No hope left, indeed....
Change can be good. It WAS good almost eight years ago when Capcom delivered one of the most badass sequels to this once marvelous franchise: Resident Evil 4. Almost everything about it was improved to the point where even though it was a completely different play-style, the atmosphere, suspense and overall mood still fit right at home with its predecessors.
Being a fan since the original PS1 classic, 4 became my all-time favorite entry in the series... and it still is to this day. I honestly felt the series could only get better from there. I was mistaken...
Resident Evil 5 managed to piss me off with its forced co-op (the AI being dumb as bricks), absurdly ludicrous story twist with Wesker becoming Neo, unforgivably restrictive inventory system, and its jarring departure from horror altogether. It was no longer a survival horror game, but now just a run-of-the-mill action one. At the time, I didn't HATE it, but it left me distraught and uninterested in where the series was going to go on from there.
Three years later, number 6 emerged. Honestly, the series veteran inside me was still mildly excited for this one, even though 5 is something I'll probably never return to. Seeing Leon and Chris fighting together was a big draw... especially since Leon's my favorite protagonist of the series. I watched the trailers. I knew ahead of time that this was going to be an action-packed, bullet-riddled entry. But in good faith, I gave it a fair chance to see if it could deliver and revive my hope for the franchise.
Though I still can't get over the design of the game's logo. Ever since it was pointed out to me that the "6" on the cover looks like a giraffe getting head, I've been unable to unsee it. :|
Pros: Excellent production values with a strikingly impressive visual presentation; Great voice acting; Solid story with interwoven paths to keep things interesting; You can finally move while shooting
Cons: Infuriatingly clumsy controls; Aiming is an absolute mess; Quick-time-events mar the action considerably; Forced emphasis on co-op; Horrid tutorial system; Absolutely no way to pause the game, at all.... unless you're offline; Flat, uninteresting boss fights; Chase sequences are easy, straight-forward and lack any sort of excitement; Even on Amateur setting, enemies take way too many bullets to kill; Environments are far too dark, making it hard to see your enemies; Upcoming DLC is already on disc
Graphics & Presentation: 9
There is no denying it. Resident Evil 6 looks absolutely fantastic! The impressive lighting, the impressive character models, and amazingly beautiful settings, this is easily the best looking game in the series.
Primarily with the game's tremendous action sequences, everything looks and feels like an adrenaline-fueled big screen action flick. Explosions look great. The angry spreads of fire look realistic. Monsters look just as nasty and grisly as ever, with grotesque appendages and really horrific attacks.
Unfortunately, some of this is obstructed by the game's wonky camera, and areas that are so unbelievably dark, it can be easy to flail around and get lost. It was even difficult to make out certain enemies in such low light. Look, I know it's meant to generate a little realism and tension, but it's a bit of an unfair match when you're surrounded by speedy creatures with no sense of where they're attacking you from.
Sound Effects & Music: 9
This is easily the best voice work I've heard in the series. Coming from earlier entries that had goofy, hammy acting, and obnoxious voices, everything's been on a more serious path since 4, with convincing performances by actors who really give a damn.
Creature sounds and overall action are nothing to complain about. All the icky growly snarls, screeches and disgusting squishy sounds are great, and really emphasize the overall mood of your surroundings. Not to mention all this is accompanied by a pretty kickass soundtrack.
But some of the soundbytes got a little on my nerves, especially with certain commands. Characters will often repeat the exact same phrases over and over when opening a door or getting a boost to a higher platform. I got so sick and tired of hearing Jake shout "I know what I'm doing!" almost every single time. Sometimes he'd say it twice within 3 seconds because he'd have to repeat it once the camera angle changed.
Story: 8
Now this was an interesting approach. Resident Evil 6 is separated into three separate campaigns, plus a fourth bonus one, all which intertwine and connect with each other at several points. You have Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy, Jake Muller, and the bonus one with Ada Wong.
I honestly liked this approach, since each campaign is spread across five chapters, and will take at least 5-6 hours to run through, making this a pretty decent length for an action game.
Leon's campaign is with Helena Harper, and they're off to investigate the spread of the T-virus shortly after having to kill the infected President of the United States. Unfortunately, word gets out about his death, and Leon is now being accused of an assassination, so his main prerogative is to dig deep and uncover the real truth of what happened.
Chris starts out drinking his sorrows away at a bar after having his entire B.S.A.A. squad wiped out by Ada Wong. After suffering some amnesia because of it, he stopped caring who he was or what he had accomplished. After spending time tracking him down, B.S.A.A. member Piers Nevans shows up and asks for his help to investigate the spread of the mysterious C-virus in China.
Government agent Shery Berkin is on a mission to protect a man who's completely immune to the C-virus's effects, Jake Muller... who early on, turns out to be Albert Wesker's son. Knowing of his potential life-saving antibodies that could wipe out the virus, other organizations are after them both, and a monster named Astunuk is unleashed to put a stop to them. He's practically a monstrously upgraded version of Nemesis.
All three stories wrap around each other nicely, and offer just enough meat to keep you wanting to see what happens next. In many ways, it erases some of the bad taste left over by 5, since it focuses more on the outbreak, and less on a main bad guy with superpowers. This is probably the only redeeming experience I had gotten from this game.
Controls & Gameplay: 2
There's distinct difference between action horror and just plain old action. When Resident Evil decided to ditch the horror part for whatever reason, they failed to do one important thing: make sure the action works.
For starters, the very moment I opened the shrinkwrap to my copy last Monday night, all that came packed inside (besides the disc of course) was a card with movie ads and a white, folded piece of paper with warranty information. No instructions at all. Hell, I heard the XBOX 360 version went even cheaper by having the warranty info printed on the back of the insert. :|
Normally, this wouldn't be all that big of a deal, even though I am so sick of this "cost-cutting" crap with games, and their cheap fucking bendy eco-cases. Most games have a pretty thorough tutorial built-in. Resident Evil 6 does not. In fact, even though it does attempt to weave you through some controls in the prologue, the rest is left for you to figure out on your own.
Several different characters, all with different HUDs... no instructions on how to use them. No instructions on how to combine items in your inventory. No instructions on how to swap over-the-shoulder views. No pause button to allow you to sit back and observe your settings...
You fucking read that right. NO WAY TO PAUSE THE GAME. I discovered this early on when playing Chris' first chapter, and running around inside the building to rescue civilians. I decided I wanted to get something to drink, and after discovering that there was no way to traditionally pause the action, I used the PS Home button and walked away. Only a couple minutes pass and I return to hear Chris getting strangled to death in the background. I return from the Home menu to see "YOU ARE DEAD" on the screen, and I let out the most audible "WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?!" at 1 in the morning.
Oh man, what if your controller were to suddenly die and disconnect right then and there? You'd be fucked! :O
Who in their fucking right mind thought this was even remotely acceptable?! Since when is something as simple as a "pause" feature so taboo that it has to be left out entirely? I can understand if you're playing online with a friend, since he can back you up while you walk away for a second. But playing solo? I can't take a bathroom break? I can't pause the game to answer my phone, or take a bite of food? Pausing is just as important as any other action, it's already bad enough that the action doesn't stop while you flip through your inventory.
Come to find out, after playing for a bit, THERE IS a way to pause, but you have to be playing in the game's "offline" mode. NOWHERE in the game, or anywhere else does it tell you this! And besides, there's a "Don't Allow" option you can pick when starting a campaign when it asks you if you want people to join, so offline or not, isn't this a clear indication that I want to play solo?
Apparently, the game gets confused with this, because even though I clearly picked "Don't Allow" from the beginning, there were times where it would actually tell me it was searching for players during one of the loading screens. Hey, did you fucking read what I picked?! I SAID NO! I DON'T WANNA PLAY WITH ANYONE!! STOP TELLING ME I SHOULD!!
The game's default settings are applied to online co-op, but even then, you're stuck with an AI partner if you choose to play alone. One of the biggest annoyances that made me dislike 5 so much came back with a vengeance.
Thankfully, your AI partner isn't a big fucking retard this time. I wanted to give Sheva five across the face so many times in the last game for picking up items I needed and wasting herbs on me for stepping on a thumbtack. He/she (depending on the campaign) will often stay out of your way, and is completely self-reliant. They have unlimited health and ammunition, so there's no micromanagement involved.
Though one thing I do question is the constant having to convert herbs you find into tablets. This felt extremely unnecessary, especially when accessing your inventory at ANY time opens your defenses up to danger. Why was the very basic fundamental idea of using health items dragged out to such an archaic and drawn out process like this? Why couldn't it just be a pile of herbs and first aid spray cans like the other games in the past?!
Your health meter is now a series of six squares, and you're also given a stamina gauge. This is for whenever you perform melee attacks on your enemies, and it goes down with every hit. Each character has their own attack, but once the meter runs out, they hunch over, grabbing their side, while walking ever-so slowly. Their kicks looking more like wimpy flails. When using weaker characters, I can kinda understand this, but as more physically fit characters like Jake, Leon, or Chris? I call bullshit.
Not only that, but it seems to take FOREVER for it to build itself back up unless you use an herb tablet or a first aid spray. It's especially frustrating when you're hopelessly surrounded. Look, I get it. It's supposed to be realistic. To create tension. Yeah, enough tension to make me want to hammer my controller through the screen. The character controls alone are clumsy enough as it is. Melee attacks are also marred by the horrific camera. There were so many moments where I just kicked nothing but air when a zombie was literally standing right in front of me.
Walking around in general feels like I'm drunk half the time, it's hard to keep my character straight when running down corridors. Oh, and boy will you be running a lot, due to how over-swarmed with monsters you'll get later on. So much to the point where you feel the game's in a bit of a hurry to get you through the chapter. You have no time to explore your surroundings and admire the set design, because these bastards will come out of nowhere like one gigantic clown car. And since you're encouraged to conserve ammunition, you can't realistically kill everything in sight.
And I do mean "in sight" in the most literal way possible. As I mentioned earlier about the game's lighting, there are way too many damn places that are pitch black, and trying to pick off creatures in the darkness is next to impossible! More bullets hit the walls and floor than anything else!
Hey Capcom, third person shooters with slow-moving characters are NOT fun. Didn't you learn your fucking lesson with the shitstorm that was Lost Planet?
I went into this game just after completing Borderlands 2. Now I know what you're thinking. It's a little unfair to compare shooting mechanics from an FPS to a game like Resident Evil. But when so much emphasis has been shifted to shooting monsters in the head, I do kinda expect precise controls when it comes to aiming and firing. I've played my share of shooters over the past decade, and when the controls are solid, I can nail headshot after headshot without any sort of assistance. That's just how I've adapted. Headshots get the job done faster! BOOM! Done.
The controls here are incredibly shaky, trying to aim your weapon at a specific appendage when the action is frantic feels like I'm trying to pass a DUI test with a cop after having several hard drinks at a friend's bachelor party. The crosshairs will stay put, but the laser sight of your weapon will still dance around, thus making things slightly disorienting when trying to aim at a distance.
Not only that, but what is with these games lately where it takes an entire clip of bullets to down just one guy? Even if every single bullet is fired at the head sometimes, they still charge forward. Some monsters don't even display any sort of knockback, even when I blast them in the face with my shotgun! Are their skulls thickly plated with a layer of kevlar? Jesus Christ, it's ridiculous! The amount of health monsters have is terribly uneven, since some will go down just by kicking them in the shins... while others require about 30 bullets to put down. Especially when they become Crimson Heads, which constantly pissed me off whenever I was getting low on ammo. Yay! My enemy just transformed into something that's even more irritating as fuck to kill! :D
They also added a feature that allows you to throw yourself back and fire your weapon while lying on the ground by simply pulling back on the left thumbstick and pressing X. While the action is rather cool at first, it's poorly mapped and renders itself useless, because it's so easy to accidentally do... since holding down the X button alone allows you to sprint. It doesn't do anything but make you even MORE vulnerable to enemy attacks! I fell to my death so many times while trying to run away because my character decided to throw himself to the floor instead of running out of the room, like he was saying "FUCK IT!" and wanted to give up.
That's okay, not everything moves at a sluggish pace. Your reflexes will be tested numerous times with the sheer number of intrusive and irritating quick-time-events! :D Numbers may vary per player, but I decided to keep tally marks on just how many times I would encounter these wonderful little things. Why? Well, in the first five minutes, I encountered over ten of them. The total number I experienced in this game? 127.
And many aren't just timed-button actions in order to operate machinery or start engines, a lot of them are "PRESS THIS NOW OR YOU FUCKING DIE!!" ones. You know, they pop up for barely half a second, so you have to have those super-powered lightning skills in order to react for the first time? Some come completely out of nowhere during what I THOUGHT were cinematics. Like one where I had to shoot a B.O.W. in the head before falling out of a plane... However, I was out of ammo at the time, so it took me about 11 deaths to realize there was a box of bullets at the very beginning that I had to grab the very second the scene started. But since it's not loaded right away, my default weapon was a stun stick. So not only did I have to grab bullets, but I also had to swap weapons, reload, and THEN aim at the monster's head before falling to my death... all within a window of four seconds. Fuck... you....
Some QTEs ask you to wiggle the thumbstick so fast I honestly thought I was going to break mine off on a couple occasions. Or you have to hit the button at a precise moment when the spinning indicator hits just the right spot. Then you have the ones I fucking hate the most: Having to tap-tap-tap-tap one single button really fast for an excessively long period of time while the character SLOWLY crawls under a platform.
There was one sequence during Jake's campaign where you're running from a monster and you have to go through a series of steel doors. Each door required you to spin the thumbstick really fast, and then stop and hit the circle button to open it. Each one was like one after the other, and you had to do all of it fast... or else suffer the consequences.
And people wonder why I hate quick-time-events so goddamn much. I can handle the random button-presses from time to time during fights in order to perform special attacks, but this "do now, or die!" bullshit is not acceptable. I also loved how over half the doors had to be opened with two people, so if your partner was running around killing zombies in another room, you had to sit there and wait for him... just so you both could kick it open at the same time.
Then you have some of the games larger set pieces that SHOULD be awesome from the get-go. Like when Chris is manning a mounted machine gun while speeding after Ada Wong through the streets of China. Or when Sherry's riding on the back of a motorcycle with Jake and shooting pursuers at high speed. These should have been exciting! They're not... As a matter of fact, they're ridiculously simple and lazy.
Take the chase sequence with Jake and Sherry, and you're prompted to shoot at your followers quickly. Well, you don't really have to do anything, because I once sat the controller down during a cutscene to munch down on some food, and was a bit slow to pick it back up. Three of my pursuers all hit oncoming trucks or obstacles, thus making my participation completely pointless! I didn't test this, but I probably could have just sat back and watched the action as Jake did the driving for me all the way to the endpoint. The part where Chris is flying a jet and shooting at enemy choppers should be a blast, if it wasn't for the controls!
But then again, these set pieces lose their awe and wonder pretty quickly, especially when they become just a series of explosions after explosions, and seeing your characters get thrown back over and over again. It gets awfully tiresome and repetitive.
How about strategically placed corpses that are destined to become zombies, but don't until after a pivotal cutscene takes place? Ooooh! Surprise, surprise! Even boss battles lacked any sort of real challenge, or excitement for that matter. So many of them were deliberately scripted, there were a few where I didn't have to kill them at all, because characters from a parallel story arc did the job for me. Hell, one was simply just a series of quick-time-events with a monster that just would not fucking die!
Experiencing Resident Evil 6 is more of a chore... a struggle... It puts you in a fighting ring with your controller and your patience due to how sloppy this game was put together. How is it that we have evolved so far with action games these past few years, and yet this game feels like it came out years before that, and everyone who worked on it had absolutely no clue how to make any of it work? What happened?
It's a challenge to experience, but that's mostly due to the sheer amounts of frustration I went through while playing it. Even with all the nifty upgrades you could apply, I barely even noticed much of a difference.
This game is so blatantly dull. It fails hard in so many areas where other, more typical shooters manage to get right on the first attempt, and Capcom should be embarrassed by that. Even when the game slows down in order to allow you to explore felt broken, since you were forced to walk so incredibly slow. It's as if every campaign was specifically scripted to be taken on the exact same way every single time. To put things bluntly, the game behaves like an endurance run from point A to point B, with a series of repetitive doors lined up in between.
If it hadn't been for the story and the characters I grew to love over the years, I would have quit playing after the first hour.
Overall Grade: D
Capcom actually made a statement last week, responding to the critical masses, saying "Well, you can't please everyone." Really? Did you even bother TRYING to please your fans?
No, I am not being too harsh. I have no problem calling out "shit" when I see it, and Resident Evil 6 is a complete and utter failure. It failed hard as a horror game, and fails even harder as a straight-forward action one. To stand here and listen to people actually praise this game is absolutely perplexing. Did any of you play the same game as me? Am I holding a magical defective copy?
There is no excuse for piss-poor controls for ANY action game that requires quick reflexes to take on adrenaline-pumping scenarios. Even with the game's terrific production values and intriguing stories, I just cannot bring myself to say that I had a good time... because I didn't. I FORCED myself to crawl and slither through this broken mess of a game, just so I could see where the story was going. If anything, I would have loved it a hundred times more if this were just a movie.
My recommendation: If you really want to experience this game and enjoy the story, go to YouTube and watch a Let's Play of the whole thing. Let someone else suffer in the process while you watch the action. You'll thank me later.
Being a fan since the original PS1 classic, 4 became my all-time favorite entry in the series... and it still is to this day. I honestly felt the series could only get better from there. I was mistaken...
Resident Evil 5 managed to piss me off with its forced co-op (the AI being dumb as bricks), absurdly ludicrous story twist with Wesker becoming Neo, unforgivably restrictive inventory system, and its jarring departure from horror altogether. It was no longer a survival horror game, but now just a run-of-the-mill action one. At the time, I didn't HATE it, but it left me distraught and uninterested in where the series was going to go on from there.
Three years later, number 6 emerged. Honestly, the series veteran inside me was still mildly excited for this one, even though 5 is something I'll probably never return to. Seeing Leon and Chris fighting together was a big draw... especially since Leon's my favorite protagonist of the series. I watched the trailers. I knew ahead of time that this was going to be an action-packed, bullet-riddled entry. But in good faith, I gave it a fair chance to see if it could deliver and revive my hope for the franchise.
Though I still can't get over the design of the game's logo. Ever since it was pointed out to me that the "6" on the cover looks like a giraffe getting head, I've been unable to unsee it. :|
Pros: Excellent production values with a strikingly impressive visual presentation; Great voice acting; Solid story with interwoven paths to keep things interesting; You can finally move while shooting
Cons: Infuriatingly clumsy controls; Aiming is an absolute mess; Quick-time-events mar the action considerably; Forced emphasis on co-op; Horrid tutorial system; Absolutely no way to pause the game, at all.... unless you're offline; Flat, uninteresting boss fights; Chase sequences are easy, straight-forward and lack any sort of excitement; Even on Amateur setting, enemies take way too many bullets to kill; Environments are far too dark, making it hard to see your enemies; Upcoming DLC is already on disc
Graphics & Presentation: 9
There is no denying it. Resident Evil 6 looks absolutely fantastic! The impressive lighting, the impressive character models, and amazingly beautiful settings, this is easily the best looking game in the series.
Primarily with the game's tremendous action sequences, everything looks and feels like an adrenaline-fueled big screen action flick. Explosions look great. The angry spreads of fire look realistic. Monsters look just as nasty and grisly as ever, with grotesque appendages and really horrific attacks.
Unfortunately, some of this is obstructed by the game's wonky camera, and areas that are so unbelievably dark, it can be easy to flail around and get lost. It was even difficult to make out certain enemies in such low light. Look, I know it's meant to generate a little realism and tension, but it's a bit of an unfair match when you're surrounded by speedy creatures with no sense of where they're attacking you from.
Sound Effects & Music: 9
This is easily the best voice work I've heard in the series. Coming from earlier entries that had goofy, hammy acting, and obnoxious voices, everything's been on a more serious path since 4, with convincing performances by actors who really give a damn.
Creature sounds and overall action are nothing to complain about. All the icky growly snarls, screeches and disgusting squishy sounds are great, and really emphasize the overall mood of your surroundings. Not to mention all this is accompanied by a pretty kickass soundtrack.
But some of the soundbytes got a little on my nerves, especially with certain commands. Characters will often repeat the exact same phrases over and over when opening a door or getting a boost to a higher platform. I got so sick and tired of hearing Jake shout "I know what I'm doing!" almost every single time. Sometimes he'd say it twice within 3 seconds because he'd have to repeat it once the camera angle changed.
Story: 8
Now this was an interesting approach. Resident Evil 6 is separated into three separate campaigns, plus a fourth bonus one, all which intertwine and connect with each other at several points. You have Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy, Jake Muller, and the bonus one with Ada Wong.
I honestly liked this approach, since each campaign is spread across five chapters, and will take at least 5-6 hours to run through, making this a pretty decent length for an action game.
Leon's campaign is with Helena Harper, and they're off to investigate the spread of the T-virus shortly after having to kill the infected President of the United States. Unfortunately, word gets out about his death, and Leon is now being accused of an assassination, so his main prerogative is to dig deep and uncover the real truth of what happened.
Chris starts out drinking his sorrows away at a bar after having his entire B.S.A.A. squad wiped out by Ada Wong. After suffering some amnesia because of it, he stopped caring who he was or what he had accomplished. After spending time tracking him down, B.S.A.A. member Piers Nevans shows up and asks for his help to investigate the spread of the mysterious C-virus in China.
Government agent Shery Berkin is on a mission to protect a man who's completely immune to the C-virus's effects, Jake Muller... who early on, turns out to be Albert Wesker's son. Knowing of his potential life-saving antibodies that could wipe out the virus, other organizations are after them both, and a monster named Astunuk is unleashed to put a stop to them. He's practically a monstrously upgraded version of Nemesis.
All three stories wrap around each other nicely, and offer just enough meat to keep you wanting to see what happens next. In many ways, it erases some of the bad taste left over by 5, since it focuses more on the outbreak, and less on a main bad guy with superpowers. This is probably the only redeeming experience I had gotten from this game.
Controls & Gameplay: 2
There's distinct difference between action horror and just plain old action. When Resident Evil decided to ditch the horror part for whatever reason, they failed to do one important thing: make sure the action works.
For starters, the very moment I opened the shrinkwrap to my copy last Monday night, all that came packed inside (besides the disc of course) was a card with movie ads and a white, folded piece of paper with warranty information. No instructions at all. Hell, I heard the XBOX 360 version went even cheaper by having the warranty info printed on the back of the insert. :|
Normally, this wouldn't be all that big of a deal, even though I am so sick of this "cost-cutting" crap with games, and their cheap fucking bendy eco-cases. Most games have a pretty thorough tutorial built-in. Resident Evil 6 does not. In fact, even though it does attempt to weave you through some controls in the prologue, the rest is left for you to figure out on your own.
Several different characters, all with different HUDs... no instructions on how to use them. No instructions on how to combine items in your inventory. No instructions on how to swap over-the-shoulder views. No pause button to allow you to sit back and observe your settings...
You fucking read that right. NO WAY TO PAUSE THE GAME. I discovered this early on when playing Chris' first chapter, and running around inside the building to rescue civilians. I decided I wanted to get something to drink, and after discovering that there was no way to traditionally pause the action, I used the PS Home button and walked away. Only a couple minutes pass and I return to hear Chris getting strangled to death in the background. I return from the Home menu to see "YOU ARE DEAD" on the screen, and I let out the most audible "WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?!" at 1 in the morning.
Oh man, what if your controller were to suddenly die and disconnect right then and there? You'd be fucked! :O
Who in their fucking right mind thought this was even remotely acceptable?! Since when is something as simple as a "pause" feature so taboo that it has to be left out entirely? I can understand if you're playing online with a friend, since he can back you up while you walk away for a second. But playing solo? I can't take a bathroom break? I can't pause the game to answer my phone, or take a bite of food? Pausing is just as important as any other action, it's already bad enough that the action doesn't stop while you flip through your inventory.
Come to find out, after playing for a bit, THERE IS a way to pause, but you have to be playing in the game's "offline" mode. NOWHERE in the game, or anywhere else does it tell you this! And besides, there's a "Don't Allow" option you can pick when starting a campaign when it asks you if you want people to join, so offline or not, isn't this a clear indication that I want to play solo?
Apparently, the game gets confused with this, because even though I clearly picked "Don't Allow" from the beginning, there were times where it would actually tell me it was searching for players during one of the loading screens. Hey, did you fucking read what I picked?! I SAID NO! I DON'T WANNA PLAY WITH ANYONE!! STOP TELLING ME I SHOULD!!
The game's default settings are applied to online co-op, but even then, you're stuck with an AI partner if you choose to play alone. One of the biggest annoyances that made me dislike 5 so much came back with a vengeance.
Thankfully, your AI partner isn't a big fucking retard this time. I wanted to give Sheva five across the face so many times in the last game for picking up items I needed and wasting herbs on me for stepping on a thumbtack. He/she (depending on the campaign) will often stay out of your way, and is completely self-reliant. They have unlimited health and ammunition, so there's no micromanagement involved.
Though one thing I do question is the constant having to convert herbs you find into tablets. This felt extremely unnecessary, especially when accessing your inventory at ANY time opens your defenses up to danger. Why was the very basic fundamental idea of using health items dragged out to such an archaic and drawn out process like this? Why couldn't it just be a pile of herbs and first aid spray cans like the other games in the past?!
Your health meter is now a series of six squares, and you're also given a stamina gauge. This is for whenever you perform melee attacks on your enemies, and it goes down with every hit. Each character has their own attack, but once the meter runs out, they hunch over, grabbing their side, while walking ever-so slowly. Their kicks looking more like wimpy flails. When using weaker characters, I can kinda understand this, but as more physically fit characters like Jake, Leon, or Chris? I call bullshit.
Not only that, but it seems to take FOREVER for it to build itself back up unless you use an herb tablet or a first aid spray. It's especially frustrating when you're hopelessly surrounded. Look, I get it. It's supposed to be realistic. To create tension. Yeah, enough tension to make me want to hammer my controller through the screen. The character controls alone are clumsy enough as it is. Melee attacks are also marred by the horrific camera. There were so many moments where I just kicked nothing but air when a zombie was literally standing right in front of me.
Walking around in general feels like I'm drunk half the time, it's hard to keep my character straight when running down corridors. Oh, and boy will you be running a lot, due to how over-swarmed with monsters you'll get later on. So much to the point where you feel the game's in a bit of a hurry to get you through the chapter. You have no time to explore your surroundings and admire the set design, because these bastards will come out of nowhere like one gigantic clown car. And since you're encouraged to conserve ammunition, you can't realistically kill everything in sight.
And I do mean "in sight" in the most literal way possible. As I mentioned earlier about the game's lighting, there are way too many damn places that are pitch black, and trying to pick off creatures in the darkness is next to impossible! More bullets hit the walls and floor than anything else!
Hey Capcom, third person shooters with slow-moving characters are NOT fun. Didn't you learn your fucking lesson with the shitstorm that was Lost Planet?
I went into this game just after completing Borderlands 2. Now I know what you're thinking. It's a little unfair to compare shooting mechanics from an FPS to a game like Resident Evil. But when so much emphasis has been shifted to shooting monsters in the head, I do kinda expect precise controls when it comes to aiming and firing. I've played my share of shooters over the past decade, and when the controls are solid, I can nail headshot after headshot without any sort of assistance. That's just how I've adapted. Headshots get the job done faster! BOOM! Done.
The controls here are incredibly shaky, trying to aim your weapon at a specific appendage when the action is frantic feels like I'm trying to pass a DUI test with a cop after having several hard drinks at a friend's bachelor party. The crosshairs will stay put, but the laser sight of your weapon will still dance around, thus making things slightly disorienting when trying to aim at a distance.
Not only that, but what is with these games lately where it takes an entire clip of bullets to down just one guy? Even if every single bullet is fired at the head sometimes, they still charge forward. Some monsters don't even display any sort of knockback, even when I blast them in the face with my shotgun! Are their skulls thickly plated with a layer of kevlar? Jesus Christ, it's ridiculous! The amount of health monsters have is terribly uneven, since some will go down just by kicking them in the shins... while others require about 30 bullets to put down. Especially when they become Crimson Heads, which constantly pissed me off whenever I was getting low on ammo. Yay! My enemy just transformed into something that's even more irritating as fuck to kill! :D
They also added a feature that allows you to throw yourself back and fire your weapon while lying on the ground by simply pulling back on the left thumbstick and pressing X. While the action is rather cool at first, it's poorly mapped and renders itself useless, because it's so easy to accidentally do... since holding down the X button alone allows you to sprint. It doesn't do anything but make you even MORE vulnerable to enemy attacks! I fell to my death so many times while trying to run away because my character decided to throw himself to the floor instead of running out of the room, like he was saying "FUCK IT!" and wanted to give up.
That's okay, not everything moves at a sluggish pace. Your reflexes will be tested numerous times with the sheer number of intrusive and irritating quick-time-events! :D Numbers may vary per player, but I decided to keep tally marks on just how many times I would encounter these wonderful little things. Why? Well, in the first five minutes, I encountered over ten of them. The total number I experienced in this game? 127.
And many aren't just timed-button actions in order to operate machinery or start engines, a lot of them are "PRESS THIS NOW OR YOU FUCKING DIE!!" ones. You know, they pop up for barely half a second, so you have to have those super-powered lightning skills in order to react for the first time? Some come completely out of nowhere during what I THOUGHT were cinematics. Like one where I had to shoot a B.O.W. in the head before falling out of a plane... However, I was out of ammo at the time, so it took me about 11 deaths to realize there was a box of bullets at the very beginning that I had to grab the very second the scene started. But since it's not loaded right away, my default weapon was a stun stick. So not only did I have to grab bullets, but I also had to swap weapons, reload, and THEN aim at the monster's head before falling to my death... all within a window of four seconds. Fuck... you....
Some QTEs ask you to wiggle the thumbstick so fast I honestly thought I was going to break mine off on a couple occasions. Or you have to hit the button at a precise moment when the spinning indicator hits just the right spot. Then you have the ones I fucking hate the most: Having to tap-tap-tap-tap one single button really fast for an excessively long period of time while the character SLOWLY crawls under a platform.
There was one sequence during Jake's campaign where you're running from a monster and you have to go through a series of steel doors. Each door required you to spin the thumbstick really fast, and then stop and hit the circle button to open it. Each one was like one after the other, and you had to do all of it fast... or else suffer the consequences.
And people wonder why I hate quick-time-events so goddamn much. I can handle the random button-presses from time to time during fights in order to perform special attacks, but this "do now, or die!" bullshit is not acceptable. I also loved how over half the doors had to be opened with two people, so if your partner was running around killing zombies in another room, you had to sit there and wait for him... just so you both could kick it open at the same time.
Then you have some of the games larger set pieces that SHOULD be awesome from the get-go. Like when Chris is manning a mounted machine gun while speeding after Ada Wong through the streets of China. Or when Sherry's riding on the back of a motorcycle with Jake and shooting pursuers at high speed. These should have been exciting! They're not... As a matter of fact, they're ridiculously simple and lazy.
Take the chase sequence with Jake and Sherry, and you're prompted to shoot at your followers quickly. Well, you don't really have to do anything, because I once sat the controller down during a cutscene to munch down on some food, and was a bit slow to pick it back up. Three of my pursuers all hit oncoming trucks or obstacles, thus making my participation completely pointless! I didn't test this, but I probably could have just sat back and watched the action as Jake did the driving for me all the way to the endpoint. The part where Chris is flying a jet and shooting at enemy choppers should be a blast, if it wasn't for the controls!
But then again, these set pieces lose their awe and wonder pretty quickly, especially when they become just a series of explosions after explosions, and seeing your characters get thrown back over and over again. It gets awfully tiresome and repetitive.
How about strategically placed corpses that are destined to become zombies, but don't until after a pivotal cutscene takes place? Ooooh! Surprise, surprise! Even boss battles lacked any sort of real challenge, or excitement for that matter. So many of them were deliberately scripted, there were a few where I didn't have to kill them at all, because characters from a parallel story arc did the job for me. Hell, one was simply just a series of quick-time-events with a monster that just would not fucking die!
Experiencing Resident Evil 6 is more of a chore... a struggle... It puts you in a fighting ring with your controller and your patience due to how sloppy this game was put together. How is it that we have evolved so far with action games these past few years, and yet this game feels like it came out years before that, and everyone who worked on it had absolutely no clue how to make any of it work? What happened?
It's a challenge to experience, but that's mostly due to the sheer amounts of frustration I went through while playing it. Even with all the nifty upgrades you could apply, I barely even noticed much of a difference.
This game is so blatantly dull. It fails hard in so many areas where other, more typical shooters manage to get right on the first attempt, and Capcom should be embarrassed by that. Even when the game slows down in order to allow you to explore felt broken, since you were forced to walk so incredibly slow. It's as if every campaign was specifically scripted to be taken on the exact same way every single time. To put things bluntly, the game behaves like an endurance run from point A to point B, with a series of repetitive doors lined up in between.
If it hadn't been for the story and the characters I grew to love over the years, I would have quit playing after the first hour.
Overall Grade: D
Capcom actually made a statement last week, responding to the critical masses, saying "Well, you can't please everyone." Really? Did you even bother TRYING to please your fans?
No, I am not being too harsh. I have no problem calling out "shit" when I see it, and Resident Evil 6 is a complete and utter failure. It failed hard as a horror game, and fails even harder as a straight-forward action one. To stand here and listen to people actually praise this game is absolutely perplexing. Did any of you play the same game as me? Am I holding a magical defective copy?
There is no excuse for piss-poor controls for ANY action game that requires quick reflexes to take on adrenaline-pumping scenarios. Even with the game's terrific production values and intriguing stories, I just cannot bring myself to say that I had a good time... because I didn't. I FORCED myself to crawl and slither through this broken mess of a game, just so I could see where the story was going. If anything, I would have loved it a hundred times more if this were just a movie.
My recommendation: If you really want to experience this game and enjoy the story, go to YouTube and watch a Let's Play of the whole thing. Let someone else suffer in the process while you watch the action. You'll thank me later.