Five Arguments Against “Operation Raccoon City”

Wait, what?

So maybe you’re like me, Dear Reader, and you just wandered innocently into the awareness that something called “Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City” exists. You didn’t ask for the burden of this knowledge, oh no, but it’s here all the same. You now know, and can never unknow, that Capcom has handed Slant Six games the keys to “Resident Evil” and told them to make a team-based, tactical 3rd person shooter.

There are five reasons that’s a terrible idea. Hit the jump to see them.

1. They Had the Idea While Making “Lost Planet 2.” That was your warning right there. Any train of thought experienced during the lengthy and horrible gestation that eventually birthed “Lost Planet 2″ should be beaten, burned and buried in the Earth. That was a cursed time, an uncivilized journey into despair and hopelessness. And if the crushing failure of LP2 wasn’t indication enough that the ol’ thinking train was off the tracks, then I don’t know what is.

2. Slant Six Games. Sort of like a poor man’s Treyarch–which is sad, because Treyarch is a poor man’s Infinity Ward–Slant Six Games does a disservice to pick-up teams everywhere by releasing muddled, unloved renditions of an otherwise popular franchise. Okay, “popular” is a strong word; it’s a “present” franchise. It exists.

True, Slant does solid work on the PSP, but their first and only foray onto the mainline consoles produced “SOCOM: Confrontation,” and while I admit I’ve never played it (or any SOCOM title), its reception in the fan community was not warm. Honestly, I can’t even get past the bland, innocuous subtitle. I wonder if they had a whole trilogy planned, consisting of “SOCOM: Disagreement,” and “SOCOM: Strongly Worded Letter to the Editor.”

3. Left 4 Dead Already Exists. It’s our fault, no one called Capcom to let them know. And it isn’t so much that “Left 4 Dead” exists, it’s that there is no way on God’s green Earth that Slant Six Games is producing a worthy competitor to a Valve product. I don’t mean that as a knock against them, I’m just saying that once Valve has done something, other people tend to stop doing it. Would you like to make the game that competes with “Portal”?

4. What Happened to Horror? You know, it used to be that when you made a survival horror game, you actually made a survival horror game. Now the entire genre has been reduced to “Call of Duty” with some flickering lights. “Dead Space” is largely to blame for this, but in their defense, that’s what they always were. “Resident Evil” is an older franchise, and it should know better.

Did someone tell you there’s no market for horror, sans tits and miniguns? Does some idiot with an advertising degree have you convinced that the kids all want “Bulletstorm” with varying coats of paint on it? For almost a decade, you’ve been scooching quietly away from good old-fashioned suspense, and towards RPGs and motorcycles. What gives? Why is the idea of making a horror game so repulsive to you all, the people who established your empire with horror games?

5. Reboot, Damn You. The RE franchise is lost. They’ve abandoned a numerical nomenclature to hide just how many pieces of crap they’ve thrown at the wall, but if you look closely you’ll see a myriad of half-a**ed, genre-jumping garbage. Somewhere around the on-rails shooter, they should have realized they were grasping around at straws. It’s time to start over.

This franchise needs a reboot. Do something like “Alone in the Dark,” only good. Remember how excited everyone was for that game (until they played it)? There is totally a market for suspense, for that tight feeling in your gut when you only have five rounds left in your pistol. We don’t need a helicopter fight, or squad based combat, or whatever else you people are planning.

You’re not “Gears of War,” and you never will be. Accept that. I know you were watching from a distance while CliffyB ripped through confetti paper with a fake Lancer, thinking, “That should have been us!” And I’m very sorry, but it’s done now. They took the action-horror thing and pretty much peed on it, like a dog pees on a bush. They own it. You can’t sneak in, you can’t break in, you missed the boat. Go back to doing what you do, Capcom. Give me my “Resident Evil” back.

-AA

Interesting. No wait, the other thing: tedious.