Quick Look: Resident Evil 6

@BulletConcerto said:

I'm not the biggest Resident Evil guy, but I played RE4 and know Leon knows the President, because the whole point of the game is that Leon is in Europe to save the Presidents daughter, Ashley. You'd think Patrick and Brad would remember that, being fans of the series and all that.

RE4 was about Leon being sent trying to save the president's daughter, that does not in any way imply he knows or has ever met the president.

I feel like that the team who made this game didn't take a look at what made RE4 great. Man, this is pretty sad how low RE series want now.

A Brad Quick-Look where he intentionally sucks at the game to demonstrate it in a poor light?

Oh, what a surprise.

@MackDaddicus said:

Does Brad's "I've been lead to believe this isn't great" line about the RE3 section of the game bother anyone else? If he's ostensibly reviewing the game, why is he allowing his opinion to be colored by outside sources? I've been growing more and more concerned that game reviews and game press have been trending away from "game criticism" to "heres what the internet game reviewer zeitgeist says about this game." I'm not naive enough to think that game reviewers shielded themselves from game coverage historically but I think they should at least make an effort to have a genuine experience with a game before heading to twitter to see what the internet thinks.

This one seemingly throw-away comment seems to confirm my suspicions, and also confirm why I have to take all game reviews with silo of salt. If game reviewers are all influencing one another, who's opinion am I actually getting - is this Brad's opinion, Kevin van Ord's opinion, or someone on NeoGaf's opinion? Not to speak for Jeff but I think he was gesturing toward this idea on twitter yesterday, where he wrote, "Not sure how I feel about this new world where reviewers mention RE6 by name instead of just complaining about "the game they're reviewing."

I'm concerned the reviews and impressions we are given by game press are no longer opinions, but rather a summary of internet zeitgeist. I think we are worse off.

Here's the deal: reviews are not objective and never have been. Some sites might pretend that they are, but they're not. It's impossible... especially as video games move towards a point where people find their own niche games that they enjoy. I'm not an MMORPG guy, but if I was, like, the kind of guy who plays every new MMORPG that comes out for at least a few months, I wouldn't come to Giant Bomb looking for opinions on MMORPGs, because I know full well that none of the Bomb guys are like that.

Here's what you do: if you're a fan of Resident Evil who's going to buy RE6 because the game is called "Resident Evil," then ignore the reviews, ignore the haters, you're already invested and going to buy it and think it's awesome. Reviews are not for you. Nobody (reputable [*cough* Famicom *cough*) writes reviews with just to make purchasers feel better and justified in their purchase and views. I know Giant Bomb sure as hell doesn't.

If you're a guy like me who doesn't have any nostalgia for classic RE, enjoyed RE4 and 5 moderately well, and likes to spend his money on full-price video games only if they're really up your alley: read reviews, know who the reviewers are, and make a judgement accordingly. Or if you can't wait (i.e. for the Giant Bomb review), just watch gameplay footage, like Quick Looks, to help you get a sense of whether or not you'd like the game.

It's not fucking rocket science.

Like I said, I like RE4 and 5 (didn't finish either but put several hours into each) reasonably well, and was curious as to how this game turned out. When Twitter and forums and stuff started saying this game was bad, I was like "oh wow, that sounds bad, can't wait for the Bombcast and Quick Look so I can see for myself."

And lo and behold, here's the Quick Look, and yeah, it doesn't look like anything I'd spend anywhere near sixty bucks on.

@Barna: Awesome, thanks :)

@Curufinwe:

Okay, nice to see it there. Still odd that it was hiding so well Brad never saw it. Since the big push to getting away from paper manuals in the box to putting them on the disc, you'd think that it's now common to just find a button in the options to find the entire manual for people new to the franchise who want to play. With this it looks like a mix of hiding the manual/controls but more so on just having a crappy tutorial/UI that doesn't teach you all the stuff easy while playing.

@Gizmo said:

A Brad Quick-Look where he intentionally sucks at the game to demonstrate it in a poor light?

Oh, what a surprise.

I thought it was funny that Jeff kept bring up how long Brad claimed to play the game every time he sucked at doing the most basic stuff. It's also very telling that Brad never even bothered to look at controls in the options menu to see what everything does. Like that dog that killed him at the end. Was he missing on purpose or is he actually that bad at the game?

@takua108: Hes not saying that the review is not objective. I think the issue is, the reason why GB is good is cause the boys have have a ton of experience with a lot of games. There is value in an opinion created by Brad, whose been doing this for a long time (9 years 10?) that is based upon his own evaluation and comparison to other games he has played . There is less value if Brad takes his finger and holds it to the pulse of Neo Gaf and then reports back to us. I think that is what Mackdadicus is saying.

@simkas: well I guess it only makes obvious sense to assume that because he saves Ashley, he then meets the president. I'm pretty sure if you save a member of the presidents family, he'd want to meet you. Just putting that out there.

@Abendlaender said:

@Grissefar: @Grissefar said:

@dicnose said:

stop hating on great game just cuz someon you love htaes it.. brad is not god ok.. mb he was paid to hate game but u have free choice sheep..

Ha ! Ha ! That comment really cheered me up, for some reason.

Me too, well done dicnose. Your satire was appreciated

Turns out he also left a comment on I Love Mondays:

this look like great game i think critic only htate this cuse for the #1first time in the time CapCopm has decided not to pay game webnetworks and critics for the firs ttime.. whatta coincidence that when they not pay.. suddenlty everyone hate game huh? seem like too big of a coincidence yes?

Ha ! Ha ! Pretty funny too, man.

Brad shares some characteristics with zombies, yes.

I was more then likely going to pass on this entry in the RE series, at least now I know I wont be missing anything and am probably better for not playing it.

@RenMcKormack said:

@takua108: Hes not saying that the review is not objective. I think the issue is, the reason why GB is good is cause the boys have have a ton of experience with a lot of games. There is value in an opinion created by Brad, whose been doing this for a long time (9 years 10?) that is based upon his own evaluation and comparison to other games he has played . There is less value if Brad takes his finger and holds it to the pulse of Neo Gaf and then reports back to us. I think that is what Mackdadicus is saying.

I understand the concern but at this point Giant Bomb has enough of my trust that they would never do anything like that, though. A Giant Bomb review would never contain vague phrasing about how something about the game sucks (because of listening to forums and so forth) without backing it up with reasoning.

You know, I just came to think that it was focus group testing made it end up like this, combined with goals from above to make it big with western gamers ie COD players on the 360.

@algertman said:

@Humanity said:

@algertman said:

@Humanity said:

@algertman said:

Still a better game than Mass Effect 3.

Keep telling yourself that.

I will, because it's the truth.

The ridiculous comparison of survival horror to sci fi RPG aside, while Mass Effect 3 might not get the core of being an engaging Role Playing Game completely down, it is a competent, if not above average third person shooter. Resident Evil 6 in addition to being a poor survival horror game and underwhelming entry into the series is also an extremely lackluster third person shooter when you strip everything else aside.

So keep your truth close to your heart because thats the only place where it will ever ring true.

Mass Effect 3 in addition to being a poor sci fi RPG and underwhelming entry into the series is also an extremely lackluster third person shooter when you strip everything else aside.

Still a better shooter than Resident Evil 6.

@takua108: To that extent I agree with you. The greater point is, in general, where its so hard to isolate yourself from twitter and the netz, we are losing the value of the reviewer opinion and getting an amalgamation of internet opinion. I think some reviewers do a better job isolating themselves which is very difficult. In general, i have played RE6 and its bad, I don't like it.

@simkas said:

@BulletConcerto said:

I'm not the biggest Resident Evil guy, but I played RE4 and know Leon knows the President, because the whole point of the game is that Leon is in Europe to save the Presidents daughter, Ashley. You'd think Patrick and Brad would remember that, being fans of the series and all that.

RE4 was about Leon being sent trying to save the president's daughter, that does not in any way imply he knows or has ever met the president.

Also there was a different President in RE4.

@algertman said:

@Gizmo said:

A Brad Quick-Look where he intentionally sucks at the game to demonstrate it in a poor light?

Oh, what a surprise.

I thought it was funny that Jeff kept bring up how long Brad claimed to play the game every time he sucked at doing the most basic stuff. It's also very telling that Brad never even bothered to look at controls in the options menu to see what everything does. Like that dog that killed him at the end. Was he missing on purpose or is he actually that bad at the game?

Don't be a douche. They specifically said that he hit the correct trigger and then the dog chomped him anyway.

Don't blame brad (who just beat Doom II, proving he definitely doesn't suck at games) for a game which is badly made and implemented. The controls are buggy and unresponsive, and the fact game rarely cares that you made a melee attempt.

It's just a poor, poor game.

I thought the guys approached this one pretty good. Brad handling the actual game-play and main complainer. Pat backing him up auxiliary and throwing in his own perspective from his home play, Jeff doing 1/2 devil's advocate and 1/2 sounding board.

It was kind of amusing to listen to and check out (though no interest), both because I knew there would be Brad being already pissed going in, and say between this and perhaps another game mentioned on ILM's, some idea of how to keep it a least a coherent/informative bitch-session w/out brad just taking the game and doing an imitation head stomp for 20 minutes on the floor like it probably deserved. Put the points in order show why, even praise some of the artwork. Pat's point about about the same company doing Azura's Wrath QTE's...wow. If I understood that right.

I enjoyed the demo, it's a good game from what i sampled. I will agree that the story is lacking. Other than that it just needs to be scarier. I will wait till it's cheaper to purchase.

I love watching Quick looks for games that I haven't even heard of before hitting play.

@TekZero said:

I love watching Quick looks for games that I haven't even heard of before hitting play.

You've never heard of Resident Evil? Are you new to gaming or something?

@takua108 said:

@MackDaddicus said:

Does Brad's "I've been lead to believe this isn't great" line about the RE3 section of the game bother anyone else? If he's ostensibly reviewing the game, why is he allowing his opinion to be colored by outside sources? I've been growing more and more concerned that game reviews and game press have been trending away from "game criticism" to "heres what the internet game reviewer zeitgeist says about this game." I'm not naive enough to think that game reviewers shielded themselves from game coverage historically but I think they should at least make an effort to have a genuine experience with a game before heading to twitter to see what the internet thinks.

This one seemingly throw-away comment seems to confirm my suspicions, and also confirm why I have to take all game reviews with silo of salt. If game reviewers are all influencing one another, who's opinion am I actually getting - is this Brad's opinion, Kevin van Ord's opinion, or someone on NeoGaf's opinion? Not to speak for Jeff but I think he was gesturing toward this idea on twitter yesterday, where he wrote, "Not sure how I feel about this new world where reviewers mention RE6 by name instead of just complaining about "the game they're reviewing."

I'm concerned the reviews and impressions we are given by game press are no longer opinions, but rather a summary of internet zeitgeist. I think we are worse off.

Here's the deal: reviews are not objective and never have been. Some sites might pretend that they are, but they're not. It's impossible... especially as video games move towards a point where people find their own niche games that they enjoy. I'm not an MMORPG guy, but if I was, like, the kind of guy who plays every new MMORPG that comes out for at least a few months, I wouldn't come to Giant Bomb looking for opinions on MMORPGs, because I know full well that none of the Bomb guys are like that.

Here's what you do: if you're a fan of Resident Evil who's going to buy RE6 because the game is called "Resident Evil," then ignore the reviews, ignore the haters, you're already invested and going to buy it and think it's awesome. Reviews are not for you. Nobody (reputable [*cough* Famicom *cough*) writes reviews with just to make purchasers feel better and justified in their purchase and views. I know Giant Bomb sure as hell doesn't.

If you're a guy like me who doesn't have any nostalgia for classic RE, enjoyed RE4 and 5 moderately well, and likes to spend his money on full-price video games only if they're really up your alley: read reviews, know who the reviewers are, and make a judgement accordingly. Or if you can't wait (i.e. for the Giant Bomb review), just watch gameplay footage, like Quick Looks, to help you get a sense of whether or not you'd like the game.

It's not fucking rocket science.

Like I said, I like RE4 and 5 (didn't finish either but put several hours into each) reasonably well, and was curious as to how this game turned out. When Twitter and forums and stuff started saying this game was bad, I was like "oh wow, that sounds bad, can't wait for the Bombcast and Quick Look so I can see for myself."

And lo and behold, here's the Quick Look, and yeah, it doesn't look like anything I'd spend anywhere near sixty bucks on.

The point isn't subjective vs objective, if anything I'm advocating subjective opinions. I want reviewers and games journalists to give their opinions about games (subjective) and not regurgitating the internet game reviewer zeitgeist established on social media (objective - it seeks to homogenize all opinions into a single final verdict). RE6 could be a giant pile of shit, I don't know, I haven't played it. The problem I'm addressing is that we're in an age where it's hard to trust the opinion of a reviewer because I don't know if I'm actually getting their opinion or a zeitgeist summary.

I understand it's hard to avoid other people's opinions in social media. I don't see an effort being made, which I why I quoted Jeff in my original post because I think he agrees.

Yeah nothing about this game looks fun.

Urgh, dont even know if i want to play this game. it looks full on catastrophic.

Obviously going to wait for a price drop because like a bad car crash, I can't look away.

@CaLe: Well... his nick IS TekZero...

@MackDaddicus said:

The point isn't subjective vs objective, if anything I'm advocating subjective opinions. I want reviewers and games journalists to give their opinions about games (subjective) and not regurgitating the internet game reviewer zeitgeist established on social media (objective - it seeks to homogenize all opinions into a single final verdict). RE6 could be a giant pile of shit, I don't know, I haven't played it. The problem I'm addressing is that we're in an age where it's hard to trust the opinion of a reviewer because I don't know if I'm actually getting their opinion or a zeitgeist summary.

I understand it's hard to avoid other people's opinions in social media. I don't see an effort being made, which I why I quoted Jeff in my original post because I think he agrees.

But, like... this is why if you want to get the most out of your reviews, you gotta become invested in a site and the people who review games for it, like I am with Giant Bomb. I trust the Bomb reviewers completely to make their reviews completely honestly and without any outside influence, and I feel that if there were to be any outside influence in the reviews, it would stick out like a sore thumb.

Also this might happen with, like, subjective opinion on, like, a game's story, or something, but when a game plays poorly, it plays poorly, there's no getting around that.

@AmericanNinja said:

Had fun with the demo. Looking forward to getting this. Dont know what the problem is.

The problem is the game is garbage.

Ah Capcom, how you don't strive to screw everything up...

@Wiseblood: I voted for the guy, but I guess he only had one term as president.

Well I think that it looks great.

@takua108: I think that's why I'm bringing it up because I expect better from these guys. I'm just talking more about a trend I see developing that if it were to continue would really erode my confidence in the site. If I saw this happen somewhere else I would stop visiting that site, but they have enough trust built up from me over the years that I'm not going to stop visiting over this.

The reason the stomp animations don't always hit is because the zombie was getting back up, aka. you waited too long to stomp. That's not a glitch, it's a penalty programmed into the game for being tardy.

Also, if you keep dying maybe play it on easy?

I don't know, if I watched that on mute the game looked fine to me. I'm looking forward to playing it and deciding it for myself.

"Crazy Person", that 'S' Ranked RE5, checking in!

EDIT: As for RE6, the camera in this game is just weird.

Endurance Run: Resident Evil 6 please!

OMG COM ON GUISE!!!! LEON SAVT THE PRESODENTS DOTTER! OF COURSE THEY WOULD BE BFF!!!!!!!!

In other news, fuck this shit.

Jeff the secret to the RE4 aiming was you could see the laser sight on the target where you would hit it, if the dot didn't show up then you weren't aimed at a valid target. I bet you probably already knew that though.

@ipaqi said:

@algertman said:

@Gizmo said:

A Brad Quick-Look where he intentionally sucks at the game to demonstrate it in a poor light?

Oh, what a surprise.

I thought it was funny that Jeff kept bring up how long Brad claimed to play the game every time he sucked at doing the most basic stuff. It's also very telling that Brad never even bothered to look at controls in the options menu to see what everything does. Like that dog that killed him at the end. Was he missing on purpose or is he actually that bad at the game?

Don't be a douche. They specifically said that he hit the correct trigger and then the dog chomped him anyway.

Don't blame brad (who just beat Doom II, proving he definitely doesn't suck at games) for a game which is badly made and implemented. The controls are buggy and unresponsive, and the fact game rarely cares that you made a melee attempt.

It's just a poor, poor game.

I honestly want to know. Before the dog jumped in for the kill he fired several shots that completely missed the target. Go to the 29:30 mark and watch. Was he doing that on purpose or does he suck that bad?

My first impression from this video is that neither Brad nor Patrick went to the options menu to check out the controls. I am willing to bet that even if they did they didn't pay much attention to what the controls said.

I am an advocate for games ditching paper manuals and providing in-game manuals, but for some reason most games just provide a controls screen which is not as impressive. Still, you can't complain if the controls are there.

Those dogs could be avoided by dodging or ducking. The problem is not that the enemies can lunge at you, its that the developer decided to take away the quicktime action that would have been required and placed a cumbersome control scheme over it. Takes some getting used to.

@BulletConcerto said:

I'm not the biggest Resident Evil guy, but I played RE4 and know Leon knows the President, because the whole point of the game is that Leon is in Europe to save the Presidents daughter, Ashley. You'd think Patrick and Brad would remember that, being fans of the series and all that.

They play so many games! How could they possibly remember that? Good observation, and sarcasm confirmed.

I think this is a different president, but Leon has been working for the government as a top agent for a while. Some of the documents you collect in RE4 and RE5 talk about Leon's government connection. It's important to note that a lot of the RE story is hidden away in documents and not in the actual campaign. Lots of people would likely ignore those documents.

Any controversy on the interwebs about the enemies you shoot in the game this time around?

@msavo said:

@AmericanNinja said:

Had fun with the demo. Looking forward to getting this. Dont know what the problem is.

The problem is the game is garbage.

Never stopped bad games from getting praise by the gaming press.

I can't remember the last time i didn't start watching a Quick Look on this site without ending up switching to YouTube within a minute of pressing play. Oh wait, yes i do - it was when the player had YouTube integration. HUFF.

@Spiritof said:

"Crazy Person", that 'S' Ranked RE5, checking in!

You're not so crazy because I S ranked it twice on PC and 360.

@knightlyknave said:

The reason the stomp animations don't always hit is because the zombie was getting back up, aka. you waited too long to stomp. That's not a glitch, it's a penalty programmed into the game for being tardy.

Also, if you keep dying maybe play it on easy?

I don't know, if I watched that on mute the game looked fine to me. I'm looking forward to playing it and deciding it for myself.

If the zombie was in a state where it couldn't be stomped then there shouldn't have been a prompt to stomp it. It's bad design plain & simple.

btw: The "It's not a bug, it's intentionally designed that way" argument is a typical apologist stance. A game that is designed to be bad is still bad.

@Lurkero said:

@BulletConcerto said:

I'm not the biggest Resident Evil guy, but I played RE4 and know Leon knows the President, because the whole point of the game is that Leon is in Europe to save the Presidents daughter, Ashley. You'd think Patrick and Brad would remember that, being fans of the series and all that.

They play so many games! How could they possibly remember that? (Good observation, and sarcasm confirmed)

It's a different President. RE4 was set in 2004.

@MackDaddicus said:

The point isn't subjective vs objective, if anything I'm advocating subjective opinions. I want reviewers and games journalists to give their opinions about games (subjective) and not regurgitating the internet game reviewer zeitgeist established on social media (objective - it seeks to homogenize all opinions into a single final verdict). RE6 could be a giant pile of shit, I don't know, I haven't played it. The problem I'm addressing is that we're in an age where it's hard to trust the opinion of a reviewer because I don't know if I'm actually getting their opinion or a zeitgeist summary.

I understand it's hard to avoid other people's opinions in social media. I don't see an effort being made, which I why I quoted Jeff in my original post because I think he agrees.

You're not wrong, except just a tad out-of-place since your context right now is Giant Bomb -- which is the best site around about just saying what they think without a care. I caught that comment of Brad's too, but I think it was just more of an idle mention than anything. Leading up to all this, I know he was genuinely concerned about the negative impressions, because he's a fan of the series and it pained him that it might be a flop -- but I think being conscious of reviews is a separate matter from being colored by them.

Not that I'm saying he's entirely immune to this phenomenon. But in this case, I think it's safe to say that it's his time spent playing this game that has made him not like playing this game, heh.

@retsub101: @retsub101 said:

@knightlyknave said:

The reason the stomp animations don't always hit is because the zombie was getting back up, aka. you waited too long to stomp. That's not a glitch, it's a penalty programmed into the game for being tardy.

Also, if you keep dying maybe play it on easy?

I don't know, if I watched that on mute the game looked fine to me. I'm looking forward to playing it and deciding it for myself.

If the zombie was in a state where it couldn't be stomped then there shouldn't have been a prompt to stomp it. It's bad design plain & simple.

btw: The "It's not a bug, it's intentionally designed that way" argument is a typical apologist stance. A game that is designed to be bad is still bad.

that would even be worse, since then you couldnt stomp them from a safe angle anymore, or if you could stomp from safe angle but nor from unsafe, that would be even more ridiculous handholding

@retsub101 said:

If the zombie was in a state where it couldn't be stomped then there shouldn't have been a prompt to stomp it. It's bad design plain & simple.

btw: The "It's not a bug, it's intentionally designed that way" argument is a typical apologist stance. A game that is designed to be bad is still bad.

That's fine if you want the game to be easier in that way. It isn't very nice to penalize the player with an animation that does nothing. But, it is a common way games increase challenge. It's just a step further than saying that you shouldn't have the gun fire if he's going to miss. It makes you pay closer attention before taking actions. It makes sense to me is all I'm saying.