Tag Archives: Resident Evil 4

Technology

Resident Evil 4 Remake’s Raingate, Explained

Leave a comment

This is the rain in question. What do you think?
Gif: Game Informer / Capcom / Kotaku

First, there was Spider-Man’s infamous Puddlegate. Then there were the not-so-watery streets of Cyberpunk 2077. Now it seems video game fans’ next watery, pre-release controversy involves the heavy rain seen in some early gameplay of the Resident Evil 4 remake. Some think it looks as bad as the awful-looking rain the GTA Trilogy remasters. Others are convinced it’s just video compression. And remember: None of them have actually played the game yet.

Rumored for some time, Resident Evil 4 was officially announced by Capcom back in June 2022. This new remake will update the game’s controls and combat, while keeping the same basic story and characters. Once again players will play as Leon as he travels to a rural part of Western Europe to save the President’s daughter and gets caught up in a whole lotta campy, horrific shenanigans. But based on newly released gameplay by Game Informer, some Resident Evil fans seem to think Leon’s biggest threat won’t be giant monsters or infected villagers, but lackluster rain.

Across Reddit and Twitter, you can find many players who think the in-game rain looks awful in the upcoming remake. While I’m not sure who was the first person to share these concerns online, they’ve quickly spread around the community. Some have even suggested the rain looks as bad as the infamously horrendous rain seen in the critically thrashed Grand Theft Auto Trilogy: Definitive Edition. That rain was so bad looking that it made the game nearly unplayable during storms and was eventually improved by the devs via a post-release patch.

Anyway, here’s the remade RE4’s rain that’s causing such a kerfuffle:

Capcom / Game Informer

I’ll fully admit that I watched this footage twice when Game Informer first posted the video and didn’t think anything of the rain. But even in the comments on YouTube, you can find people worried about how intense and distracting it is.

G/O Media may get a commission

Kotaku has contacted Capcom about the weather in the upcoming remake.

Others think people are being too nitpicky and suggest that the real problem isn’t the rain but YouTube’s awful video compression. I’m inclined to think YouTube’s compression is definitely not helping this rain look good, but I can also see how some might find the large and distinct white drops of water to be too much.

Of course, this being the internet and gamers, some people are going too far and suggesting the devs are lazy or that this is a sign the entire game will be a giant, rushed “cash grab.” That is completely silly and asinine. Remember: None of us have played the game, which isn’t even finished yet.

Resident Evil 4 is due out March 24, 2023 on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Maybe it should include a rain intensity slider.



Read original article here

Technology

Resident Evil 4 Remake Adds Sidequests, Makes Other Changes

Leave a comment

Leon can, in fact, block Chainsaw Man (Capcom edition)‘s overhead. Sadly, it comes at a price.
Screenshot: Capcom / Kotaku

In a new Game Informer cover story, Capcom detailed some of the changes that the hotly anticipated remake of Resident Evil 4 is making to the original, hugely influential horror game.

One of the major changes coming to the RE4 remake revolves around how Ashley Graham (not the supermodel) works in scenes when protagonist Leon S. Kennedy must escort and protect her. In the original RE4, players had to keep a watchful eye over Ashley’s health bar and ensure enemies didn’t carry her away. Ashley desperately, and frequently, screams out Leon’s name the instant players fail to do any of the aforementioned tasks.

In the remake, Ashley no longer has a health bar. Should President Graham’s Dumbo-eared daughter take too much damage while Leon attempts to escort her safely away from Las Plagas, she’ll enter a downed state and need to be revived, IGN reports. 

According to a Capcom representative, this change to Ashley’s gameplay mechanic was made to make her “feel more like a natural companion and less like a second health bar to babysit.”

Read More: All The Changes We Spotted In The New Resident Evil 4 Remake Trailers

G/O Media may get a commission

Improve your bloodflow
BrainMD claims this proprietary supplement increases blood flow to help your cognitive and cardiovascular functions

Another change coming to RE4’s remake is weapon durability, specifically for Leon’s combat knife. As seen at the end of last October’s extended gameplay trailer, Leon’s trusty knife being capable of parrying a chainsaw comes at a hefty cost. Instead of toting around “ol’ reliable” throughout the entirety of the RE4 remake to open wooden boxes, chip away at zombies, and conserve ammo, Leon’s knife will deteriorate over time, but players can have multiple knives in their inventory, which still takes the form of Leon’s iconic attache case.

Read More: Someone Finally Made The Inventory Briefcase From Resident Evil 4 A Puzzle Game

Side-quests are also making their way to the RE4 remake. According to IGN, blue flyers scattered about the game let you acquire optional tasks you can complete as side-quests. Lastly, the Game Informer cover story mentions that quick-time events, a frequent element of the original RE4, have effectively been removed, though this aspect of the remake had been mentioned in earlier interviews as well.

“I’d say there are ‘barely any’ QTEs. Different people have different definitions of what a QTE is, so while I can’t tell you that there aren’t any at all, I can say that there aren’t prompts to press buttons mid-cutscene,” producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi told IGN in a prior interview.

Resident Evil 4 (Remake) is slated to release on March 24 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S.



Read original article here

Technology

Resident Evil 4, Stray, Final Fantasy XVI

Leave a comment

We can finally conclude, after a quiet few months, that the Summer Video Game Hype Season has now well and truly started, as Sony unleashed its big State Of Play press conference today—just a week ahead of Geoff Keighley’s Summer Games Fest, which we can safely assume will bury us all under an avalanche of game trailers very soon.

The PlayStation company took a decent shot at starting the impromptu burial today, though, rolling out a bunch of exclusives and big titles that will come out either in a few weeks, or next year, depending on where in the hype cycle they’re at. (We also got a few more tidbits of information about the PSVR 2, which is getting a bunch of Resident Evil content whenever it actually comes out; as eternally hopeful adopters of the original hardware, we can’t help but hold out hope for a successful launch for the new one.)

Anyway: Here are the biggest trailers from today’s State Of Play:

Resident Evil 4

Normally, it would be a bit of an indictment of a slate of trailers to have their most unquestionably exciting entry be a remake of a 17-year-old game. But the new Resident Evil 4 is a bit different, both because Capcom’s previous remakes of the franchise’s early entries have all been generally fantastic, and because Resident Evil 4 is, well… Resident Evil 4. Seeing the classic game running in the company’s latest engine is undeniably thrilling; we can’t wait to see how iconic sequences like the village attack or the cabin defense look and feel like when this new version of an old favorite arrives next year.

Final Fantasy XVI

When we first got a look at the 16th main series Final Fantasy game back in 2020, it was notable for how much Game Of Thrones DNA had apparently slipped into the series’ standard mix—what with all the gritty violence, washed-out colors, and political maneuvering. That stuff is all still on display in the game’s new “Dominance” trailer, but there’s also plenty of eye candy, most especially in the form of a focus on the series’ beloved summons, now acting almost like kaiju as war and bickering plays out under their feet. Add in a combat system that looks like an evolution of the action-heavy work the series has been doing in Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Stranger Of Paradise, and it’s an intriguing package currently set for a June 2023 arrival.

Stray

“Adorable cat explores robot world” was always going to be an easy sell for a lot of people; there’s a reason Stray made our Most Anticipated Games list for 2022. Now we finally have a slightly better look at what playing BlueTwelve Studio’s futuristic exploration game will entail: A lot of wandering around, some stealth, and some very cute cat noises. It’s still not clear how much Stray will actually add up to once we’ve got it in our hands, but the trailer certainly promises something unconventional.

Street Fighter 6

Let’s start with the biggest bullet point in the new Street Fighter 6 trailer: Ryu’s got dad-bod now! More interestingly, the Capcom franchise seems to be taking its single-player gameplay seriously for once, adding in a “run around a city doing stuff” story mode that literally nobody has been clamoring for. That being said, SF6 looks big, colorful, and technically demanding, which is presumably exactly what fans of the franchise have been hoping for with its latest big return.

Rollerdrome

Honestly, we’ve never been playing one of Roll 7’s super-slick OlliOlli skating games and thought, “Gosh, this would be better with some guns in it.” But, then, we also hadn’t seen a trailer as eye-catching as PS5 exclusive Rollerdrome, which marries the animation-aping look of the studio’s recent OlliOlli World and marries it to some oldschool deathmatch-looking gameplay. The game’s success is going to come down to how it handles in the hands, of course, but the trailer is a hell of a first impression.

The Callisto Protocol

You can tell this is a new sci-fi horror game from some former Dead Space devs because the main guy has a light bar on his back that shows you how bad the monsters have been munching on him.

But we kid The Callisto Protocol, which is not shy about showing its Dead Space influences—and why should it be? That franchise might have died an ignoble death, but its early installments are still unimpeachable, and The Callisto Protocol looks to be replicating that “hunted by horrors on a dead spaceship” vibe extremely well.

Read original article here

Technology

Resident Evil 4 HD Project Mod Finally Released For Steam

Leave a comment

Image: Capcom / RE4 HD Project

Resident Evil 4, inarguably one of the greatest games of all time, is now playable with full high-definition textures, enhanced 3D models, and revamped lighting courtesy of the Resident Evil 4 HD Project.

Almost eight years in the making, Resident Evil 4 HD Project was a massive undertaking that saw its developers scour texture libraries and stock photo galleries for the original materials Capcom used to make the game’s textures in the early 2000s. When that failed, they traveled to locations in Spain and Wales where Capcom itself sourced textures to take photographs of their own. The result is an extensive mod that carefully retains the aesthetics and atmosphere of the original Resident Evil 4 while dramatically upscaling its visuals in just about every way possible.

Here’s a breakdown of everything Resident Evil 4 HD Project has to offer from the creators themselves:

Restoring the visuals using the original real-world sources: In preparation for the original game, Capcom gathered texture assets by photographing a variety of real-world locations, primarily throughout Spain and Wales. For this project, Albert has gone to these same locations to gather higher-resolution assets. The result is a visual experience that is as true to the original game as possible, presented in resolutions up to 16 times that of the original game.

Correcting texture mapping and 3D modeling issues: Texture mapping and 3D modeling errors that weren’t noticeable in the original game being played on a CRT television become more apparent when playing in HD resolutions. Examples include objects floating above the surface they should rest on, improperly placed shadow layers, seams appearing where textures are supposed to flow continuously. We are correcting these issues throughout the game.

Enhancing flat objects to true 3D models: Due to limitations of the original hardware, objects like lamps, candle-holders, doors, decorative emblems, etc. were originally created as flat objects. In many instances we are able to revise these objects to be true 3D models, observable from any angle.

Remaining committed to the original visuals: Our intent throughout the project is to remain true to the original visuals and artistic intent. The best kind of feedback we receive is when people say that the game looks like what they imagined it to look like when they first played it 10 years ago. While we are not perfect, we continually refer back to the original texture assets to ensure we do not deviate in a significant manner.

Improving lighting, visual effects, collision inaccuracies, and prerendered cutscenes: Thanks to Son of Persia and the tools he developed, we’ve been able to edit all this kind of stuff and raise this project to a new level of perfectionism. Also, Separate Ways’ prerendered videos and the very few videos in the main campaign have been remastered using all kinds of methods: from automated AI upscaling to complete re-creation.

Since 2014, the two main developers spent a combined 12,810 hours and over $15,000 (all of which was recouped, and then some, from community donations) getting Resident Evil 4 HD Project ready for release. Fortunately, Capcom never sent a cease-and-desist letter, and even promoted HD Project through the Resident Evil 4 forum on Steam.

Resident Evil 4 HD Project is currently available for download through its official website. As of now, the mod only works with the Steam version of the game. The devs recommend a GPU with at least 2GB of VRAM to handle the much larger textures and generally upgraded visuals, so it should run fine on almost any modern PC.

We’ve seen about a million Resident Evil 4 ports over the last two decades, but never an upgrade on par with this, so I’m excited to jump back in for one last playthrough or two (or three, or four, or…well, you get the point).

Read original article here

Technology

Resident Evil Village Pirate Says Cracked Release Fixes Bugs From DRM

Leave a comment

Screenshot: Capcom

Resident Evil Village is a good game. But on the PC the game has suffered from annoying stuttering issues that have left many frustrated. Capcom has yet to fix these issues, but now a cracked release of the game that removes all DRM seems to have fixed all the stuttering.

As reported by Dark Side Of Gaming, the PC version of Resident Evil Village was recently cracked by EMPRESS, a famous DRM remover. Now that Village has been cracked, anyone who knows where to look can download a pirated version of the game and play it without DRM. Removing DRM from Village also seems to have fixed those nasty stuttering issues that have been plaguing the game since it was released back in May.

In a message announcing the cracked release of Village, EMPRESS claims that Capcom is using both Denuvo and its own DRM technology. And it seems that all that DRM inside Village was the culprit behind the stutters and gameplay hitches players have experienced.

“All in-game shutters like the one from when you kill a zombie are fixed because Capcom DRM’s entry points are patched out,” explained EMPRESS. “So most of their functions are never executed anymore. This results in much smoother game experience.”

Gameplay of the cracked RE Village.

According to DSOG, after testing the newly cracked version of the game for a few hours, they can confirm that it indeed runs better and is a more enjoyable experience. In a video posted by the DSOG’s EIC, you can clearly see how smooth the game now runs with all the DRM patched out. Compare that to this video of an uncracked version of the game running on RTX 3080.

G/O Media may get a commission

Kotaku has reached out to Capcom and Denuvo about the stuttering and the recent cracked version that appears to fix the issue in Village.

Capcom confirmed in June during E3 that it had started work on DLC for Resident Evil Village. No more details about the upcoming DLC were revealed, but hopefully, Capcom can get the PC version of Village running better before then, even if it means removing DRM from it.

Read More: Resident Evil Village Vs. Resident Evil 4: The Best Merchant

Read original article here