"It's a classic game which really utilized the next gen power very well. The world is very strong and very believable, and the whole game was quite inspiring"

Speaking to Computer & Video Games, Kawata said that the decision to include proper co-op play was another borrowing from the West and that Capcom had "incorporated some other aspects" of western gaming that he "can't talk about right at this moment"

Fingers crossed for a Jet Set Willy bonus level!

Resident Evil 5 Interviews [CVG via PSU]

Resident Evil 5 will be hitting PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on March 13th, 2009. Yes, that's a Friday.

I get the impression that production at western, particularly American developers is ahead of those in Japan. But, I think that more and more in Japan, the process of making video game music is becoming specialized.

...More and more Japanese production companies are working together with foreign companies, and sound production quality in Japan is approaching that of the west.

Stuff like this doesn't just make Japanese development, it makes game development better. Interesting side note: Capcom recorded the RE5 parts of the soundtrack at Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox with a hundred plus Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra. This was the first time Capcom has ever recorded a live orchestra for a Resident Evil game.

Interview with Resident Evil 5 [Music 4 Games via Develop]

A couple weeks ago, a friend sent me a A couple of weeks ago, a friend sent me a YouTube link. He described it as “African genocide.” Not knowing what to expect, I clicked on it. What I witnessed for those next 3 minutes, was nerve-wrecking, painful, mind-numbing and heart-racing. It was a trailer for a Video Game called “Resident Evil.”

This specific trailer was an eyeful in the most horrid sense. It wasted no time in capitalizing upon the long history of blatant depictions of Africans as savages and helpless imbeciles. The trailer featured a Caucasian male mutilating African villages, along with Africans. With the not-so ancient history of colonialism and neo-colonialism in Africa, the issue of racial insensitivity and indifference must be brought to the centerfold. This patent-reality must be interrogated excruciatingly to expose the silliness of those who claim the 21st century marked the dawn of a post-racial world.

These are strong words, but the trailer's imagery could also be construed as strong. I personally would be hesitant to accuse anything, least of all a video game, of racism without seeing its full context - in other words, playing the entirety of the game. In the absence of that context, imagery alone doesn't necessarily have a message one way or the other.

At the same time, though, I remember when N'Gai Croal said, "this imagery has a history." I'd be lying if I said I didn't find the trailer unsettling, actually. Which is not necessarily a bad thing in media, if it's used to promote a civil discussion, or to create a realistic environment for a game about African zombies free of ignorance or pique.

For my part, I'd caution all of us against a knee-jerk reaction to Olarunda's revulsion. While it is a complex issue, I surely don't find myself aligned with those who see absolutely no potential for, at the very least, misinterpretation of these images.

And comments like Olarunda's remind us that we should be prepared to receive and respond to the games we play in a thoughtful and intelligent way. I feel we'll need all of our facts, both those that support our position and those that don't, in order once this game is actually released and more pairs of eyes begin to fall on it.

Be civil to one another in discussion, by the way - self-righteousness is not righteousness.

Resident Evil 5: A Travesty On All Counts [Your Black Writers via GamePolitics]

Zero Punctuation: Heavenly Sword and Other Stuff [The Escapist]

My problem is that it presents a fantasy I don't desire. It looks like it's an advertisement to virtually shoot poor people. I know "Resident Evil" games are supposed to be about hiding from and shooting zombies — this one probably is too. Shooting zombies is something I can get behind...But when I see a town of what looks like impoverished African villagers — the very image of global poverty, the very spectacle that since my youth has been coded in me to evoke sympathy and charity — I don't want to pull the trigger.

After mulling over my visceral dislike for the trailer, I have to agree. It transcends white man guilt, hitting a much more sensitive nerve: general American greed.

Whether or not Capcom will use this polar critical response to make a deeper point...let's just say I hope that they aren't wasting some potentially deeply literary material.

That Notorious "Resident Evil 5″ Trailer And The People I Met In Africa [multiplayerblog]

This is problematic on so many levels, including the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young... fearing, hating, and destroying Black people.

This is a really touchy subject. Looking past the mistaken idea that the game is being marketed to children, I can completely see where Platt is coming from to a certain extent. It is a white figure of some authority being attacked by a horde of what appears to be African peoples. This much is true.

On the other hand, zombie stories originated in the Afro-Caribbean Vodoun belief system, so for a series that relies on zombies as its main antagonists, exploring the voodoo origins of zombie mythology seems only natural, and in order to do that you are going to end up exploring villages that just don't happen to have many Caucasians in them.

If the game does anything it bolsters the hatred of black zombies already present in the well-established hatred of zombies in general. It teaches us that no matter what color they are on the outside, flesh-hungry reanimated dead people are really fundamentally the same, and should probably be avoided at all costs. When the zombie apocalypse comes, I'd like to think that mankind will band together regardless of race or nationality in the name of preserving the future of humanity and the safety of our precious brainmeats.

Resident Evil 5 [Black Looks via Game Politics]