The time has come for the masses to get their first taste of the much hyped Resident Evil 6! The demo available allows a short playthrough in each of the campaigns (Leon, Chris, and Jake). Each character has their own partner much like in the previous game in the series. There’s also an option to have someone take control of the partner for some co-op action. Unfortunately, what sounds like a pretty robust experience quickly turns into a “shit storm” of frustration.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to pause the game, you need to choose “offline” when picking a campaign.
I first started with Leon for a myriad of reasons. His campaign seemed to be the closest to a Resident Evil type experience, he was the hero in the greatest entry in the series (RE4), and not to mention he’s my man-crush of the franchise. This is definitely the most cinematic and “survival horror” out of the three campaigns. There are tense moments and tricky navigating throughout with the former being a nuisance most of the time. There’s a part where you’re in an auditorium of some sort with stacks of desks and chairs blocking your path. It’s all very linear.
“Something tells me we’re in for a nightmare. Zombies? What zombies?”
You’ll notice right away upon playing that the controls aren’t as stiff as they have been in past entries. Animations are definitely smoother and, thankfully, you can move while aiming and shooting. The melee button is going to be your best friend and your most hated enemy for a number of reasons. The enemies in RE6 soak up bullets like a sponge. Seriously, lead must be in their diets cause it takes WAY too many shots to take down just one guy.
You will quickly run out of bullets if you try relying on your gun which means using melee attacks. These can be pretty cool and bring up some sweet animations if you’re near a desk or a shovel. This is also where things can get hectic though. In all three campaigns, you will be in situations where you have to deal with up to 5-7 enemies at once. Your character (and the camera) is not really equipped to handle this. Sure, a melee attack can knock some guys back but they’ll keep coming unless you finish them off with 3 or 4 more kicks each.
“Stay down already!”
This may just be me but the co-op aspect feels like a bit of a burden. It’s improved over RE5 but that’s not saying much. Running around, trying to get to your next checkpoint, only to come across a door which needs both of you can be maddening at times. Your partner does a decent job keeping up but if they’re tangled up with an enemy, you could be waiting for a while. This is especially apparent playing Jake’s campaign since there’s an enemy in every direction that regenerate into even tougher monsters when you kill them.
Chris’s campaign is worth noting since it tries (key word here) to be a quasi Gears of War cover based shooter. You can run and slide into cover or press up against walls before shooting. This ends up feeling really clunky and simply doesn’t work with the gameplay mechanics in all of the campaigns. Couple that with the previously mentioned problem of having too few bullets to kill tough-as-nails enemies and it ends up failing miserably.
“Something’s not right about this… “
A quick nitpick I have to bring up is shooting corpses. In any instance where you’re dealing with zombies, a dead body could be for real or an undead sneak attack. As a precaution, I like to shoot the corpse just in case it’s the latter. Makes sense, right? That’s not the case in Resident Evil 6. Shooting a corpse, whether it’s really dead or not, will do nothing until you get close enough for it to jump you. This is pretty discouraging for those of us trying to play the game smart. I may as well just run right through the level like John Rambo and stomp whoever comes my way.
I was considering picking up Resident Evil 6 after it’s been out for a while. Now it’s not even on my wish list. Getting myself lost trying to figure out where I’m going while spraying myself with magic pixie dust to heal every 5 seconds isn’t my idea of a fun time. The cut scenes are impressive and Troy Baker does a nice job playing the role of Jake but that’s all I can really take from this demo. If you ask me, Capcom needs to give this franchise a major overhaul.
Resident Evil 6(Pros and Cons).
The Resident Evil Franchise(Games not Movies) has always been the type of game with a great story line, crazy survival horror and of course, the infamous puzzles that aggravated all of us at one time or another. My personal all time favorite is the 1st one. The atmosphere was creepy along with the music throughout the game. The plot was great, the mansion was a work of art for gamers and the plot twist was amazing as well. Those who have not played the original one, I urge you to drop what you are doing and play this game. Now, getting back to the topic at hand:
Resident Evil 6 demo was what I expected. I was very scared to play this demo, due to my huge disappointment on Resident 5 AKA Resident Evil 4.5.
Leon: Leon is one of my favorite characters in the Resident Evil world. This story of him, I think, is very well done. Capcom brought back the classic survival horror. I also enjoy the fact that you can blow off the zombies limbs to slow them down. The graphic are very well done for what I could tell from playing the demo. Also, the fact that you can kick or punch at any given point of the game is fantastic. This makes the survival horror experience more realistic, especially if you are low on ammo. I also enjoy walking and firing at the same time. This has been way over due.
The Cons: All I can say is I wish Capcom would due away with the partner nonsense. This takes away some of the horror and the holy I crapped my pants batman zombies are everywhere. I feel that once you play as one character, more bad things are bound to happen to you(Like the chainsaw dude in Resident Evil 4) THAT WAS FUN!!! However, this is what RE is supposed to be about.
Chris: My all time favorite hero in Resident Evil. Not only is Chris a bad ass, he is also a leader and marksman. I was highly disappointed that Capcom decided to bring Gears of War into this game. Now don’t get me wrong, Gears is a great game. THIS DOES NOT BELONG IN RE PERIOD! Chris is the classic player that just killed zombies, hunters and of the course the TYRANT! My point here on this is Chris is pretty much a one manned army. I have yet to determine if I like where Capcom is taking Redfield. Who knows, I may like the actual story behind Chris, but I need to play the game through to figure that out.
Jake: I have yet to play as Jake(Wesker JR)
That’s what RE6 is missing, crazy chainsaw dudes from RE4. The first time I saw that beheading animation freaked me the eff out!
So freakin’ true… that was just… a real chainsaw! A chainsaw in all it’s simple glory and efficiency. Behaving just like a real chainsaw behaves.
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… and the Chainsaw-equivalent in RE5? Pure disappointment. Nothing scared me less than a dude, who’s chainsaw does no+instantly+kill+me+the+moment+it+touches+me! Again that co-op feature of a “dying-cool-down” sort of thing. Well, I really got in a close encounter with that guy in RE5 and he hit me over and over again with his insult of a “chainsaw”, and everytime we survived it, thanks to the cool-down and our sexy-ass partner… yeah, thats not how it should be: RE4: chainsaw to the neck = dead. The moment this crazy doctor was one step too close to you resulted in instant death! Exitus. Ende. Finito. This guy had only one move, chainsaw-to-the-neck, and that was about it. No more Leon there. He didn’t just scare you, he was freakin’ dangerous, he justified his terrifying appearence, because you were dead immediately if you failed at keeping him at distance. – not so the RE5-dude… *sigh*
So let me get this straight here.
RE5-chainsaw-efficiency = rusty knife.
RE4-chainsaw-efficiency = chainsaw.
So perfectly true! That might make for a good retrospective look into the best video game chainsaws.
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