OK its been a while since I had a look at a game in terms of reviews, so here is my thoughts on Resident Evil 6, which was released last week for the Xbox 360 and the PS3. I am the owner of an Xbox 360 myself, as I previously use to have a PS3 but after two years it died on me, and I've been suspicious of Sony ever since, especially since it was revealed there was a failure rate in their consoles after 2 years of use. So after I that I decided NOT to buy another PS3 as I personally don't trust Sony as far as I can throw them (which let's face it, its impossible to do really!).
Anyway so here we go onto Resident Evil 6, the story is multi-stranded as its basically three games in one, with several different playable characters, the main ones being Leon Kennedy, Chris Redfield and Jake Muller. The plot is way too involved, even for me(!) to go into so I will keep it brief and say the characters basically intersect with one another at certain points in the game. I've completed the Leon campaign myself so far, so there is a connected storyline between Leon and Chris as they both chase after the mysterious Ada Wong. But basically the main idea behind the plot is that Umbrella are up to their nefarious tricks once again as they have developed a new virus, called the C-Virus, which is released into the general population in different locations in the world, and it turns people in deranged flesh eating zombies. And its up to the protagonists to basically kill the baddies and get to the root of what is behind it all to end the biological threat.
Resident Evil 6 naturally was a much awaited sequel to the very good Resident Evil 5 (well in my humble opinion anyway) and while I think it is an entertaining game, it also does have some frustrating flaws as well, but I'll say a bit more on them in a minute. Back to the pluses, graphically the game looks terrific, with the character models for main protagonists looking really good and at times even lifelike (especially Chris). The zombies on the other hand do look a bit less impressive, particularly the graveyard zombies as it looks almost like a hark back to the graphics from an early PS2 game. The control system is also fairly simple, which was always one of the strengths of the series is its simplistic combat and movement, and your characters can interact well within the large environments, with the usual jumping through windows, climbing ladders, not to mention stoving zombies heads in! The melee attacks on zombies is also pretty good as you can attack zombies front on or behind, and if you attack them from behind, you can do a cool move where you grab the zombie and slam him down on the ground, where their head bursts. Lovely! The inventory system is also largely still quite simple to use, and a big improvement is how you can quickly combine herbs when you get them, and you can see your character take them in pill form, which makes for a nicer bit of practicality, rather than just magically pressing the button to see your health bar go back up!
Voice acting wise, Resident Evil over time has improved dramatically from the truly chronic acting we got in the very first game, where clearly the Japanese story writers were struggling with the concepts of Western dialogue, and we had such gems back then as "You Jill, take this lockpick, as the master of unlocking, it will come in handy!". But by now, voice acting in games overall has become far more polished and it certainly is the case here, as the actors all do a fine job with their respective characters. Musically, Resident Evil has always been excellent, even back in its 1990s synth heavy days, and here they have produced another excellent, moody orchestral score.
But of course RE6 isn't without its flaws, and with the new style of gameplay and layout there are few frustrating things here. First off when I played the Leon campaign, I felt there was a lack of variety in the guns, as you basically get your standard gun, shotgun, machine gun, sniper rifle and a magnum, and that's all fine, but the addition of assault shotguns, submachine guns wouldn't gone amiss, and that is something that RE4 & 5 offered. And the game once again suffers from a lack of restocking on ammo at the save points between levels and that has always been a flaw in the series, instead you have to rely on picking up ammo from the dead bodies of zombies. New to the game is of course seamless cut scenes, and in the first hour or so of the Leon campaign, the story is just too reliant on the cut scenes, and it almost feels like at times in that first hour or so you are playing Metal Gear Solid (which was very heavy on cut scenes!) which makes for an annoying gameplay experience. And it takes to get over that first hour or so before the game improves, and also it does feel early on in the Leon campagin also things are a bit too monotonous, as you just keep shooting zombies, with not much variety with the new baddies, none of them are that interesting or creepy in comparison to what we have seen in the previous games.
And one of the most frustrating moments in the game is near the end of Leon's campaign where you have to climb up a metal pole to reach the top of a building, and if you time it wrong then you keep sliping and sliding back to where you started! Again the lack of explanation in these moments control wise is really annoying, you just get the LT and RT buttons flashing in succession to move Leon up the pole, and it took me to look up a forum to find out how to move Leon properly in that bit! And again some of the timed action moments are also frustrating, this was particularly annoying in the scene where Leon has to save a plane from crashing, and you have to look around to find the control you want to press on the flight control panel. And of course if you don't press the button at the correct time then Leon is fried, but this has been the case since RE4, but in RE6 it feels like they haven't gone out of their way to make it any simpler. Early on in the campaign there is also an annoying tendency to look out for oncoming cars or trucks that are out of control and will crash into you if you don't dodge them in time.
The on-line features of the game also can pose as a nuisance as you have to customise the game to play the single player campaign without ANY interference. For myself I much prefer single player games, but if you are not careful in configuring Resident Evil 6, then you will have someone on the net join your game as your partner in a forced co-op mode, which to be honest is something I never want (no offence to other gamers, I just prefer solo!). But as I said you can turn off these features and set up the game to play it as a single player campaign, so its not hard to turn off these settings, its just the pre-concieved notion that every gamer will want to play a co-op campaign by default with someone else on the net, when I personally don't, that appears to be the case with game companies these days.
But anywayyyyyyyyyyy all that aside I did enjoy Resident Evil 6, and it also is a big bonus that it has three separate single player campaigns to work through, and after a slow start you should find much to enjoy in Leon's campaign. I have also tried a bit of Jake's campaign as well, which is actually very good, and possibly even better than Leon's but I will give it a go later and see how it goes.
Right so that's it for now, more stuff will follow, once I think of something. :-)
Till then bye for now!
No comments:
Post a Comment