Good lord, Brad, you've nailed it. I just played about 1.5 chapters of this game (Leon's campaign) because, get this, my friend rented it, didn't know what to think about it, but hypothesized that it may just actually be more fun to watch someone else play this game than actually play it yourself. I believe that was a smart thing to assume. The cut scenes are nice, the graphics are gorgeous, the voice acting is well done, and if I were as nostalgic about this series as my friend is, I'd probably enjoy just WATCHING someone play through it, treating it as a cinematic experience.
But about mid-way through that graveyard shit, I was ready to bow out and my friend had FALLEN ASLEEP. Keep in mind, the friend in question is actually a cop, and loves RE2 because you play as Leon, a cop on his first day...I dunno, most people love that game, and in fact he likes 1 through 4, but Leon as a character always seemed to resonate with him. And he was counting all the RE2 references that were being made until he just got bored and nodded off. I don't blame him.
And the camera is just out of control...I've never been given motion sickness by a game that wasn't a terrible flight simulator. And what's this? There's actually a fourth campaign too? Brad, you suffer for your work, I can't imagine playing through even one of these campaigns with its fundamental flaws and nearly vomit-inducing camera. I mean, I get a little money for reviewing movies now and then, but I have to say, at least a bad movie is usually no more than a 2 hour experience.
I played the demo for this a lot, and I think it had to do with the fact that I was trying to pinpoint something satisfying about the gameplay. I tried to like it more. I canceled my pre-order at GameStop while the employee was questioning my choice to do so, and trying to sell me on all the "cool stuff" in the game, it drove me mad, it took a great deal of restraint to not say "Cut the shit, man...we both know this is a very bad game."
When people started bitching about RE6 after the demo came out, I thought that was actually a good sign, because they all seemed to be the same complaints they had about RE5 upon its release, and that's a game I actually loved, and played through maybe three times. I wasn't too fond of the previous entries in the series, and for some reason I'm one of the few who enjoyed RE5, which was widely considered to be the shittiest one, up until now.
This was me playing RE6: "What the fuck is even going on? What is SUPPOSED to be going on?" And this applied to some of the cut scenes as well as the action happening within the game. The rest of the time I spent wondering what bodies were going to get up as soon as I passed them, and which ones were just props, and constantly trying to figure out if I should try and kill a group of enemies or just run past them as most of the time they just seemed to respawn endlessly or at least never fucking die. Also I got hit by a train...and a truck...and one time the AI Helena kicked a zombie in the face which redirected its acid vomit or whatever right back in MY face, leaving me wounded and helpless on the train tracks, once again getting killed by something off screen.
It's too bad, I really wanted to like it, trust me. But thankfully I don't like it and won't be spending that $60 this month. Sure, there are much worse games, but one just tends to expect more from a Resident Evil game, especially one as wildly ambitious as this one that seemed to show a lot of promise earlier this year. I don't mind Japanese developers trying to "Westernize" their games by including cover mechanics, more action, shooting, etc., but come on...just aim to please your already huge and devout fan base instead of trying to branch out into unfamiliar territory to try and please everyone. RE6 is a jack of many trades but a master of none.
Whew...I feel better now.
