/sigh... Resident Evil spin-offs have always been a little spotty to be sure, but the main core entries had always carried a consistent level of quality. As I mentioned before, even Code: Veronica I wouldn't consider to be a bad game. Then of course Resident Evil 6 had to come along and mess all that up.
I'll admit that I've actually played a lot of RE6 -- my overall playtime reads somewhere around 100 hours. Crazy? Yes. Idiotic? Yes... Er
Though that's all precisely because RE6 is one of those bad games that I find to be ever so fascinating. There's just so many layers of crap to all of this that, in a weird way, I kind of enjoy uncovering it all. Plus I sometimes like to head back and reaffirm to myself that yep, this game still sucks zombie shit.
Whereas RE5 had already placed its priority inline on the side of action over any sort of adventure, it was still a brilliantly put together game with superb gameplay. RE6 on the other hand has an air of shoddiness throughout; simply 'moving' in that game felt off somehow. Everything has an unsatisfying looseness to it, which contrasts against the tight controls of RE5. The shooting has very little feedback and never feels particularly satisfying, the melee attacks--while more freeforming--feel clunky and don't flow very well from one attack to the next, the boss battles too poorly telegraph what it is you should be doing and also retain that same lack of feedback; QTEs of course are so damned prevalent that RE6 almost starts to feel like a shitty rhythm game of sorts. It has four (four!) campaigns yet barely any story at that, one that is primarily delegated to 'Files' that are located outside of the actual campaigns! Then there's all of the mind-numbingly mediocre vehicular segments -- no vehicle is safe from lulling you to sleep in this thing.
Its aspirations to function as some sort of third-person Call of Duty are perpetuated throughout. This is a game that has you quite literally ''saving hostages'', while then having to nail an enemy with a headshot while he's holding on the final hostage -- but in slow-bromo.
The way the game adheres so tightly to its scripting is one core flaw throughout the entire game. Such examples include the way will frequently PULL the camera from your grasp in order to show you what the game wants you to see, to many highly-scripted set-pieces that'll result in immediate death should you ever stray an inch off the beaten path. There's one part in Chris' campaign where you've got a searchlight blaring in your face, but any attempt at destroying results in wasted ammo. It is completely invulnerable, that is until some reinforcements arrive while also shooting it out on their way in. Another great example is the many corpses on the floor amidst Leon's early chapters; they're so very clearly going to get up, however until they do they're completely invulnerable.
Its shameless attempts in (poorly) replicating all of the worst cliches and tropes of western design results in a truly memorable kind of awful.
It's not... all bad, though. The idea behind designing four distinctive campaigns, which will often connect with one another throughout, is a genuinely interesting concept. The cutscenes are also well directed, there's some good music in here, and its Mercs mode is... OK. While still largely inferior to RE5, when you remove all of the camera-fucking claustrophobic corridors, QTEs and buggered boss fights, you can at least what they were getting at with the combat. Sliding around and shit can actually prove to be fun at times, though again, despite the many numerable mechanical additions, it all still fails to improve upon the combat designs of RE5.
Honestly RE6 is a game I could talk about for hours -- and I have! On multiple occasions, both in text and slightly more rambly and potentially psychopathic speech at that. I'll have to cut this short anywhoo, as I don't need to scroll to know this is already falling into that rambly rabbit hole. RE6 is simply one of those games that I enjoy talking about, even if it's to primarily complain about it. Oh well, all in due time... if I can ever finish up this damned retrospective write ups of mine.
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