Resident Evil 6 Review
Resident Evil’s enemies have evolved in parallel to the series’ pacing: They started off slow, shambling, and scary with the first three before breaking into an all-out run by the fourth and fifth. Resident Evil 6 typical enemies, called J’avo, grow tentacle arms, claw hands, and massive moth wings mid-battle as their limbs are blown off. They’re annoying and remarkable--and yes, that’s about as good an analogy for Resident Evil 6 as you’re going to get.
Resident Evil 6 shuns the series’ standard narrative path in favor of containing three different, consecutive cooperative campaigns following a viral threat on a global scale. Leon Kennedy teams up with agent Helena Harper to deal with the G-virus as it breaks out in a small American town in one campaign, Chris Redfield and Piers Nivans fight Bio Organic Weapons as they spread through China in another, and Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin attempt to escape mercenaries and mutants in Eastern Europe in the third. There’s also a fourth--following Ada Wong--that is unlocked after the other three are completed, though the first trio can be handled in any order the player wishes.
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Though all of the campaigns feel similar in terms of their basic components and pacing, they all have their own styles and idiosyncrasies. To put it in the plainest terms possible, Leon’s plays like an action-heavy Resident Evil, Chris’s plays like a Resident Evil military shooter, and Jake’s plays like a more cinematic, Uncharted-inspired Resident Evil. None play all that much like a traditional Resident Evil, or even an RE4/5 era game--they’re much faster and more explosive, trading fear for gunfire without actually addressing the fact that it’s no longer a survival horror game.
The split campaign works well for the most part, and does a great job of creating a massive, epic story without making each character feel like a super soldier. Capcom did a fantastic job of keeping each segment separate while still including instances that help flesh out the plot of the other campaigns and add context to situations. Instead of feeling like different chapters of the same story, Resident Evil 6’s campaigns feel like stand-alone experiences complemented by the existence of other, related moments. That said, it can also create a somewhat uneven game when played straight through, as you’ll be met with four introductions, four climaxes, and four conclusions, as well as a fair share of repeated plot points and gameplay mechanics. Some things, like the new skill and experience system, transfer between, but otherwise they're their own beasts.
- Resident Evil 6 is not a bad game, but it's not a great game either and this is a real shame. Despite this however, it still has many amazing elements that should not be overlooked and at its core is a decent horror experience.
- Resident Evil 6 Review: Incredible Co-op With A Few Kinks. Riding Resident Evil 6's Exploding Roller-Coaster Of Action And Zombie Bloodshed.
Fans of shorter single-player stories will undoubtedly enjoy the ability to blow through any of the campaigns in five to seven hours, whereas those who prefer longer narratives will still be greeted with a single tale that lasts around 25 hours. That’s over two-dozen hours without digging into The Mercenaries, a score-grind mode; Agent Hunt, a feature that lets you jump into the body of an enemy in a stranger’s game; or attempting to go back through cooperatively or to hunt down all of the hidden Serpent emblems.
Better yet, the campaigns occasionally cross over into the others as the different plotlines converge and diverge, creating some of the most memorable moments the series has seen in years. Dolby digital plus software update. These aren’t just cutscenes, either--when you play as Leon you’ll run into a section where you’ll fight side-by-side with Chris, prompting the game to search for players currently playing Chris’s campaign to pull into your game (after a brief, skippable waiting period). Intertwining stories can mean brief, fleeting segments of four-player co-op interspersed throughout, making RE6’s already grand, overarching story feel more impressive. It also means, however, that some battles or moments are repeated in later campaigns, which can be an issue if the segment wasn’t all that good in the first place.
Repetition is common during RE6’s many boss battles, where stories overlap the most--and the encounters only become more tedious every time you replay them. It’s not because of the actual mechanics of the gameplay, though--those are stronger in RE6 than they have been in any of the past games. Resident Evil 6 sports the largest upgrades to the Resident Evil style since RE4. An emphasis is placed on fluidity and movement--a huge departure from the tank-like controls of previous games. The welcome ability to move and shoot is joined by sliding, crawling, upgraded melee, and a cover system that never seems to work right (but, thankfully, is never really necessary). There are still some moments of slowly plodding through moody corridors, waiting for enemies to leap out and scream, but they’re weaved between cinematic moments and large-scale shootouts.
Resident Evil 6 incorporates not one but three lengthy campaigns, each fully-playable in single-player or co-op modes, and all three binding together in one massive over-arching storyline.
The issue, though, is with conflicted gameplay; more specifically, scarcity of ammo and an annoying inventory system. Resident Evil 6 doesn’t blend horror and explosive action, it simply sits awkwardly between them, leaving you with facing too many enemies with too few bullets. Needing to mix herbs and pick and choose which items to collect might have made sense in the past, but now it feels somewhat redundant, held back even more by inventory management that doesn't fit. You’ll often face situations that seem bred specifically to trick you into wasting ammo (and time), such as near-immortal enemies that need a cutscene to trigger before they can be harmed. These segments aren’t well telegraphed, and it’s often hard to know if the foe you’re wasting precious ammo on can be hurt at all, or if the game is simply biding its time until a quick-time event is triggered.
Quick-time events aren’t new to the series, but they were used much more sparingly in the past than they are in RE6. Now everything from opening a door to punching an enemy has the potential to trigger an event that’ll have you slamming random buttons or smacking the analog stick back and forth. Sometimes they’re simply annoying, and other times they’re overly difficult. Never, though, are they enjoyable, and it's a shame to see interesting moments that might have served better as cutscenes or fully interactive segments be chained to QTEs.
So much of Resident Evil 6 is wonderful. The story is intense and ambitious, and the separate campaigns--and the way they interact with each other--is an achievement in interactive storytelling. Even the changes to the gameplay are strong, and you’ll likely spend a majority of the game enjoying the weird, unexpected ride that it takes you on. When you do run into issues, though, they’ll be related to the half measures taken in other areas of the gameplay, proving that flat-out abandoning some tropes while clinging on to others doesn’t always make for great sequels. Though rough around the edges, Resident Evil 6 is still a remarkable creature, and like the J’avo, it’s an interesting transformation, even if it’s not necessarily the prettiest one.
| Game Info |
| Platform360, PS3, Win |
| PublisherCapcom |
| DeveloperCapcom |
| Release DateOct 2, 2012 |
Capcom may have assembled the biggest cast and scope in the history of the series, but Resident Evil 6 fails to live up to its legacy.
Resident Evil 6 is a shape-shifter. It's an oversized behemoth. It's a franchise-diminishing disappointment. More than anything, Resident Evil 6 is a compromise - a desperate, ugly bid to appeal to as many people as possible.
Was also a filming location; the production crew chose it over, as they would benefit from the Emirate's 30% rebate scheme.
Did you stop liking the series after Resident Evil 4? You can play as rookie cop turned secret service agent Leon in a small-town setting inspired by the devastated Raccoon City from the first three games. Do you prefer Resident Evil 5's more action-heavy focus? Check out original Resident Evil protagonist Chris' militaristic, globe-trotting storyline. Mysterious mercenary Jake's campaign even has clear nods to Resident Evil 3's unstoppable Nemesis.
But all this fan service goes to waste. Resident Evil 6's myriad problems - from tedious quick time events to baffling boss battles to obnoxious set pieces - should be enough to warn most players away from this muddled disaster.
Resident Evil 6 introduces the C-Virus, the latest strain of the zombie virus that has plagued the series' protagonists since the original. Initially enemies don't act much differently than Resident Evil 4 and 5's Plaga-infected villagers, but C-Virus recipients seem to have a greater penchant for guns; a majority of the enemies you fight in Resident Evil 6 carry a firearm.
Since most of the enemies have guns, players can now move while shooting - a necessity to deal with the increased size and power of the foes. You can also duck behind objects to avoid enemy fire, but the game's awkward, sticky cover system had me unintentionally magnetized to surfaces far more often than it actually helped me.
The amount of content Resident Evil 6 has stuffed onto its single disc reeks of excess. Each of the four campaigns could make up a full game in and of themselves; placed together they form one of the longest action games I've ever played. If only the quality matched the quantity.
Though Capcom has emphasized how each of the campaigns will appeal to a different type of Resident Evil fan, they're less varied than they appear at first and often suffer from the same problems. Leon's campaign may begin with an old-school Resident Evil vibe, but it's not long before he joins the same big dumb action movie as everyone else.
Every campaign is full of that kind of moment. The scope is overblown, even compared to Resident Evil 5; I never imagined I'd destroy anti-air guns in a war-torn Eastern European country as an objective in a Resident Evil game. But dissonance with the series' past is the least of the game's problems. The real concern is that Resident Evil 6 doesn't execute on any of its myriad gameplay styles very well.
In the middle of Chris' campaign, he jumps into a military Jeep that controls more like a tank in a monotonous driving sequence. Jake takes a break from zombie-slaying for an inexplicable and infuriating stealth sequence, complete with a buggy crescendo where failing to understand the game's poorly-explained suggested course of action causes the enemy AI to freak out. These switch-ups happen fast and often - a flood of variety distracting players from Resident Evil 6's primary run-and-gun gameplay. And it has a good reason for those distractions.
Despite antiquated elements like aiming in place, Resident Evil 4 and 5 succeeded in making gunplay satisfying in large part because the weapons felt powerful. A shot to head in those games may not instantly kill an enemy, but it would at least stagger them or knock them down. Resident Evil 6 offers very little feedback. Sometimes a headshot will blow an enemy's head clean off, but more often they won't even slow an enemy down.
Most enemies will be staggered if you use the new quick shot mechanic. By quickly pulling the left and right trigger at the same time, your character will use up a small portion of their stamina bar to auto-attack a nearby enemy. It can be useful when surrounded by large groups, but it also highlights its manic camera.
Using quick shot causes the camera to whip around, which left me disoriented and needing to readjust for a second or two every time. The jumpy camera overreacts to every movement and discovery in the game. It's jarring, and I suspect it will be nauseating for some players.
Resident Evil 6 Review Pc
The lack of feedback takes its most frustrating form in Resident Evil 6's frequent boss battles, where it's difficult to tell when or how you're having any impact against bosses. Did I do enough damage on this giant snake creature to trigger the next cutscene? Did I just survive long enough? I couldn't tell you, and I suspect the answer is different for each fight. This confusion robs actions of any feeling of consequence. Resident Evil 6 is the worst kind of cinematic video game - one where the player's part in the process is an afterthought at best.
It's so much of an afterthought, in fact, that an alarming number of player actions are relegated to button-mashing quick time events. Resident Evil games have fallen back on waggling the analog stick or quickly tapping a button to escape instant death for a long time, but Resident Evil 6 takes that bad habit to depressing extremes. I lost count of how often a quick time event popped up out of nowhere with split-second timing required, guaranteeing that I failed and died the first time.
Even worse, some of those already-awful boss fights end with increasingly difficult demands to tap a button over and over. Just when you think you might be finished with a particularly annoying segment, you'll run into and fail a quick time event and find yourself forced to replay the last five minutes.
Resident Evil 6's overuse of multi-form, never-really-dead bosses also has a negative impact on the game's ridiculous narrative. While the Resident Evil series has never had great writing, even the characters seem fed up with the absurd situations this game puts them in. 'I think he's dead,' becomes code for 'I think he's still alive and going to attack us again in five minutes.' And when you encounter a repeated boss in its third or fourth form, one of the two playable characters invariably lets out an exasperated, 'This guy again?!'
MULTIPLAYER OPTIONS
Beyond the regular campaign co-op, Resident Evil 6 has a couple of options for those looking to hang out or compete with friends: Download psy gangnam style mp3.
Resident Evil 6 Reviews
Mercenaries - A returning favorite, Mercenaries mode takes the action focus that the series has had since Resident Evil 4 and boils it down to its basics. Pick one of three maps, watch zombies slowly flood in, and try to kill as many as possible before your time limit ticks down to zero. The tweaked shooting mechanics of Resident Evil 6 rob Mercenaries of some of its fun, but at least it's one part of the game that sticks to pure gunplay without any terrible set pieces.
Agent Hunt - This new mode puts an interesting spin onto competitive multiplayer, allowing real players to invade your game as zombie creatures. Human opponents are limited to a small number of playable baddies - none of which control well or feel particularly powerful - but it's worth flipping this option on if you want a little more difficulty and randomness added to your experience. -P
At least you always have the option to drag a friend alongside you for this horror show. Both in its campaign and in Mercenaries mode, Resident Evil 6 builds on the co-op focus of RE5 with a few meaningful additions. Enemies now drop separate loot for each player, lowering item management time and preventing any bickering over who gets what. If you keep your settings open, you can also hook up with extra players during crossover points in the story or have real players hunting you down as monsters via Agent Hunt mode. These online options connect you to a wider Resident Evil 6 community that has been lacking in the series until now, but they don't salvage the game.
Wrap Up:
CO-OP AND MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS CAN'T SALVAGE RESIDENT EVIL 6
Resident Evil 6 leaves players with the shell of a blockbuster game. It blusters along with massive explosions and insane plot twists, but it lacks a fundamental understanding of why action games are fun. In the end, Resident Evil 6 resembles one of its grotesque mutations â bloated, out of control, and recklessly trying to consume everything around it. Capcom has built a real monster here.
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