Capcom's New Path for RE4

[MuGen]

TOKYO, JAPAN -- Capcom revealed to select press executives that the RE4 release for the PS2 would take on a new path. Earlier footage from E3 2004 showed Leon wandering an old decrepit mansion which was reminiscent of the past survival horror games. This included enemies such as bloody dolls and spectre's shooting from paintings and a whole new adventure as Capcom would put it. Resident Evil 4 for the PS2 will take this path, and include 5 more hours of gameplay. The PS2 version will have what would be the Gamecube version's story, plus the mansion which would unveil more in the story. Capcom has stated that this is one of the reasons it is releasing the PS2 version a year later.

S...I...C...K................ I'm getting the PS2 version now!

EDIT: If you look at the earlier footage, it shows the game in a free third person mode which first person aiming. It is all coming together.

[Neo]

What in the holy hell? The PS2 version will have 5 more hours? That totally blows for GC owners. I guess it's good I haven't gotten RE4 yet. Though will the graphics be on par?

[Null]

What in the holy hell? The PS2 version will have 5 more hours? That totally blows for GC owners. I guess it's good I haven't gotten RE4 yet. Though will the graphics be on par?



obviously technically the graphics wont be on par. however IMO, i believe they can cut enough corners, and find ways to work around some problems that the graphics will look reasonably close enough.

[Jonbo298]

RE4 Directors Cut for the 'Cube down the road? (or Revolution :p )

But good news for PS2 owners. Nintendo is probably pretty peeved but oh well, **** happens :D

[thatmariolover]

Meh. As frustrated as I am that they didn't just wait and release the same thing on the Gamecube I suppose it's only fair that PS2 owners get something for the long wait.

[Dyne]

I predict those 5 hours are going to be more like 2 hours for gamers like us. PR tends to release numbers clocked in casual gamer time.

[Joeiss]

I predict those 5 hours are going to be more like 2 hours for gamers like us. PR tends to release numbers clocked in casual gamer time.


More like retarded gamer time.

[Stray_Bullet]

Didn't they also screw with the gameplay in the PS2 version? I'd rather rent 'em both first. I'm leaning toward the Cube verison still.

[Teuthida]

Sounds like they're adding the scrapped original version of the game to it. IGN has videos of the old mansion with the killer dolls (they're so cute as they burn and squirm). Actually looks better than RE4 I heard, but merely because of small spaces.

[BreakABone]

I don't know for some odd reason I just don't buy this.. can't quite put my finger on it.. but it just doesn't sound right

And is there a link?

[BreakABone]

Well this is stolen from a thread at IGN from a Japanese magazine.

According to a japanese publication (CG World), the Capcom team working on the PS2 version of RE4 are facing a very difficult time porting the game to Sony's console.

Here are some few points they mentioned in the article:

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1). The original team headed by Shinji Mikami was able to incorporate 24-bit textures into the GameCube edition of RE4.

However the team working on the port of RE4 will have to incorporate downsampled 4- and 8-bit textures into the PS2 version, whose texture memory capacity is far smaller than that of the Nintendo console.

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2). The polygon count used for the main protagonist (Leon) will have to drop down from 10.000 seen in the GC version, to half that amount in order to perform well on the PS2 version.

The magazine mentions that Leon has almost 3 times the amount of polygons than the Solid Snake character featured in Metal Gear Solid 3 for the PS2. Snake is made up of only 4000 polygons.

(As a side note, according to Factor 5, the pilots from Rogue Squadron were comprised of 4000 polygons. The X-Wings themselves, were made up of 30,000 polygons!)

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3). Due to the PS2's huge Direct Memory Access bandwidth, the team working on the RE4 version will be able to provide an exceptionally high number of textures into the game.

However, adding such textures to the polygons will slow down the frame rate of the game, even more so than it occasionally happens in the GC version. This due to the PS2's limited texture memory capacity.

The PS2 version will have dramatic frame-rate problems if they try to include all the texture layers and polygonal lighting featured in the GC version. Some major adjustments will have to be made.

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4). The GC graphics engine can produce 50 percent more polygons to all the characters than the PS2. The PS2's graphics engine can draw 10 million triangles per second, but after adding gameplay, collision, logic, sound, and so forth, the PS2 edition of RE4 ultimately will move around 30,000 to 50,000 triangles per frame, at an average rate of 30 frames per second.

The GameCube also has a faster CPU that can boost the frame rate to 60 frames per second (twice that of the PS2), and utilizes its texture compression ability to deliver high-resolution textures with improved color variance.

Now I personally don't care to argue technically specs or anything of the sorts. Don't even care how accurate the article is.

I just find it hard that if they are struggling to port the game to the Cube that they would go ahead and add 5 extra hours of the game... which has yet to be mentioned by any other site for the record...

Heck, this wasn't mentioned by any site since we have neither link nor source.

[DarkMaster]

Wow, Snake looks damn good for only 4000 polygons.

[Jonbo298]

Wow, I didn't think (if thats true) they would have to "dumb down" the game that much. If it still plays well but looks worse, hopefully the added stuff makes up. I'd probably still play it if I could for PS2 but it would feel weird

[Crash]

heh, no wonder they didn't wanna port that crap.... gunna sell like crap on the PS2 with so many downgrades... just get the gamecube version, it'll be a lot better:

concider other ports to the PS2:


Ghost Recon for xbox 8.8
Ghost recon for ps2: 4.0

Resident evil 2 for gc: 5.0
resident evil 2 for ps: 9.2

Sonic Heroes for GC: 8.0
Sonic Heroes for PS2: 6.9


conviced now that ports are always crappier than original by a freaking long shot???? buy the gamecube version

[DarkMaster]

Well, people with just a PS2 aren't gonna go out and buy a GameCube so they can play RE4. Dumbed down graphics aside.

And of course the port is going to get a lower score, by then the game is older and the majority of the score is based off of graphic transition and new gameplay implementations. A lower score on a port does not make it a bad game.

[DeathsHand]

The reason RE2 got such low reviews on GC is because it cost fuggin 40 or 50 bucks or whatever it was...

The game itself was exactly the same as the Dreamcast version (which was exactly the same as the PS1 version with slightly upgraded graphics) which was released (for 20 bucks) on that system a couple years earlier, which was a few years after the game was originally released on PS1...

[Jonbo298]

Thats the one thing I never understoord. $40 for a straight port, nothing made special game. At least REmake (1) was worth the price for what they did for making it look awesome on the 'Cube.

[CamFu]

Thats the one thing I never understoord. $40 for a straight port, nothing made special game. At least REmake (1) was worth the price for what they did for making it look awesome on the 'Cube.

That is what I thought too. But check out what people are paying on Ebay.

Resident Evil 2 (GC) (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=62053&item=8167087068&rd=1)

Almost makes you wish that you bought a couple copies of it huh?

[MuGen]

Man I wish game developers would use their time wisely and utilize PS2's vector units. If anyone remembers past articles, the PS2 has A LOT more power than everyone presumes. But no one wants to spend their extra time using the PS2's vector units.

I remember in an article a couple of months ago, that game developers are only using 60% of the PS2's power, using polygons instead of vector graphics. Since GC and Xbox are easier to design for, the graphics project well on those systems.

We need more games that use the vector based units. One game off the top of my head used the vector units, and that was Final Fantasy X.

Edit: Also, SONY put in the Vector Unit Processor for big and long games. Also for scaling purposes. If anyone knows about graphic design, they know Vector Based Graphics stay crystal clear , no matter how many times it's resized. So if a game used vector units for their graphics, the game would look slick on a big screen or a small screen TV. But I want developers to really consider this.... but too late now.... the power of the PS3 is on the horizon.

[bobcat]

Man I wish game developers would use their time wisely and utilize PS2's vector units. If anyone remembers past articles, the PS2 has A LOT more power than everyone presumes. But no one wants to spend their extra time using the PS2's vector units.

I remember in an article a couple of months ago, that game developers are only using 60% of the PS2's power, using polygons instead of vector graphics. Since GC and Xbox are easier to design for, the graphics project well on those systems.

We need more games that use the vector based units. One game off the top of my head used the vector units, and that was Final Fantasy X.

Edit: Also, SONY put in the Vector Unit Processor for big and long games. Also for scaling purposes. If anyone knows about graphic design, they know Vector Based Graphics stay crystal clear , no matter how many times it's resized. So if a game used vector units for their graphics, the game would look slick on a big screen or a small screen TV. But I want developers to really consider this.... but too late now.... the power of the PS3 is on the horizon.

I remember reading about that..........Ps2 has some really nice visuals. Was there any other games using VUP? MGS2?

[DeathsHand]

That is what I thought too. But check out what people are paying on Ebay.

Resident Evil 2 (GC) (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=62053&item=8167087068&rd=1)

Almost makes you wish that you bought a couple copies of it huh?

Damnit you beat me to it! I wanted to point out how crazy the prices were on Ebay because nobody bought it in the stores :<

anyways, a straight up port of an old game for 40 bucks is bad enough, but the fact that the same damn port was released like 2 years earlier for 20 bucks less on DC is even worse...

[Canyarion]

So.... do we believe the first article about the added content in RE4 for PS2??? :unsure:

[MuGen]

it's possible if they are planning to use this time to design in VUP.

but I got that piece roaming other PS forums and most of them had it... thats why I don't have a link.

[MuGen]

I remember reading about that..........Ps2 has some really nice visuals. Was there any other games using VUP? MGS2?

The only games confirmed to have used the VUP (from many PS fan sites and also buried beneath IGN articles):

Final Fantasy X
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Samurai Warriors

I'm surprised to see KOEI in that list... but now that I think about it, when I'm playing Samurai Warriors or Dynasty Warriors... there are MANY people in high detail on the same map at the same time, and I don't get any type of lag or sluggishness in the PS2's framerate.

Also the visuals in FFX and gameplay was just amazing. Along with MGS3

[AzeaL]

Im tired of the resident evil series, its just getting old :mad:

[DarkMaster]

Im tired of the resident evil series, its just getting old :mad:
RE4 is a hell of a lot different than the previous games.

[BlueFire]

RE4 is a hell of a lot different than the previous games.
Yeah, it's actually challenging :P

[DeathsHand]

Yeah, it's actually challenging :P

Hey, the past RE games were challenging if you thought you had to kill every enemy you saw, even if you weren't heading over in their direction and you could easily outrun them :p

[AzeaL]

i havent exactly played it yet but ive seen ads,screenshots and articles and it sounds and looks pretty cool

[Jason1]

Im not buying that 5 hours of extra mansion crap at all. I need a decent source, and so far we still dont have one.

[MuGen]

Past RE games were challenging as hell. We say they weren't now with confidence obviously because of the main fact that we've beaten them. But we all know and admit to spending hours trying to figure something out the first time we actually played RE on PSX. I know when I "FIRST" (strong word for RE) played the RE1 on PSX, I was astonished... and it was a quite hard game. And if either one of you say it was NOT challenging for you the first time you ever played an RE game, you're in denial.