Halloween is vast approaching and soon gamers everywhere will be cowering behind their sofas, nervously surviving a seasonal horror treat (or is that, trick?)! Undoubtedly one of this years’ biggest horror games will be Resident Evil 6 and no Resi Evil fan would be worth their salt this time of year without a comprehensive gamer guide beside them, allowing them get the most out of the 40+ hour experience. So with that in mind, let’s get down to business and have a little look at BradyGames’ latest guide, shall we?
As fans of these handy volumes will know, Brady Games (who have dominated the strategy guide market with their “signature series” volumes supporting some of the industry’s biggest titles) have now followed their success with Rockstar’s Max Payne 3 with Capcom’s hefty multi-campaigned Resident Evil 6. If you’re new to the series then you’ll appreciate that the walkthrough will give specific advice for every enemy encounter, highlight important events throughout the main narrative of the game whilst presenting gamers with comprehensive stats and biographical information alongside some stunning official artwork. The only issue is that due to the size of the game itself, the guide can often fail to provide enough information for some vital parts of the experience. Is that a really off-putting criticism though? I’ll leave that up to you.
The guides’ layout is straight forward and comprehensive, written clearly in nice bitesized chunks. You’ll never get bogged down with reading anything overly verbose and due to the linear approach the guide adopts, you’ll be taken on the ride from point A to point B with no hiccoughs whatsoever (unless you count all the zombies… and stuff…) The guide is split up into various sections; the almost tutorial-esque overview of an introduction, the substantial walkthrough of the numerous single-player campaigns and finally the conclusive chapters which focus on multiplayer, collectables, weapons etc. The written style is particularly useful for a game of this magnitude – straightforward and down to earth. It feels written for gamers by gamers, which is definitely the right approach for this.
For the perfectionist/achievement hunter in you, this guide will literally serve as your Halloween bible. Long gone are the days of spending hours searching the same areas for small, insignificant bits and bobs – now you can gather all your extras and hidden items in one fowl swoop as you progress through the campaigns! Neat!
As well as every enemy encounter being covered (along with comprehensive stats and biographical information), the game features some stunning official artwork – which is something as a neutral that I really appreciated seeing. The whole guide is full of glossy, full colour images of some impressive artwork (both finished product and original concept) – so when your eyes get tired of all the reading there’s plenty of wonderful art direction to enjoy courtesy of Brady Games.
As a games journalist I used to feel there wasn’t much need for these types of guides, and while I’m sure there’s still a large proportion of players that refuse to look at these guides I have to say this BradyGames are producing some top quality material. For hardcore fans, this is one attractive, glossy bible (some descriptive words there you wouldn’t normally associate with this spooky time of year) and for others – this may be nothing more than a comprehensive companion piece to the mammoth game that is Resident Evil 6. Whichever way you look at it, we’re impressed here at Explosion. Let’s hope the good work continues… unless the writers at BradyGames have their brains eaten by hordes of the undead like a gory, free-for-all Toby Carvery!
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