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Giant Bomb Review

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Resident Evil 6 Review

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  • X360

Resident Evil 6 may be the most lavishly produced bad game in history.

The heart of RE6's problems is action that just feels unrefined.
The heart of RE6's problems is action that just feels unrefined.

Resident Evil 6 is a big-budget disaster on the order of the Star Wars prequels, a sprawling production that clearly required so many individual talents to bring it into being, you can't help but wonder how the end result could have turned out so bad. Then again, the game tries to be so many things to so many different people, the image of a many-headed hydra thrashing violently beyond the control of its developers comes readily to mind. There are a few fleeting moments of greatness in Resident Evil 6, but you'll likely spend so much time with your head in your hands that you'll probably just miss them all.

Whatever else could be improved upon in this game is moot, since its fundamentals as a third-person action game are just plain badly implemented. After the great last couple of installments in the core Resident Evil franchise, it's astounding that the basic act of playing RE6 doesn't feel at least as good as it did in those games. On the surface, RE6 is made up of the same third-person shooting, button-prompt-driven melee combat, and inventory management, though it goes further in the direction of similar Western action games that focus on moving and shooting in tandem, largely at the expense of the series' traditionally deliberate style of gameplay. But it doesn't go far enough to produce a satisfying game of singular intent. In trying to have it both ways, clumsily mixing that more active style of shooter with vestigial elements of the series' survival-horror past, and peppering the entire thing with excessive Quick Time events and nearly hands-off action set pieces, RE6 takes a tremendous step backwards in terms of basic playability.

The reasons for this are too numerous for any one review, but here goes. The character movement is awkward, the aiming and shooting are stiff, and your basic interactions with enemies feel unresponsive and grossly unsatisfying. With a laser sight that swims around wildly within the targeting reticle and enemies that sometimes feel like bullets are passing right through them, the shooting makes a lousy first impression. And don't get me started on how clumsy the camera can get when you're trying to move around in tight spaces, or about the game's nasty habit of cutting back from a cinematic sequence with your camera angle pointed not only in a different direction than you left it, but also away from the thing you need to focus your attention on. The trusty old 180-degree turn from previous games sometimes turns only your character while leaving the camera stationary, exposing you to unnecessary risk as you then have to manually swivel the perspective around after you've wasted time expecting a basic game mechanic to work like it's supposed to. Playing RE6 is like suffering the death of a thousand cuts, as one minor annoyance and unavoidable death after another chip away at your enjoyment.

There's a little too much pushing the stick in one direction and holding A here.
There's a little too much pushing the stick in one direction and holding A here.

Most of Resident Evil 6 is marred by a glaring lack of that video game critic's old standby, polish. Every time you're killed instantly by an unavoidable scripted event, it feels like a good opportunity to turn the game off and never turn it back on. Seriously, there were multiple times in more than one level where I or someone I was playing co-op with was killed by some timed event--say, a truck hurtling into the area from offscreen--that you just couldn't avoid if you didn't know it was coming, and often don't even see coming if you don't happen to have the camera pointed randomly in the right direction. The game rarely communicates what it wants you to do, leaving you in many of the game's long, multi-phase boss fights to blindly waste ammo as you try to figure out whether you're effectively doing any damage to an enemy that barely reacts visibly to your attacks.

There are other basic design issues that make the game feel like a chore, like the inability to stop time even while you're trying to change your brightness or control scheme. You're never even alerted to the existence of a cover system or dodge mechanics outside of loading-screen tooltips that, at least on the Xbox version I played through, were typically onscreen for less than a second. But the game sure does make a point of driving home how Quick Time events work in its laughable tutorial segment. It never even attempts to explain the quirks of ducking and rolling, which require you to use the same button combo in different ways, but it goes out of its way to make sure you know to push the stick down and hold the A button every time you need to run toward the camera through a barely-interactive scripted chase scene. That's a telling example of the poor attention to detail here where basic playability is concerned.

To be fair, the more you play RE6, the more you'll adapt to the long list of quirks that initially conspire to make the combat in this game a miserable experience. Eventually it becomes less miserable, but it never clicks and feels satisfying and engaging the way the best action games do. Think about the brightest lights in the genre on this generation of consoles. For me, it's games like Infamous and Dead Space that give you immediate, absolute control over your abilities and impart the information for you to make split-second decisions about how to deal with any threat. Those games just feel right. Even at its best, playing RE6 feels like fumbling around blindly in the dark by comparison. The impression is of a game that underwent little to no playtesting, to see how actual human beings would respond to the mechanics and systems that make up the gameplay, and to refine and fix them in the places where they weren't working.

Be prepared to fight this exact boss battle twice before the game is over.
Be prepared to fight this exact boss battle twice before the game is over.

As Resident Evil goes, this game's justification for its own existence is questionable in the first place. Resident Evil 4 went to admirable lengths to upend the series' longstanding fiction by bringing in new antagonists and a new location, and I felt like 5 was already pushing its luck by turning right around and going back to the well with Wesker and the Umbrella Corporation yet again. But at least that game was bold enough to resolve those longstanding story threads with finality, explaining and killing off pretty much everything there was to explain and kill off. Then along comes RE6 with... Neo-Umbrella and the son of Wesker. That's really the most inspired premise they could conceive? I'll grant that this game is awkwardly timed at the end of a console cycle, and it's too soon to go back to the drawing board and completely rebuild Resident Evil from the ground up, but couldn't Capcom have just put together a more modest side story to fill the necessary spot on the release calendar until then? (Actually, I guess they already did that.)

Whether RE6's premise strains plausibility or not, the series has had good luck in the past with multiple concurrent campaigns starring different characters, and here you get a whopping four of them. Dandy-haired Leon Kennedy's vignette feels the most like an old Resident Evil, with the highest concentration of cathedrals and rotting zombies in the game. Square-jawed Chris Redfield's campaign then goes and does a middling Gears of War impression, with an increased emphasis on taking cover and shooting at enemies who shoot back at you. Then son-of-Wesker Jake moves through a campaign with a disjointed mix of shooting, ill-conceived stealth sequences, and an indestructible Big Bad who chases you through every area like a modern-day Nemesis. Once you finish the three storylines, you unlock a hidden fourth campaign so top-secret it's mentioned on the back of the box, one that's meant to give some additional context to everything you've seen over the last 20 hours or so.

The idea of this many criss-crossing storylines is a great one, and you do get little nuggets of info in each campaign that expand on the events in the others. It's hard to get too excited about anything that happens in the game, though, revolving as it does around yet another iteration of the X-virus that's always been at the center of the whole zombie mess. Nothing of major importance to the Resident Evil continuity takes place here, as every character and story thread introduced at the outset has either been blandly resolved or summarily dismissed by the end, resulting in a conclusion that, as far as Chris and Leon are concerned, might as well never have happened. More damningly, as the game wears on, it becomes more and more disappointing how much content is flat-out recycled from previous campaigns. By the time I got to Jake's campaign and especially into that last one, I was replaying sequences and boss fights on a disturbingly regular basis that I'd already played before. Sometimes you at least get to take part from a different angle, but just as often you're literally fighting the exact same boss fight you already did a few hours ago. It's especially glaring that if you play the campaigns in the recommended order, the first last-boss encounter you face is identical to the very last one. That's a pretty anti-climactic way to end such a huge production, and it's emblematic of the many aspects of RE6 that just weren't thought all the way through.

Playable characters cross paths to mixed results through each campaign.
Playable characters cross paths to mixed results through each campaign.

The game at least earns a few points for sheer audacity. Its scope is enormous; the volume of huge, detailed environmental art crammed in here could fill two or three similar games of average length. And many of those areas are framed and lit to great dramatic effect, though others look like they had less attention given to them, and the frame rate is low enough across the board to diminish the effect of actually moving around in them. Many of the monster designs are creepy as hell (a human torso attached to spider legs and wielding an assault rifle seems like something that just should not exist), and the bosses are plenty big and menacing and impressive to watch, though that effect is often lost in the frustrating trial-and-error required to fight them. The production values in the cinematics are top-shelf, and the character performances are quite well done, with Troy Baker further cementing his status as the new Nolan North in a nicely snarky turn as the wisecracking, in-it-for-the-money merc Jake. And as flat as I found the broad story, there were a couple of honestly affecting human moments that got to me a little bit. But once the moment is over, they don't really go anywhere.

By the time I'd slogged through the two-dozen-plus hours of the four main campaigns, I couldn't find it in myself to care much about the return of The Mercenaries, the score-based time attack mode that I used to play obsessively in past games, or Agent Hunt, which lets you match your way into another player's game as a monster so you can give them some trouble. That's a great idea, though most of the monsters you end up with aren't very capable or much fun to control in practice. Mercs is the same as it ever was, which is fine, and by the time I was done with the game, I felt well enough attuned to the combat that I could have given it a pretty effective go, I just had no energy or desire left to do so. It's worth noting you can once again play the whole game in co-op if you like, though your ever-present, indestructible AI buddy is actually pretty effective in combat, except for the rare moment where they refuse to get themselves over to a tandem door you need to open. That doesn't happen often, but always seems to happen at the worst times.

At a glance, Resident Evil 6 is built on the basic blueprint of a good action game, swaddled in what must have been one of the most expensive productions in video game history. You could offer a lot of ifs about how to make this game better: if the fat were trimmed out in service of a shorter, tighter campaign; if the designers had drilled down more intently on one style of gameplay rather than trying to cover all of them; if the player's core interactions with the game were simply as refined as they should have been. But in the real world, we're left with what's in the box. It's hard to fathom how Resident Evil, which almost singlehandedly redefined the action genre just two installments ago, has now become such a strange, mediocre pastiche of the better games this series once inspired. What a bitter irony that is.

Brad Shoemaker on Google+

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TheChaos

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@Korolev said:

Oh ho! You are in for a shit-storm of negative comments Mr. Shoemaker! Be warned!

Why? This game is so garbage I doubt even the diehard RE fans could bring themselves to defend it.

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bvilleneuve

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Edited By bvilleneuve

Brad shows his shameful ethnocentrism once again. What he calls broken gameplay systems and nonsensical plot progressions are both just cultural artifacts, valued differently in the glorious Land of the Rising Sun. I wouldn't expect a gaijin like him to understand. Hopefully Giant Bomb can eventually rise above its racism...

Seriously though Brad, great review. You do a great job of explaining exactly what the trajectory of the Resident Evil games has been for me. I loved Resident Evil 4, but then when I tried to play RE5, I found I just couldn't make it do what I wanted it to do. I'd imagine if I jumped into RE6 I'd have an experience like RE5 was for me but worse.

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uberexplodey

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Edited By uberexplodey

@mister1337: HAHAHAHAHA

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deactivated-59ec818a3faf4

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@mister1337: So capcom paid them to give it a bad score? very sneaky but we've seen through this trick!!!!!!

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deactivated-5d61ff6f14b61

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@mister1337 said:

I knew after you guys got bought by GameSpot it would only be a matter of time before you sold out...

Selling out would be knowing the game is shit but giving it five stars to appease the publisher. If Brad "sold out" with this review then he just shot himself in the foot.

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Slixshot

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Edited By Slixshot

@mister1337 said:

I knew after you guys got bought by GameSpot it would only be a matter of time before you sold out...

Seriously? Selling out by giving a game a poor score? Maybe the game simply sucks or maybe Brad just didn't enjoy his time with it. Regardless, that doesn't make him a sell out...

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mister1337

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Edited By mister1337

I knew after you guys got bought by GameSpot it would only be a matter of time before you sold out...

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SockLobster

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Edited By SockLobster

Wanna see a slow motion cutscene of an apple getting sliced in half by a four eyed serbian dude?

Resident Evil 6â„¢

5/5

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CptBedlam

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@simkas: Then you have watched a different video than me. Please point out the "fuckload of moments" where melee attacks don't connect when they should.

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biggest_loser

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Edited By biggest_loser

This is a long but very well-written and concise review. He covers everything so clearly. Thanks Brad!! You're going super!!

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@CptBedlam: I don't need to keep telling myself anything, I'm just saying what I saw in that video and what I saw does not make the game's combat look any better or more interesting.

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CptBedlam

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@simkas: Keep telling that to yourself. The melee attacks only don't connect when the player is too far away from the target. Another zombie even gets hit by the player character's foot during one of these spinning-kill-animations (3:27). The combat and movement are clearly superior to past RE games.

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@soupbones said:

I still can't help thinking GB has jumped on the hate train for this game. It's not a great game, but it's certainly not the horrific tragedy it's being made out to be.

After having listened to the podcast, these guys are not enjoying the hate. They're not saying "Capcom is finished" or "RE6 is the worst thing to happen to video games"... They're "hating" because it is a deeply flawed game that could've been so much more. I think they are more disappointed and frustrated that this, to them, feels like a squandered effort in the continuation of the RE franchise.

So, yeah... not hate, disappointment.

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Edited By simkas

@CptBedlam: How does that highlight anything? There's a fuckload of moments in that video where the player's melee attacks just don't connect and hit the enemy and there's times where the aim just goes dumb and it looks like the shots don't even register.

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jpmcosta

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Edited By jpmcosta

I'll be fair: I didn't read the review. But the title made me laugh out loud.

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Edited By CaLe

I became interested in seeing how some Japanese netizens would respond to the terrible scores this game has been getting, so I went and found some of their reactions. Here are some of their posts I've translated, specifically with regard to scores from the Western press.

"I knew from the demo it would be bad, but I didn't expect it to be this bad.."

"If you only look at the scores it seems like a mediocre game."

"Capcom just never learn."

"Capcom have gotten really good at destroying their brands lately."

"Didn't they learn anything from RE5??"

"Thanks to the demo I know buying it at full price would be a bad idea. Better to wait until I can get it used for 2000ï¿¥."

"The stop-and-shoot style of RE5 was tense and fun. This game controls badly and just feels like another mediocre 3rd person shooter."

"It's not scary as a horror game and it does a half-assed job as a 3rd person shooter. Graphics are nice though."

"Seems like it's not worth it. I planned on buying it this month but I'll just save my money for next month and get CoD or MoH."

"Wow.. Just as I expected."

"Just like I expected lololol. Japanese franchises are continuing to die... Even worse, they're just self-destructing. First of all, they need to fire the senseless director (on RE6)."

"RE9 will be set in space on a mining ship where a contagion has broken out. (Hinting that Dead Space has replaced RE)"

"Yep. It's a shit game. Capcom are finished."

"FUCK QTE."

"I was done with RE after playing 5."

"Just like I expected. No actually, these scores are higher (than I expected.)"

I was a little surprised. Usually when a game like FF, DQ, or Monster Hunter gets bad foreign reviews the reaction is very defensive. Not so much with this game.

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soupbones

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Edited By soupbones

"Then again, the game tries to be so many things to so many different people, the image of a many-headed hydra thrashing violently beyond the control of its developers comes readily to mind."

This statement is amazing - I may not agree 100% with your review, but god damn - that statement is amazing.

I still can't help thinking GB has jumped on the hate train for this game. It's not a great game, but it's certainly not the horrific tragedy it's being made out to be.

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Sagalla

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"I'll grant that this game is awkwardly timed at the end of a console cycle" - Brad, there will be no PS4, or next Xbox. Take a deep breath, the Matrix has you!

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Edited By jonnyboy

Soooooooo I rented this to see for myself, installing it now, this should be interesting....

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Edited By FightMeNerd

I'm totally loving RE6. I don't see how other decisions could have been made for some instances. The forced story based QTE's are pretty spaced out and I don't see how you could make a hectic escape from a monster grabbing you without making a QTE. Also it might just be me but playing with friends is turning out to be amazingly fun. Constantly teasing the quirks and exchanging tactics during a hectic scenario is pretty satisfying. Also awesome to know that when you run into another character from another campaign they are playing through RE6 as those characters. Also I really enjoy the elaborate animations. The trick is to just understand the movements on the enemies and time your attacks. Shot to the head = dazed enemy = elaborate invincible melee finisher. But yeah the animations really make me feel like there is weight to my movements.

Still not angry at Brad. It seems he had bad luck in his playthrough. Sounds like most people did because they didn't have forums or news posts explaining tricks the game doesn't explain. RE6 is in no way a masterpiece but I am having a great time. Probably because i had that kotaku post about " How to enjoy RE6" which probably doesn't help the game's case but it sure helped make my experience TONS more enjoyable.

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sanzee

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Edited By sanzee

Brad, I felt like you contextualized your thoughts on the game very well in the review. Your frustration with the game was apparent in video and on podcasts, but I feel like you summed up your thoughts much better in writing. It's unfortunate that RE6 did not deliver. I've never been a fan of the series but I really thought this game looked exciting. The demo, in my opinion, was actually pretty good, if not a little boring at times. Sounds like CAPCOM needs to get their shit together. I think the industry needs to hold GDC in Japan so that western and eastern developers can come together and exchange ideas on how to make modern games.

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@fri3drich said:

@dark1x said:

This is certainly a polarizing game, but I feel that there is a lot to like in RE6 if you take the time to learn the rather complex set of mechanics they built for the game. In a sense, the game has a very "old school" design to it in that it doesn't really explain the potential options available to the player at all. Fully exploiting the mechanics requires a bit of trial and error along with a healthy dose of patience. I absolutely hated the demo initially, but I gave it a chance and pieced together all of the different options. A number of complaints raised by Brad can be countered by specific mechanics present in the game. When you piece everything together it flows pretty well. It IS possible to push through the game without ever putting the full potential of the systems to use but it's a whole lot less rewarding and certainly more frustrating.

This isn't a game for everyone (ironically since the wide variety of scenarios suggests they wanted to target all players), but it can be tamed and enjoyed.

I can support that

I agree as well. I mean, I can't speak for the actual content of the campaigns since I only played the demo but the criticism regarding the controls baffles me a bit. I didn't have any problems doing the various dive and melee moves and aiming felt pretty good after some adjustment time (it's just different than in RE4/5). The movement in this game is much more dynamic and the action flows way better than in any past RE game. Even if the campaigns are as crappy as everyone says, I'd say the fundamentals of this game are really strong. They just need some more polishing (especially the cover mechanics) and most of the QTE mechanics need to go.

I posted this several times already, but it really highlights how good combat and movement in RE6 are, so here it is again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDmU38cOzYU#!

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Edited By JTB123

@dark1x said:

This is certainly a polarizing game, but I feel that there is a lot to like in RE6 if you take the time to learn the rather complex set of mechanics they built for the game. In a sense, the game has a very "old school" design to it in that it doesn't really explain the potential options available to the player at all. Fully exploiting the mechanics requires a bit of trial and error along with a healthy dose of patience. I absolutely hated the demo initially, but I gave it a chance and pieced together all of the different options. A number of complaints raised by Brad can be countered by specific mechanics present in the game. When you piece everything together it flows pretty well. It IS possible to push through the game without ever putting the full potential of the systems to use but it's a whole lot less rewarding and certainly more frustrating.

This isn't a game for everyone (ironically since the wide variety of scenarios suggests they wanted to target all players), but it can be tamed and enjoyed.

This is the closest thing to a reasonable summary of RE6 I've seen. While I agree to a certain extent and definitely see your point, I seriously doubt that RE6 was intended to be that way.

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fri3drich

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Edited By fri3drich

@dark1x said:

This is certainly a polarizing game, but I feel that there is a lot to like in RE6 if you take the time to learn the rather complex set of mechanics they built for the game. In a sense, the game has a very "old school" design to it in that it doesn't really explain the potential options available to the player at all. Fully exploiting the mechanics requires a bit of trial and error along with a healthy dose of patience. I absolutely hated the demo initially, but I gave it a chance and pieced together all of the different options. A number of complaints raised by Brad can be countered by specific mechanics present in the game. When you piece everything together it flows pretty well. It IS possible to push through the game without ever putting the full potential of the systems to use but it's a whole lot less rewarding and certainly more frustrating.

This isn't a game for everyone (ironically since the wide variety of scenarios suggests they wanted to target all players), but it can be tamed and enjoyed.

I can support that

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Edited By fri3drich

I played this game yesterday evening at a friends house and had a blast.

Didnt like parts of the story, QTEs, and that theres only 3 mercenaries maps.

The controls are modern compared to old RE, but dont expect them to be like GOW or Uncharted, some might say they are clunky or unpolished, I dont think so at all, but it takes some effort to master them. And for the love of god, switch to LASERSIGHT! Can't stress that enough...

I'd say, get this game when it drops to 30-40. If you enjoyed RE5 Mercenaries, get it now, you will love this!

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Edited By ttocs

After playing the game for a couple nights, I can see some of the warranted complaints in this review, but I think I would have given it 3 stars. The production value is high and the game does deliver some interesting moments. That being said, it's still pretty mediocre.

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Scotto

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Edited By Scotto

@Brad said:

@mortal_sb said:

this is probably a pretty well written review, but man, i checked in word: 2700 words and almost 4 pages. that's just too long. three times the length in comparison to the joystiq review. a review shouldn't be a short story.

i know GB loves to do long and elaborate reviews, but i would prefer if they would review 2-3 games more and write reviews that are only (at max) half als long as these.

If you think the writing is the lengthiest part of the review process, you're badly mistaken.

Cut the length of your reviews in half, and you could be a veritable tornado of video game judgment, Shoemaker! Haha!

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Edited By dark1x

This is certainly a polarizing game, but I feel that there is a lot to like in RE6 if you take the time to learn the rather complex set of mechanics they built for the game. In a sense, the game has a very "old school" design to it in that it doesn't really explain the potential options available to the player at all. Fully exploiting the mechanics requires a bit of trial and error along with a healthy dose of patience. I absolutely hated the demo initially, but I gave it a chance and pieced together all of the different options. A number of complaints raised by Brad can be countered by specific mechanics present in the game. When you piece everything together it flows pretty well. It IS possible to push through the game without ever putting the full potential of the systems to use but it's a whole lot less rewarding and certainly more frustrating.

This isn't a game for everyone (ironically since the wide variety of scenarios suggests they wanted to target all players), but it can be tamed and enjoyed.

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Scotto

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Edited By Scotto

@dicnose said:

SUSPiciuous that brad ois the only reviewer who hate thisgame.. sounds like he got to greedy and demanded a big payoff & capcom denied him huh?

Poor spelling, completely unresearched comment, then a completely baseless accusation. A masterpiece. And I see you gave the game 5/5. The plot thickens! (Not really)

A quick Wikipedia, Metacritic, or freaking Google search would quickly demonstrate that your first sentence is false. As for your second sentence -- LOL.

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GunstarRed

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@paulwade1984: Doubtful. The skill select screen is unmissable between chapters. I have level 2 gun power and I still need to shoot some zombies 4 times in the head for them to go down. That is ridiculous.

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paulwade1984

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Is it possible that Brad never figured out where to spend his skillpoints? There are skills that make weapons more effective, items drop more often and improve your accuracy as well as multitudinous other benefits. They are kind of fundamental in the gameplay.

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peritus

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@Eyz said:

I'm pretty sure I will kinda like it.

Then again, I've also "kinda" enjoyed Escape from Bug Island, so...

So what youre saying is you like everything? :p

On topic: its just one mans opininon guys! ( and im inclined to agree ) But im also just one man ;)

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Waffley

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The only people I've talked to that think Resident Evil 6 is a good game are people who can't explain why. Yes, we know the "action" direction isn't new or sudden for the Resident Evil franchise. If you ask me it strolled into the Action genre with RE4 which I still enjoyed for similar reasons I enjoyed RE5.

As is shown in the Quick Look, numerous play-throughs and full reviews of the game, and the Bombcast, Resident Evil 6 trips over all these poorly implemented and needless QTEs and falls face-first into its own puddle of exhausted features. I'm setting aside the bugs because many if not all could be fixed with a title update - something that I think buyers deserve in lieu of the game simply having a later release date and launching as a polished product. I'd like games to be criticized on the potential and/or promise of polish rather than their own to-be-fixed shortcomings.

Sensible people do not dislike Resident Evil 6 because it is a Capcom product. We dislike it because it throws all these contrivances into the already bloated canon. Because the additions of what some might call "Gears of War" quirks do not put the game in a better light. Because Capcom's "cover all bases" technique of creating three (spoilers: four) campaigns with the hope that at least ONE will appeal to every type of gamer just instigates the idea that rather than singular quality a game should focus on alternative appeal which is a direction that neither this series nor the game industry should go right now.

Now back to the "sensible" part of that. The masses of either side are not acting so. You have the people who hate Capcom and give the game a 0/10 score on collectives like Metacritic, but you also have the people who are convinced that everyone is just jumping on the hate bandwagon so they give it a 10/10 "because it's only fair". To these people who think "Well if he hated it, he must not have played the game!" let me ask you something: How are you supposed to know if a game is legitimately bad? Will you simply buy a game without passing judgement just because people praise or hate it? That is the point where you reach ignorance. Say ignorance is bliss all you want because I don't think companies picking $60 out of my wallet every week would be very blissful.

The bottom line here is that this is a poorly made game. I promised I would set aside the numerous bugs that every player experienced. A patch can fix those bugs, but it cannot fix the aspects of Resident Evil 6 that make it a bad game and a bad addition to the series. They can't patch the shoddy attempts at horror in the Leon campaign. They can't patch the legitimately generic feeling of Chris's campaign. And they sure as hell can't patch the relentless QTE-driven mess of a story that is Jake's campaign where many of the issues of other campaigns seem to coincide mercilessly.

Therefore I commend Brad on the brutal honesty and on having the fortitude to play the entire game beforehand as any reviewer should do. I would however give it a 3/5 because there are surely worse games out there that have gotten higher scores, and the fact that Brad didn't quit playing it out of sheer lack of quality says something about the core of RE6 or at the very least something about his dwindling sanity. Seriously though as someone who grew up on the Series Formerly Known as Survival Horror a.k.a. Resident Evil it is very disappointing to see people's lack of sensibility.

If you haven't/won't play it then don't spread your goddamn opinion on it. Whether that opinion be hate-driven or fandom-driven, it doesn't amount to a shit if you haven't played the game first. The tl;dr of this 3am-driven wall of words is cut the shit and accept the article for what it is. A criticism. A critiquing. And I hate that I feel obligated to point this out to some of you, but yes - an opinion.

P.S. - I think all the hype (good and bad) following this game's release is causing profits for Capcom in such a way that people who buy it "just to see how bad it is" could certainly be exploited for that very easily in the near future. Please don't become one of those people.

P.P.S - Operation Raccoon City still sucks.

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Andy_117

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@dicnose said:

SUSPiciuous that brad ois the only reviewer who hate thisgame.. sounds like he got to greedy and demanded a big payoff & capcom denied him huh?

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/10/1/3430374/resident-evil-6-review

http://www.destructoid.com/review-resident-evil-6-235326.phtml

http://au.gamespot.com/resident-evil-6/reviews/resident-evil-6-review-6397185/

I don't know whether to be surprised that the same excuse for this game getting too high of score by its detractors is the same one being used getting too low a score by its benefactors. Wait, no, I'm not surprised. Especially since you spelled suspicious with ERROnious capitalization and spelled "thisgame" as all one word.

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dropabombonit

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Thanks for saving me money Brad. I will keep it for AC3 at the end of the month

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Ghostiet

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@dicnose said:

SUSPiciuous that brad ois the only reviewer who hate thisgame.. sounds like he got to greedy and demanded a big payoff & capcom denied him huh?

What?

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dicnose

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SUSPiciuous that brad ois the only reviewer who hate thisgame.. sounds like he got to greedy and demanded a big payoff & capcom denied him huh?

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Eyz

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I'm pretty sure I will kinda like it.

Then again, I've also "kinda" enjoyed Escape from Bug Island, so...

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Winternet

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@Gunharp said:

@Hef said:

@Gunharp said:

@Vitor said:

@Winternet said:

@Gunharp said:

said:

"...what must have been one of the most expensive productions in video game history."

Can anyone confirm this? Curious as to what the estimated budget is.

I would think Too Human and APB are still the kings of this category Brad puts RE6 into. Also I am not defending RE6, will probably check it out next year when I have the free time. What a divisive game.

The Old Republic must be the new king on the expensive-production-department. L.A. Noire must also be up there.

Yeah, but those two aren't categorically held up as examples of bad games. Not to everyone's taste maybe but they still did well critically.

Too Human and APB flopped both commercially and critically.

Yes, what Vintor said :)

GT5 son

GT5 Son? Haha, you are talking to the wrong guy! I've almost platinum-ed GT5, it's one of the greatest racing games I have ever played. Also I am a big fan of auto sports and sim and non simulator racing games. There is a whole world out there that enjoyed and still enjoys GT5. Round here I feel like I have to write that.

GT5 fell very far from the commercial and or critically panned bucket.

I was using those two games as examples of critically and commercially failed games. SWTOR and the other big budgets do not fall into that category that Brad discusses about in his review.

Furthermore anyone got any idea on the budget yet? No idea if even knows.

I thought you were just talking about plain and simple development costs. Although, you can make the point of The Old Republic being a flop.

Brutal Legend comes to mind, but I don't know if dev costs were as high as those two games.

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probablytuna

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Wow that is a pretty darn long review. I had no intention of playing this whatsoever but after the past few days of non-stop talk about it and the polarising opinions of both the critics and fans, I really want to see if it's actually a good or bad game.

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Imsorrymsjackson

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@vinsanityv22 said:

I don't understand why RE6 is being targeted for these flaws when they're prevalent in overrated dreck like Dead Space 2 as well. God I hate Dead Space. It too is well produced, but a complete mess. There's absolutely no scares or tension. It's just a clunky action game where the lights flicker on and off a lot. But man - the 5 star reviews and praise couldn't come fast enough for EA's awkward shooter.

I'm not arguing with Brad's review of RE6. I'm sure everything he says is true - Brad backs up everything he says with plenty of examples, and Capcom is sort of a mess these days anyway. They don't know what to do with Mega Man, or Resident Evil, or anything else they're doing at the moment it seems (except for, like, DmC). All I'm saying is that people tend to turn a blind eye to other games that do the same shit. It's frustrating. I can't believe Brad mentioned Infamous and Dead Space in the same breath up there, when one's buttery smooth and responsive and the other... well the other is Dead Space.

Even Conan O'Brien could sense that this was a bit of a mess. In his words, "Zombie genre should be simple; see zombie, kill zombie". This definitely deserved the 35 he gave it ;)

Oh well, at least I can pick up RE: Revelations.

Dead Space 2, a mess? No.

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JerichoBlyth

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Crapcom are seriously going to die.

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@magnum45 said:

And the irony is that the Western culture in several ways almost demands that the Japanese developers cater to the western-people and thereby destroying their unique style.. I feel sad for em :(

But still, they can and do still make some of the best IP's in the world(Looking at you Metal Gear and the Souls games)

I don't know that we're demanding it. I think it's something more along the lines of Japanese devs not knowing what message to take away from the success of the 360 this generation. Japanese devs have had the market completely cornered in the states since the NES days. And now I think they just don't know what to make of the way things are shaping up. We'll see what happens next gen. If the PS4 and Wiiu take off in America, I think we'll see Japanese games hit their stride again. Could be another gen with Microsoft on top, but if any lesson can be gleaned from the console wars it's that the king don't stay the king for long.

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GunstarRed

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Edited By GunstarRed

Its been a while since something in one of Brad's reviews for a game I liked hasn't bothered me, but this one is spot on.

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jamesisaacs

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I'm still getting this amazing game!

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SecondHeartbeat

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I can appreciate why RE6 is getting such atrocious reviews and in a way I'm dissapointed in it as a RE title, but in all honesty I am still having a lot of fun with it.

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Sad Brad is sad

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I've never played a Residnet Evil game in my life. I once tried the first one (the one with the Jill, master of unlocking joke) I thought it was slow and boring, I was young.

I gave RE6 demo a try and it was fun, what I liked about it was that it's completely different from the usual crap 3rd person shooters. It's weird, unfair at times but has loot, good action (jumping back while shooting seemed cool) and hassle-free co-op. It's probably flawed later on and the demo was carefully chosen but I had fun and would like to play the full thing at some point.