Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City reviewed by Doc D Strange

Story/Gameplay

Most gamers already know the story of Resident Evil 2 and 3 so I will focus on the what if story of this game. The game starts off in the Umbrella underground lab beneath Raccoon city where Dr. William Birkin has created the infamous G-Virus and the Umbrella Corporation wants it and Birkin dead. So comes in the U.S.S. (Umbrella Security Service) which is comprised of a very generic team of six soldiers. The U.S.S. is in the lab to help Resident Evil series mainstay Hunk find Birkin kill him and steal the G-Virus. Long story short shit goes bad and zombies happen and stuff. For the remainder of the game the U.S.S. squad is tasked with covering up said outbreak by destroying sensitive documents/materials that could implicate Umbrella Corp. which also includes eliminating all survivors.

Operation Raccoon City is a cover based third person shooter with many flaws and broken A.I. Think for a second what games do cover well? Gears of War.... maybe Mass Effect? Well this game throws out that great mechanic for using the A button to get in and out of cover and just decides to have you walk up to cover and stick to it. I can't tell you how many times I died just because of this gameplay decision, when I was getting hurt and trying to back away from danger my squad member was either stuck or sticking to another cover point where enemies were shooting. Now on to the broken A.I. multiple times my teammates would be in a fire fight just staring at the ground not to mention the enemies A.I. doing the same thing. Operation RC has a persistent leveling system ala Call of Duty, shoot enemies and beat objectives to gain XP points to spend on character upgrades or new weapons. I mostly played as Lupo and Bertha. Lupo was my main because of her assault class abilities but Bertha was actually pretty cool because she was the medic class and had some buffing teammate abilities. You know how the Uncharted and Gears games, enemies would take alot of bullets to bring them down well in this game it takes full clips to take them out. Every enemy is a bullet sponge I mean I see why the Tyrant or Nemesis should take a ton of shells but regular ass soldiers and zombies!

Graphics/Sound

Operation RC is hit and miss in the graphic department. Character models look good but when you get the camera in close not so much kinda grainy. The backgrounds are varied and look pretty fucking good and I have to say seeing blown out cars is never a bad thing to see. When the zombies are getting they're limbs blown off is a pretty satisfying sight and Slant Six did a good job on that.

The audio isn't anything special, guns sound like they should, zombies moan like they should and Nemesis says S.T.A.R.S the way he should. I do wish the voice acting was more campy but I guess Resident Evil has come along way form being the master of unlocking or Jill sandwich.

Multiplayer

This game is meant to be played online, if you don't have Xbox Live or and internet connection then your gonna have and even worse time playing this game. there are 4 competitive game modes and 4 player coop on the campaign. Out of the competitive modes I kinda liked the Heroes mode because its different then your typical CTF or TDM. Heroes mode has you pick a familiar character from RE 2 and 3 which is cool if your a Resident Evil fan but other than that its just TDM. There also is an Xbox exclusive online mode dealing with Nemesis but I didn't play it.

Is this game any fun

hmmm......If you are like me and play every Resident Evil game because you love the setting and characters then do what I did and rent it, this game is in no way worth 60 bucks. Having said that this game is not terrible. While I was playing Operation RC all I wanted to do was get through to the next checkpoint because I got tried of the gameplay and just wanted to see where the story would take me next. Which is a kinda cool thing about this game, the what if Leon dies by your hand..... which I totally iced that fool. I liked that aspect of the game but the rest is muddled and boring.

Beer of the Review

If you haven't already tried it check out Rogue's Dead Guy Ale its fitting right, zombies and all. No this beer is not an IPA but it still packs quite a punch. Super dark and kind of a nutty finish. The style of brew is a German Maibock, this beer is great on a cold night when your just shooting the shit and killin some undead. There is no alcohol percent on the bottle but I can tell you after having a few you'll start feelin' it. Check out there website at www.rogue.com