Part of the 9 days of Heck. Was it really that bad, or was it THAT bad?
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Year: 2012
Played on: PS4
Also on: PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC
Developer: Crapcom
Publisher: Crapcom
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Resident Evil 6? More like Resident Evil starring Stevie Nicks!
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Date posted: October 29, 2017
PREMISE
Resident Evil is a pretty crazy series, if you think about it. You have places like creepy mansions, a train, several cities overun with the undead, and the average normal European village. You also have enemies like giant snakes, hulks in leather jackets hunting you down, crows, and of course, Frank Miller! Oh, and zombies, I guess.
A refresher course on what works in Resident Evil (for the most part anyway). In terms of a classic survival horror, both the remake, lovingly called REmake by most, and RE2 seem to both be classic examples of how survival horror games should be made. On the action side, however, RE4 pretty much changed the game a bit, focusing more on gunplay. Never the less, RE4 still had a creepy and unsettling environment despite its action oriented focus, making it one of the better game in the series.
Then you have RE5, and this is when the series started to really go down hill. Not only was the game set in the brightest sun-lit place in the world, it also had classic RE veteran Chris Redfield punching boulders. Who thought that was a good idea?
Maybe the guys who thought RE6 was a good idea as well.
Resident Evil 6, is, to put it bluntly, a clusterf@#k. However, it a somewhat enjoyable clusterf@#k, in my opinion.
RE6 follows not, 1, not 2, but 7 characters over 4 different scenarios, each which could be considered their own games almost. Leon and whats-her-name have a somewhat creepy trek thought Anytown USA and china, because why not. Chris and that-one-guy shoot everything that moves in their campaign, while Jake from StateFarm and Ashley fight a whole bunch of crazy monsters in theirs. Finally, you have Ada’s campaign, which unlocks after completing the other’s, who has more puzzle based objectives while tracking down her evil twin, Not Ada.
There, I finished the premise. I think that’s it- straight to the CONS.
PROS
Psyche! This is actually a somewhat positive review of RE6! HA HA! You thought I was just gonna crap all over it like everyone else? THINK AGAIN.
I think the best part of the game is the amount of content you get. The PS4 version I played pretty much came with all the DLC, which is mostly stuff for mercanires mode, but whatever. The main campaign itself is quite lengthy- each scenario, sans Ada’s, can go anywhere from 5-8 hours depending on how you play. Each campaign actually has a good amount of variety as well. Let’s look at Leon’s for example. You start in a zombie-infested college, fight your way though a subway, get a nice call-back to RE2 as you go to a gun-shop, make your way to the church, find some catacombs under said church, and then fight a mutated version of what-her-names sister. And that is just half of Leon’s campaign- other set pieces throughout other campaigns include fighting an invisible snake as Chris, fighting your way though a lab as Jake, or escaping a sinking submarine as Ada.
There are also an insane amount of bosses, most of which are just insane. You have have a guy, for example, who changes from a zombie T-rex, into some messed up abomination, and finally, into a freaking giant fly. You also have a giant skeleton zombie thing in Chris’s campaign . There were a lot more, but I think I made my point. There were times when I played this that I thought that most of these bosses would be cool in a Contra game, but for RE game? I don’t know- there were so over the top, that I actually enjoyed it.
Mercanaries mode is pretty cool, I guess. I didn’t play it much. Sorry… People do tell me that it was the best part of the game, I just haven’t been into that mode, even in other games- it just never appealed to me.
The game actually plays well. The shooting mechanics are great, and feel like a natural evolution from RE4 and 5. You also have some melee attacks, especially when playing with Jake. I really can’t fault the game for how it controls…
CONS
..but I can fault the game for its terrible QTE’s! There are multiple places in the game, yes, even in cut scenes, where you will die a bunch of cheap deaths because you missed or didn’t time a prompt correctly. There is no reason I could of think of for such a thing to exist. It also happens during boss fights, which are the worst ones in the game.
Some parts of the game are just awful. There are sections where you have to keep fighting until a door opens or you find a key. I will always hate sections like this in games! There is also a part during the ship section with a lot of backtracking, where you face some incredibly annoying enemies, that, you guessed it, respawn. The worst part? You have to complete this section twice- once in Chris’s story, and again in Ada’s. Who thought that people would want to do that twice?
Finally, the most obvious con- this is not a survival horror game, or even Resident Evil game. Tension or horror is few and far between- its mostly just shooting at things until they die. If you go into this game thinking that it is going to be the fixed-camera angelin’ tank controllin’ RE of yesteryear, you are going to be disappointed. Hell, even if you went from RE 4 to this you will be, as the game is so all-over the place. It tries to do everything, but only succeeds at so much- not every game can be the end-all be-all jack of all trades. Hopefully, Capcom realizes this moving forward (I guess they kinda did with RE7, but I have yet to play it)
FINAL VERDICT
If you go into Resident Evil 6 expecting a survival horror game, you are going to have a bad time. However, if you go in expecting an over-the-top third person shooter that just happens to have RE characters in it, then you might enjoy the game more then you think, the way I did. Either way, I only recommend this if you can get for cheap, and that you already played Resident Evil 4 to death, as that is still the best action-oriented RE by far. At the end of the day, it really isn’t as bad as everyone says.
Its not even the worst Resident Evil game… I’ll talk about that one later…
Agree? Disagree? Good! Leave a comment about how terrible my taste is in the comments below!
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