawn. And the whole AB scenario thing - when you complete the game with one character, you unlock all of the doors in the game. Yet, when you 'continue' the same timeline with the other character, they're all magically locked again. This is stupid and makes no sense.
Original RE2/1.5: Actually looks like a police department, no special key set that I know of, mixable medicines, armor upgrades, grenades, realistic guns from what I can tell. A whole new experience that actually catches my interest because it isn't the same thing being repeated over again. And from what I can tell, any object or door interacted with the previous character stays that way when you play the other. Much better.

I'm not in denial. I feel I have a ton of legitimate reasons for '1.5' being the better game. 1.5 is to the original Resident evil as Dino crisis 2 is to Dino crisis -- 2 completely different experiences. Retail RE2 is the typical Hollywood sequel - unoriginal, ultimately boring; predictable.

This is not a personal 'attack' on you though, doriantoki. You just help set my gears in motion so to speak, haha.

Everyone has their own opinions and views and are entitled to them. I respect that and i'm certainly not changing mine for convenience. The problem I do have though is some of you here are acting like just because in your opinion you think Retail 2 is the superior game then it is no matter what and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. That is not the way things work. Retail RE2: mediocre clone, goofy looking zombies. Elza is superior over Claire. This game is only special to those who see it as such, which is fine. But I don't.

[News Bot]

The execution of the ideas was flawed. But we only have era 4 build to judge. A point of the game's development that has not reached yet half. An experimental build. So much is still missing from it, such as the item placement, layout, enemy positions, ammunition allocation, etc. Having played a "functionally dull game", I can tell you that the zombies design had the potential to turn BioHazard into a Metal Gear Solid type of game and fuse the puzzle elements with the action. What did BioHazard 2's gameplay offer in contrast? Nothing. What's there? Better graphics. Elaborate cutscenes. Neat characters. Acceptable dialogue. That's pretty much it. It wasn't until Nightmare Mode and Extreme Battle Mode came into existence that BioHazard fully explored its engine.

Plenty of BioHazard 2 Prototype made it into other games. Animations? BioHazard 1 Gamecube had the handgun animations (Elza's for Idle position, Leon's for Motion position, if I'm not mistaken) and BioHazard 3 had the shotgun animations. Puzzles? BioHazard 3 had MD Player and Disc items for the Hospital segment and BioHazard Code: Veronica had the Fire Extinguisher in the Antarctica. Weapons? BioHazard 4 introduced the grenade and its different types. Armor? Dino Crisis 2 had two different types of Battle Armor suited for different things. Saving Feature? Dino Crisis 2's save points were computers. And there's plenty more I can't be bothered to think of at this moment. Was it recycled? No one said that. However, it was there in BioHazard 2 Prototype long before these games were being thought of. Regardless of how you spin it, BioHazard 2 Prototype was the pioneer of these ideas.

We do have the "era 4" build to judge. And it sucks. Go figure. No, it wasn't "experimental", that implies that they were testing the water. They were very much full speed ahead in terms of development. Item placement, layout, positions etc are completely irrelevant to the fact that the game, functionally, was inferior. I don't know how many times we need to go over this before people stop making excuses. A "Metal Gear Solid type" game? Why, because zombies looked nearly as bad as the models in that game? "Acceptable dialogue?" What are you basing this on, translations not done by CAPCOM, who fucked their own up and hired some of the shittiest actors they could?

Absolutely none of those examples you gave are recycled. The armor in Dino Crisis 2 at a stretch, but even that's pushing it. What you're implying is that developers consciously went back to a scrapped, all-round despised prototype and took supposedly great, none of which are unique or ground-breaking, elements from it for later titles... rather than keeping those superior elements in the retail version itself. That's stupid, nothing else.

Body armor, grenades, various enemy body types(skinny,fat, etc), and interactive background environments made it into the next few games, though the shutters seem to be about it for 1.5 that was expanded into red barrels and other things to shoot.

Actually characters showing signs of physical damage that remain through out the game was unique and groundbreaking back in 1997. Back then it was 1-2 character models for about anything and that was it. Extra details like showing physical damage from cuts, gashes and bruises was unheard of. Its been almost 15 years since this game was cancelled and only recently in the past 5 years or so have more developers been implementing physical damage to character models.

Artistically the PS was kind of limited because it was still somewhat new technology for developers having only been around for about 3 years or so, so the fact that the team was doing this was unheard of.

1) Body armor is not unique.
2) Grenades are not unique.
3) One zombie in BH3 is fat. That isn't recycling. CV and beyond have more types because they could afford to put more types in.
4) There are interactive environments in almost every game.

The physical damage thing was neat, but it was visually a very poor way to reflect that a character was injured during gameplay. We're talking about a time with generally small CRTs usually running on shitty composite cables that make every other pixel a gash of noise. It was removed in favor of the limping system, which actually did the gameplay a great service. On a side-note, I can't imagine how many fools would start hurdling out the LOL HERBS DON'T STITCH CLOTHES BACK TOGETHER SILLY CAPCOM comments.

It just looks like a real sewer looks imo. RE2 glamorizes it, complete with a conveniently-placed exploding canister. I'm not a sewer expert, but do those things even exist in real sewers?

I feel the same way about retail RE2. The thing about me is, I don't have that special attachment to retail 2 that so many others have. I could say those people are the ones who have the rose tinted glasses on. The retail version is a copy of the first game, I can't say that enough. I recently played through all 4 scenarios to give the game a fresh, new chance and in the end everything feels like i've played it all before, just in a much better version -- the original Resident evil. I've played the mansion already. I don't want that same experience in a 'new' game/sequel.

Resident evil: Mansion, keys, emblems, herbs.
Retail Resident evil 2: Mansion, keys, emblems, herbs. Deja Vu, Yawn. And the whole AB scenario thing - when you complete the game with one character, you unlock all of the doors in the game. Yet, when you 'continue' the same timeline with the other character, they're all magically locked again. This is stupid and makes no sense.
Original RE2/1.5: Actually looks like a police department, no special key set that I know of, mixable medicines, armor upgrades, grenades, realistic guns from what I can tell. A whole new experience that actually catches my interest because it isn't the same thing being repeated over again. And from what I can tell, any object or door interacted with the previous character stays that way when you play the other. Much better.

I'm not in denial. I feel I have a ton of legitimate reasons for '1.5' being the better game. 1.5 is to the original Resident evil as Dino crisis 2 is to Dino crisis -- 2 completely different experiences. Retail RE2 is the typical Hollywood sequel - unoriginal, ultimately boring; predictable.

This is not a personal 'attack' on you though, doriantoki. You just help set my gears in motion so to speak, haha.

Everyone has their own opinions and views and are entitled to them. I respect that and i'm certainly not changing mine for convenience. The problem I do have though is some of you here are acting like just because in your opinion you think Retail 2 is the superior game then it is no matter what and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. That is not the way things work. Retail RE2: mediocre clone, goofy looking zombies. Elza is superior over Claire. This game is only special to those who see it as such, which is fine. But I don't.

Ah yes, because anyone who disagrees with you has "rose-tinted glasses" and has a "special attachment." Incidentally, 1.5 was scrapped because it was too much like BH1, so your comments on that front are a bit tedious. I don't think you realize that 1.5 was the whole "keys, emblems, herbs" shit all over again too, just like some other games in the series (CODE:Veronica in particular). The zombies in BH2 at least looked like they were once people, not a bunch of gray-skin Dawn of the Dead extras. "Realistic weapons"? What exactly wasn't realistic in BH2?

The Zapping System literally didn't have dick to do with doors or pretty much anything gameplay related. The entire intention was for story presentation, giving different sides to the same events while showing how they each joined up. Incidentally, 1.5 also had it, but it had zero effect on gameplay at all (BH2 at least added a few neat things) and its effect on the story was limited to catching a glimpse of certain characters in one scenario in the other. This is one of the reasons the Castle version of BH4 was scrapped, too.