Resident Evil 6

Resident Evil 6 is one of the best looking and atmospheric third-person shooter this year and the multiple campaigns do a great job of telling a story of a global biochemical disaster. Throughout your global journey you will be sent to a series of gorgeous locations with some impressive enemies to fight using an array of new equipment and techniques. However Capcom attempts to combine classic Resident Evil elements and large scale action sequences that ultimately fail to satisfy either field. Resident Evil 6 suffers from an identity crisis and is unable to decide whether it wants to be a high-paced action title or a survival horror game.

The story of Resident Evil 6 is separated into four campaigns in varied locations throughout the world. You will be controlling of one of seven characters that range from notorious figures such as Leon Kennedy and new additions like Jake Muller. Each campaign centers on a particular portion of the story and at the end each section of the story woven together. This is a great concept to showcase how these characters experience the C-Virus threat and how it all comes together.

As you play through the campaign you will be amazed with the level of production of in each mission, but you will rarely be in control. It’s vexing that most of the time you will be pulled away from the game to either input commands from the side-line or watch another cutscene. This wouldn’t be an issue if it happened occasionally but I found myself constantly having to input commands to perform a specialized melee attack, survive the cutscene, or avoid an unexpected event. I spent more time jointing my analog stick side to side then actually playing the game.

Each cinematic throughout your adventure is outstanding, more specifically in the graphics and sound design. The fantastic voice-acting makes every conversation whether it is a simple conversation about the next objective to waling hordes of infected charging your location. Everyone you encounter has a memorable personality and seeing notorious figures such as Chris and Leon meeting for the first time is nothing less than outstanding. It’s unfortunate that the gameplay doesn’t meet the same excellent quality.

Every campaign, except Ada Wong (which is unlocked after complete the other three campaigns), features cooperative play. In Leon Kennedy’s campaign you take control of either Leon or the new addition, Helena Harper, as you investigate one lead after another about the initial outbreak. Unlike the other campaigns Leon’s mission resemble more traditional elements such as surprise attacks and bleak environments. Chris Redfield and BSAA solider Piers Nivens are plunged into battlefields to fight gun-totting infected and enormous mutated bosses using a troublesome cover system. Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin missions consist of a series of bland fights and scripted events that are often visually engaging but just a series of quick time events and opening doors. While these are separated you will be expected to repeat certain events and boss battles become annoying and unnecessary additions.

Cooperative makes a return in campaign, mercenaries’ mode, and a new mode called agent hunt. Resident Evil 6 includes drop-in and drop-out cooperative, allowing you to play with people easily. Mercenaries mode hasn’t change and still centers on you killing as many enemies as possible in the allotted time either solo or with a buddy. Agent Hunt allows to take control of enemies and hunt down other players, however due to limited options and poor controls makes something that could’ve been fun into an ordeal. If you decide to player alone your AI controlled partner won’t hinder you. Unlike Resident Evil 5 the AI controlled character will react quickly to each situation whether it is opening a gate or shooting at an infected creature. Your AI partner won’t take or use supplies, but you won’t be able to share items.

Quick time events are the most predominant and similar aspect throughout Resident Evil 6 that will keep you in anticipation to wiggle your analog stick. These command prompts will show everywhere from pushing an infected to crawling for your life that are followed by a bright light and vigor sound or die. Not all these events are bad but this mechanic is overused and players might be more annoyed then excited when the next scene happens.

This is a Resident Evil game so expect a lot of infected to kill. Instead of having to remain stationary to shoot targets you can now move and shoot while targets respond correctly when shot or slammed. The camera remains on your back while you take aim and avoid hordes of the infected populist using new rolling and melee techniques. Shooting limbs of various targets can result in different changes such as mutated arms that can grab you from cover to entirely changing the creature into something new. You can choose to keep your distance from the infected by using melee attacks or charge forward, but sprinting, rolling, and melee attacks are limited to your stamina meter. As you kill enemies you gain skill points which can be used to upgrade certain abilities, replacing the old storage system.

Resident Evil 6 takes one step forward and two steps back. These 20+ hours of gameplay definitely hits a lot of highs during each of the campaigns but lacks the ability to continuously maintain that level of quality. Resident Evil 6 is a collection of great action sequences and excellent production elements but combines them in sloppy manner. The changes to this once beloved franchise to make it into something that caters to both horror and action fans removes you from control so another prompt can guide you. Resident Evil 6 isn’t a bad game but it could’ve been a great one.

Adam Siddiqui, Noobfeed (@Twitter)