Resident Evil 6 Review

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Platform: Xbox 360

Other Platforms: PlayStation 3 and PC

Price: £39.99

   

Its safe to say that in the past few years, Capcom have managed to piss off just about everyone on the planet. What with ripping people off with "Special Editions", DLC which is already on the disc, Releasing titles with the bare minimum and pretty much drowning out Mega man and trolling the fanbase with...Rockman Xover. Now we have the newly released Resident Evil 6, without a doubt one of the most anticipated titles of the year.

Despite the amount of crap that Capcom pulled in recent years, I bought this game regardless. Why? Because I love Resident Evil, I loved this series ever since I played the remake on the Nintendo GameCube  This was the game series I discovered and played during High school and pretty much picked up all of the games after that on day one of their releases.

The series didn't go to shit for me until Resident Evil 5. Despite popular opinion regarding the 5th game, I personally didn't feel that it was that bad. Although only being able to enjoy the game with at least 3 beers in me per session might not have been a good sign. Outside the fact that I might be an alcoholic, I mean. Everything that Resident Evil 4 done right, Resident Evil 5 just fucks it all up with the equipment management, retarded co-up AI, Albert Wesker getting killed off in the most lamest way, generally being not scary in the slightest and DLC that came out by the time everyone stopped playing the game and traded it in for the latest COD.

I suppose after one bad game, a franchise is forever doomed as everyone was ready to tear into Resident Evil 6 like the zombies tearing into that bad guy from Day of the Dead. I was one of them when I heard the amount of garbage that came from the creators, Informing that Resident Evil 6 wants to be more action packed and less scary in order to compete with the likes of Call of Duty and the Nathan Drake games. As I said before, I was going to pick up the game regardless because I wasn't going to let all the bad stuff get in the way and decided to face the terrors that I was about to endure.

Being the most ambitious Resident Evil title to date, you have 3 separate campaigns to play through as well as an additional campaign after completing the others. In Leon's campaign, you and your new partner, Helena Harper must uncover the secrets of the new C-Virus while trying to escape a small town when it receives the same fate as Raccoon City after when the President of the United States gets assassinated before he was going to reveal the secret of Raccoon City to the rest of the world. Chris' Campaign  focuses on a bio-terrorist attack in China where Chris and his new whinny partner, Piers Nivans face off against a terrorist group calling themselves the J'avo, hired by the new organisation, Neo Umbrella. Finally, you have Jake's campaign which is pretty much written like a piece of fan fiction someone wrote. Jake Muller is the son of the long-time villain of the series, Albert Wesker. Who is targeted by the US as he is the only living human being with the antibodies that are immune to the C-Virus. Sherry Birkin (the little girl from resident evil 2) is sent into the made up country of Edonia to track Jake down and escort him back to the US all while the two are getting chased by a massive "Nemesis" like monster with a menacing mechanical arm.

The story as a whole is over the top as you would expect from a Resident Evil game but at least the 3 separate campaigns tie together with each other really well and have their own separate endings, all 3 being more satisfying than Resident Evil 5's cock up of an ending... The final campaign round things off by tying up the loose ends involving Ada and her beef in the plot. Leon's campaign being the strongest of the bunch as it falls into the more traditional Resident Evil plots by uncovering an underground lab and stopping a madman from taking over the world.

Chris' campaign is simply about Chris' past biting him in the ass and redemption...much like in Resident Evil 5 but instead of a hot piece of ass following Chris about, he just as an ass following him around. Out of all the new faces to appear in this game, Piers is simply the worst. While Helena and Jake being interesting characters and important to the plot, Pier does nothing outside of pulling grumpy faces and bitching at Chris' temper. It would have been better if Piers was replaced by Jill Valentine or Sheva from the last game, those characters would understand Chris' emotional pains more and it certainly would have made the ending of Chris' campaign a lot more sad (spoiler warning).

Finally Jake's campaign is fine, though the whole shipping with Sherry and Jake thing is a pile of DeviantArt pics waiting to happen which I cant help but feel that its a bit creepy. Especially since we've known Sherry as a little girl. However, it does show the series in general has aged with the times, I guess but I'm still aloud to feel creeped out a bit. Also the Nemesis wannabe chasing Jake is clearly a throwback to the sticklers that loved Resident Evil 3 and my final complaint is that Sherry's "healing factor" doesn't make much sense when it doesn't work into the game mechanics when your playing as her.

Speaking of the game mechanics, A lot has been added to the gameplay this time round to give the player more freedom of movement however some of these added things seem a bit pointless. The free camera control that most other 3rd person shooters have is rather needless aside from using it to try and get a better view of Helena or Ada's cleavage, all it would do is sometimes get in the way of the walls but not always, mind. I just feel that the camera should have been fixed behind the player's shoulders like in the last two games. Your also able to dodge and dive out of the way of enemies, even shoot while your on your back as well as crawl and shoot. Sounds pointless but there are sections of the game where this is nessasary which is kinda neat.

When your out of ammo, you can melee your enemies.Sounds like this would make the game easier but the melee also have a stamina bar that goes down pretty fast. I should also point out that this game is a lot easier than the previous resident evils but however, I played the game on veteran and I encourage other resident evil veterans to do the same otherwise the game will be too easy for those... "veterans". Another small thing they included in this game is to be able to switch sides on your camera when your aiming your fire arm. A simple feature but I like it. Its similar to what Fall of Cybertron has and I really hope more 3rd person games in the future will include this feature.

I should also mention that the AI for your partner has been greatly improved since the last game, meaning that the AI is actually competent  you don't need to keep an eye on their weapons or items this time around as they seem to have an infinite supply of ammo and no matter how much your partner gets overwhelmed, they seem to be able to look out for themselves. There are certain events where you have to keep an eye out for them but for the most part, they can look after themselves.

Item management isn't much of an issue as it is in previous games considering you no longer have to worry about your partner's. you can hold all of your weapons but your limited to how much ammo and herbs you can hold. Herbs isn't much of a problem. in order to use them, you convert the herbs to pills and place them in your herb container. When you take damage, you can tap RB on your controller and your character will take their Herb pill like a tic tac.

As I mentioned before, Leon's campaign works well. Its not until you play Chris or Jake's campaign where things start going sour. limited ammo makes sense in Leon and Jake's campaign because they are thrown into situations that they weren't really prepared for but in Chris' campaign, its just stupid. Chris is part of a military group that tackles Bio terrorists, why wouldn't he pack extra ammo? It becomes even more stupid when you run into bigger and more deadlier enemies than what Leon would be up against and all Chris would have left is a combat knife. Ammo for Chris' campaign should have appeared more frequently and it ruined the overall campaign for me.

Another thing I don't like is how in Chris' campaign, the new enemies are rarely introduced, leaving you confused and frustrated when the grasshoppers and spider mutated terrorists start showing up from nowhere. In Leon's campaign, the enemies are better introduced which makes me wonder if the campaigns were made by different teams that were given little feedback from each other.

Much like the previous games before it, you have your fan favourite  Mercenaries Mode where you need to take out anything and everything that moves in a squared off area within a time limit. Much like in the previous game, Mercenaries is a ton of fun and you will constantly keep playing to get that A ranking to unlock more levels, characters and costumes. I will say that trying to get an A ranking will take an incredible amount of skill and time.

There's also a mode called Agent Hunt where you take the form of a mutated monster and jump in other players games to try and stop them from playing, However I wasn't able to play it. Mainly because like me, no one wants a bunch of assholes jumping into their game and chose to play the game offline.

Graphically, it looks pretty damn good...for the most part. Despite it using the engine from the previous game 3 or 4 years ago, the character models look realistic with facial expressions that can rival the likes of LA Noire and the characters look overall cool as well as the monsters in the game with their gory glory...until you look at the background and environments. The backgrounds aren't the worst I've seen but the quality of the textures feel like they're from the Ps2 era. You can excuse the fact that there's so much locations in the game that they HAD to lower the texture quality but that would mean I had to call bullshit on that statement. Whoever was in charge of the textures in this game done a crappy job and should probably get fired and join the ever growing unemployment line.

I'm not kidding....fuck you whoever was in charge.

the music meanwhile, is fitting for the game but nothing really to write home about or for in any way memorable but I will say that the main theme for the menu screens remind me of Batman Arkham games which is kinda weird. Unlike the music, the voice acting is stiller  So stiller in fact that Resident Evil 6 comes with a second disc dedicated to alternate languages in the PAL version which is probably why because the textures are so shitty. Troy Baker does a great job at sounding like...Troy Baker by making Jake sound like Dante from Devil may Cry. I don't hate Toy Baker, its just annoying when a voice actor with an extensive pallet is made to sound the same in every role they take. Craig Roger Smith returns as Chris Redfield and the talented Mathew Mercer takes the role of Leon with a cooler and deeper voice than before. Eden Reigel takes the role as the older Sherry Birkin and probably put in the best performance in the game, I really hope she gets more work in voice acting.

Overall, despite the negative attitude of the fanbase and critics I managed to have fun with Resident Evil 6. Its clear that they jumped the shark with this title and tried too hard to please the fanbase while trying to attract the newer "Gears of War and Call of Duty" generation and unfortunately disappointing mainly the fans. But if I can be honest, I'd rather have a game that tried too hard than not bothering it's ass to impress and in this day and age where games are released with the bare minimum and potential unlockables becomes DLC, during the hardest times in recent years where almost every country is in debt beyond repair might I add. Its just nice to see a game that's actually worth it's retail price.

This has been my Mental Analysis and I'll see you next time!