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Shinji Mikami says Resident Evil 4 camera wasn’t meant to be groundbreaking

It certainly made shooting in third person feel more natural, you didn't need the character placed awkwardly to keep the reticle center screen.

To me the more attention grabbing innovation at the time was the easy to learn, hard to master precision aiming and how it was situationally advantageous to shoot enemies in different body parts. Those, and some other, factors kept one foot in the door of survival horror and made RE4's combat feel uniquely satisfying.
 

CamHostage

Member
Sorry, not Syphon Filter. I meant Splinter Cell. Sorry, I'm getting old.

Well, not too old, because your memory serves you well, Splinter Cell did in fact use off-center over-the-shoulder aiming (and did it over two years before the release of RE4.)

 
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It wasn't:

RiesUP.gif
 

I_D

Member
A bit of Googling reveals a few finds:

Splintercell, as already mentioned, is an excellent choice. Syphon Filter seems pretty centered, to me.

Fade to Black uses a sorta over-the-neck camera system. I had never heard of this game, but I gotta say it's super impressive for a DOS game.

The original Conker's Bad Fur Day definitely has some over-the-shoulderness to it.

Tomorrow Never Dies might be sliiiiiiighty over-the-shoulder.

I'm sure there are some others, but they're definitely pretty rare.


This is a bit weird to me. I never really paid attention to it, before, and pretty much all third-person-games look the same (camera-wise) in my nostalgia-riddled memory.
It does certainly seem like the now-standard camera system wasn't very popular until RE4.
 

laynelane

Member
It certainly made shooting in third person feel more natural, you didn't need the character placed awkwardly to keep the reticle center screen.

To me the more attention grabbing innovation at the time was the easy to learn, hard to master precision aiming and how it was situationally advantageous to shoot enemies in different body parts. Those, and some other, factors kept one foot in the door of survival horror and made RE4's combat feel uniquely satisfying.

I still remember when I finally figured out that shooting a specific body part could set up a melee action for Leon. It opened up the combat even more and was so much fun.
 

EDMIX

Member
I can see how they'd feel that way.

From fixed camera to over the shoulder was a natural change and not some massive thing to them, but the action focus of RE4 I feel made people see THAT as the ground breaking thing, even if that wasn't its sole purpose when it was first made.

Arachnid Arachnid Agreed. Lots of titles did that and it was more standard for most who did 3rd person shooters.
 
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JonSnowball

Member
Please turn on Anisotropic Filtering.
That screenshot has anisotropic filtering enabled in-game, but now that you've mentioned it I find it rather evident the in-game setting seems to have barely any effect. Here's another shot with forced AF set to 16x and AA 2x to correct my previous horrific mistake.

j0gY4a5.jpg
 

Himuro

Member
Well, not too old, because your memory serves you well, Splinter Cell did in fact use off-center over-the-shoulder aiming (and did it over two years before the release of RE4.)


I think what separates Splinter Cell from RE4 is that RE4 is the first game I can remember that made over shoulder the default camera perspective even outside of aiming. In Splinter Cell that wasn't the case. RE4 helped normalize the perspective outside of aiming. Still innovative.
 
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A bit of Googling reveals a few finds:

Splintercell, as already mentioned, is an excellent choice. Syphon Filter seems pretty centered, to me.

Fade to Black uses a sorta over-the-neck camera system. I had never heard of this game, but I gotta say it's super impressive for a DOS game.

The original Conker's Bad Fur Day definitely has some over-the-shoulderness to it.

Tomorrow Never Dies might be sliiiiiiighty over-the-shoulder.

I'm sure there are some others, but they're definitely pretty rare.


This is a bit weird to me. I never really paid attention to it, before, and pretty much all third-person-games look the same (camera-wise) in my nostalgia-riddled memory.
It does certainly seem like the now-standard camera system wasn't very popular until RE4.

Fade to Black was on the PS1 too, I think that was the original.

Don't forget Freedom Fighters which I posted earlier.

It wasn't:

RiesUP.gif

Several PC third person shooters had it.


I think what separates Splinter Cell from RE4 is that RE4 is the first game I can remember that made over shoulder the default camera perspective even outside of aiming. In Splinter Cell that wasn't the case. RE4 helped normalize the perspective outside of aiming. Still innovative.

Most third-person shooters aren't over the shoulder when you're walking without aiming. They either have the character model zoomed out in the center or on one side of the screen, usually the left. Makes the zoom in easier when aiming.
 
I think what separates Splinter Cell from RE4 is that RE4 is the first game I can remember that made over shoulder the default camera perspective even outside of aiming.
michael-scott-the-office.gif


So many ITT trying to downplay what RE 4 did with horrible examples and bad goal post moving.

Literally summarizing one of the actual interactions in this thread:

"RE 4 wasn't groundbreaking with the third person over the shoulder camera"
"Really? Post evidence of a game that did it before."
"Well I don't have the substantial evidence to prove this so you're right, but still RE 4 didn't do it"
 

jonnyXx

Member
That screenshot has anisotropic filtering enabled in-game, but now that you've mentioned it I find it rather evident the in-game setting seems to have barely any effect. Here's another shot with forced AF set to 16x and AA 2x to correct my previous horrific mistake.

j0gY4a5.jpg
795e14018b766cb310ac23da6391719f.jpeg
 

Himuro

Member
Fade to Black was on the PS1 too, I think that was the original.

Don't forget Freedom Fighters which I posted earlier.



Several PC third person shooters had it.




Most third-person shooters aren't over the shoulder when you're walking without aiming. They either have the character model zoomed out in the center or on one side of the screen, usually the left. Makes the zoom in easier when aiming.
"Most".

You say this and yet it influenced from Gears all the way to Mass Effect. Resident Evil 4 made the blueprint of the modern third person shooter. It was the game that put all the pieces together. After RE4 third person cameras were way closer to the player to the point where you barely see the characters legs. Before RE4 most third person cameras were zoomed back like that Max Payne shot from above. To deny RE4's impact is to deny reality. It changed games overnight literally.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
i mean, no innovation is ever introduced knowing it will be groundbreaking
Unless you’re Apple, then even removing standard features is totally groundbreaking!

Been such a long time since I last played RE4. I kinda burned myself on the game back then, played it so many times on a loop. But people trying to downplay it… why? It was a phenomenal game. The pacing alone is still unmatched by most highly acclaimed games released since then.
 
As a game in general, I think RE4 has a story that really goes nowhere. Actually, that's maybe not true. It sets up the events of later games. But it fails at being a sequel to the older games. The villains are also more cheesy than melted cheddar smothered on toast.

I hate how they set up a future war with Umbrella with the characters expressing their hatred for them, only to do a swerve and explain it all in the opening scene as being they simply went, well, bankrupt. Meh.

But we did get this game to tie up the fact they didn't reveal the downfall of Umbrella.

 

tommib

Member
Unless you’re Apple, then even removing standard features is totally groundbreaking!

Been such a long time since I last played RE4. I kinda burned myself on the game back then, played it so many times on a loop. But people trying to downplay it… why? It was a phenomenal game. The pacing alone is still unmatched by most highly acclaimed games released since then.
It's the pacing that made you finish it on a loop. I've played and finish that game at least 10 times. Why, because even though I start it saying "oh it's just for a little while", 16 hours later I'm like,"shit I finished it again". It grabs you from minute 1 and doesn't let go until you're done with it. Games like these are super rare. That pacing is still a mystery for most devs. I think in a way Mikami did it again with Vanquish but in a much smaller scale.
 
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If they did it first, it is certainly groundbreaking, but while having a camera in first person and centered at third person is the obvious decision, moving it off center isn't wizardry and a mind bending evolution. More important for gameplay was to be able to switch sides. Whoever did that first, because it kind of fixed this innovation, removed the kind of awkward feeling having to approach left corners different than right corners, which is a problem a center camera did not even have to begin with.
 

Himuro

Member
As a game in general, I think RE4 has a story that really goes nowhere. Actually, that's maybe not true. It sets up the events of later games. But it fails at being a sequel to the older games. The villains are also more cheesy than melted cheddar smothered on toast.

I hate how they set up a future war with Umbrella with the characters expressing their hatred for them, only to do a swerve and explain it all in the opening scene as being they simply went, well, bankrupt. Meh.

But we did get this game to tie up the fact they didn't reveal the downfall of Umbrella.


It was a new slate. Old Resident Evil fans obsessed with that stuff are the only ones who care about Umbrella and all that stuff. I'm sorry you didn't get the story you wanted finished but wasn't that story trending away when they made Code Veronica? And they made a prequel (RE0) instead of finishing their Umbrella saga. Even Capcom was like who cares. No one was playing RE for story. These are games with Jill Sandwich dialogue. People played these games for the experience. The characters were barely even characters.

Honestly Salazar is a better villain than every single villain in the franchise.before him.
 
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Kokoloko85

Member
Edit: Max Payne used that same type of camera angle a few years prior (third person with the camera off-center for better shooting). But RE4 is what made it work for console controls and was much tighter in quality.

RE4 is closer and more over the shoulder. And when you aim it gets even closer. Max Payne is more central

mVCL08M.jpg
O5nBpLK.jpg
CQ5GcHH.jpg
 
"Most".

You say this and yet it influenced from Gears all the way to Mass Effect.

Actually Gears of War influenced several of those games, or some of the game just had similar mechanics that existed without citing RE4 or gears as an influence. But none of this is relevant since most third-person shooters aren't over the shoulder when you're walking without aiming, (or in a mode that changes the camera to that), you're trying to dismiss that fact to inflate the importance of RE4 but it doesn't really change anything that the majority, even among the most popular of TPS, don't have a close shoulder style when walking without aiming. that doesn't take away from what RE4 did influence so not sure what you're doing that.

Before RE4 most third person cameras were zoomed back like that Max Payne shot from above. To deny RE4's impact is to deny reality. It changed games overnight literally.

No one did that, you're having a meltdown over nothing, there were also several TPS games that had multiple camera modes, like the gif I showed above. it did not change games overnight either, Gears did, now you're inflating its important even further, which will inevitably have to be pushed back. Until after Gears, which also wasn't overnight, success than you saw the clones and the games using IT'S iteration of that RE4+Kill Switch formula, but in a way that made the devs jump on with it, which wasn't as common with RE4, where many devs either still had the multiple camera modes like the game I gifted above, or the far back Max Payne style.

RE4 influenced games, no one is denying that, you're just putting too much value on what it actually did, and then heading toward sensationalism. I mean this part of the conversation started with you moving the goal posts to games that had over the shoulder shooting, to having it when they are walking.

RE4 also influenced the RE series to RE5 and RE6, it's not all one-sided.

Important game, especially for RE series good and bad, was influential. No need to go further.


Did nobody play Virtuoso on the 3DO LOL

There are parts of that game that zoomed in, but you weren't aiming, you were still shooting the same way, just the camera zoomed in lol. Also, that game was hot in the magazines back then, digitized rocker with shotguns blazing.

Then people played it.

If they did it first, it is certainly groundbreaking, but while having a camera in first person and centered at third person is the obvious decision, moving it off center isn't wizardry and a mind bending evolution. More important for gameplay was to be able to switch sides. Whoever did that first, because it kind of fixed this innovation, removed the kind of awkward feeling having to approach left corners different than right corners, which is a problem a center camera did not even have to begin with.

No, I don't even think it was the first RE game to have an over the shoulder shooting, I believe some previous spin-offs had it, than some arcade games had it, light gun, several PC games, I don't think Console games had it though outside of the Xbox which has a few, Freedom Fighters and the like. Don't recall the PS2 or GameCube having any before 2005.
 
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