Resident Evil 6 is the rare example of a game that oozes obscene amounts of quality from start to finish without ever actually reaching its true potential. It’s like the geeky mathematician at school who excites the faculty with his supreme knowledge of Pythagoras’ theorem but at the same time completely sucks at sports, or the geeky science teacher who impresses everyone at the Christmas party with his handmade, fully-functioning android “Hal” but who then gets uncharacteristically drunk and lets out the “C-Virus”…
It looks great, feels polished and above all else – offers real fans an opportunity to play through 40+ hours of diverse action/horror, but unless you are a real fan then you’re genuinely going to struggle to look past some of the games’ weaker elements. There’s some well-realized set pieces that echo the finer moments of games such as BioShock and Dead Space, a soundtrack that blends a wonderful array of amphetamine action beats with sorrowful piano to suit the eclectic range of horrific scenarios and a great deal of innovations have genuinely been implemented to bolster areas which certainly called for it (predominantly the redundant co-operative feature and the now-spookily addictive online multiplayer). But like I say – to enjoy the main meat and drink of the title you really have to look past some shameful dialogue, poor characterisation, generic scares and some clichéd third-person core mechanics. Look past that (and I’m darn sure a lot of people will!) and you’re in for one hell a wild, wild ride.
While the narrative of Resident Evil 6 doesn’t really push the envelope any further than “zombies are attacking, kill them all”, it does take a postmodern approach by giving gamers the option of playing through one of four interwoven campaigns – each worthy of being individual games in their own right. Long-time fans of the series will be happy to know that some famous faces do return in big ways and you can now play as the alluring Ada Wong without having to complete the game three times as per usual… score!
Sadly though there isn’t much to distinguish the four campaigns from one another, an issue that I pin down to the games’ bad writing more than its repetitive gameplay. You’ll travel from fire-fight to fire-fight in a desperate bid for survival with characters you rarely engage with, and as some set-pieces are so over the top and boss battles so repetitive however some of the action sequences are so over the top and some of the boss battles so
For a Resident Evil game, this definitely stands up there as one of the most comprehensive packages Capcom have produced in a long, long time –the varied and addictive online multiplayer aspects also more than add to its enticing longevity. Where 5 and Raccoon City didn’t quite cut the mustard, fans can rest assured that Resident Evil is back to its iconic best – and while it may not be quite the same Resident Evil you all know and love from the past, it’s a version for the future generations that blends in very well with today’s contemporary horror/action titles.
Let us know what you thought of the game below!
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