Trailer Park – Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

Neon tells us what’s really going on in the latest Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City trailer while reminiscing about 1998.

So, this is all that’s left of Raccoon City’s Annual Fair. I know that we’re attending in the aftermath of a massive zombie outbreak, but even so, it looks a bit s***. While it’s too dark to see everything clearly, there’s a distinct lack of the kind of stuff I demand from a half-decent fair. Where’s the candy floss stall? Where’s the Hook-a-Duck game? I’m not even going to bother looking for a big wheel, because they clearly didn’t book one. Even if you make allowances for stuff that might have been broken or carried away by the living dead, it’s clear that the event’s organisers were woefully disorganised this year. Frankly, I’m not surprised that it all ended in disaster.

We’re introduced to the main players in today’s narrative excursion. First we meet the good guys (you can tell this from the fact that their voices are higher pitched, and less raspy), and then the villainous S&M employees of the Umbrella Corporation. Both sides want to take samples using their weird syringe guns, but despite Capcom’s efforts to make this creepy and sinister, it just looks like that thing kids do when they’re feeding a doll with a plastic bottle. Also, listen carefully when the Umbrella guys start running down the road: one of them does an amazing impression of Milhouse from The Simpsons.

It’s a Licker! A LICKER! I don’t know whether I should soil my pants in terror, or start crying in a fit of joyful nostalgia. Maybe I’ll do both at once, as I tend to at school reunions.

This sequence shows how much things have changed. The lady in this clip does all sorts of fancy gymnastics, wall-hops and the like, and her weapon of choice is a freakin’ knife. When the Licker tries to, uh, lick her, she grabs the tongue and uses it as a leash. Call me old-fashioned, but I preferred the way we used to do things in Resident Evil 2, when combat with a Licker meant stomping up and down a corridor, swivelling on the spot in a rigid “take aim” pose, and then eventually dying due to the camera changing angle unexpectedly. Ah, how I miss 1998.

The character design of the Umbrella Operatives reminds me of that “Are we the baddies?” sketch Mitchell and Webb did. This chap’s mask doesn’t do much to disguise his evil intentions… in fact, I’m pretty sure it was made by the same tailor who did the Helghast uniforms in Killzone. Here, our chap is getting needlessly excited about planting a mine. “Hahaha! Boom!” he says, in case we don’t understand what’s going on. Or maybe he just really enjoys his work.

At this point Mr Sad Blue Eyes and his colleague Ms Rave Mask have a competition to see who can do the best husky bad-guy voice. The latter sounds as if she could really do with a Strepsil or two. As it transpires, the Umbrella gang has just wandered into a pitch-black area that’s packed to the rafters with zombies. On a side note, have you ever noticed that zombies and other mindless monsters develop a strange talent for keeping perfectly silent when it’s dark? And then when someone turns a torch on, they all go mental. They must have some instinctive flair for drama.

This guy may look like he’s being groomed by Louis Walsh for the next series of The X Factor (or perhaps just groomed, full stop), but make no mistake – he’s a hardcore military specialist, and the apparent leader of the Good Guys.

Here Mr BoyBand shows off his razor-sharp combat nous… by slowly walking straight towards the freaky-looking gimps with guns. Amazingly, this results in him being ambushed by one of the Umbrella chaps, who had the sense to use his Predator-style cloaking device. Note that the villain’s gun is roughly an inch away from BoyBand’s face.

I’m not sure what ammunition Team Umbrella are using, but it’s powerful enough to make Leon Kennedy’s head disappear – achieving with a single bullet what Dr Salvador and his chainsaw could not. Except that was in Resident Evil 4, which hasn’t happened yet. And probably won’t happen at all now, given that Leon has just had his face blown off.

Meanwhile, the chap with the cloaking device fails to shoot Mr BoyBand, despite the fact that he’s at point-blank range. Good job, idiot.

Following this massive explosion, everything goes a bit slow-mo and the sound cuts out. This may be a representation of how lag will affect online play.

See that? That’s a T-103 Tyrant, that is. I know this because a) I played the hell out of Resident Evil 2, and b) because a few moments ago one of the bad girls said that a T-103 was on its way. She knew this because she had some kind of Tyrant app on her watch. It’s like the one TFL puts out, basically, only with genetic monstrosities in place of buses. Also, the Tyrants actually show up when they’re supposed to.

Who has the worse taste in fashion – the evil Umbrella lady with her SS bondage gear? Or the burly good guy with his pirate neck beard, facial tattoos, and sunglasses worn on the back of his head? We’ll only know for sure when Operation Raccoon City launches at the end of March.