Screw the critics – Resident Evil 6 is awesomely epic

I don’t mean to brag, but I beat Halo once. Alone. On normal.

Yeah, yeah. I don’t mean to make you feel bad, but I consistently will beat games on one level higher than their easiest setting. Sure, it’s a challenge, and it leads to many frustrated moments and sleepless nights. But that’s what you do when you’re an expert gamer like me. You have to go the extra mile to receive enjoyment from the game. If you give a diamond enough pressure, afterall, it becomes…an even better diamond. No, wait, that’s not it…

Anyways, clearly, I don’t play games like other people (who I refer to fondly and condescendingly as “scrubs”), so I figured, I shouldn’t review games like them either. Enter “Review from a Gaming Expert,” my series of game reviews that tackle game reviews from my own unique, elevated, transcendent perspective.

Identity Not-Crisis

First up in this new series is Resident Evil 6. The award for “Most Polarizing Game of 2012” has to go to Capcom’s latest in their popular horror series. Is it even close? Media outlets have given the game reviews ranging from a perfect score to vomit. Some scrubs appreciate the series’ advancements, while just as many whine about the series abandonment of survival horror for something more akin to a Michael Bay production. The game’s biggest point of contention seems to be the fact that the gameplay and tone are all over the place. IGN’s review states that RE 6 is “undone by its ambitious attempt to pack four game experiences into one,” and that the title “suffers from a bit of an identity crisis.”

Suck it, IGN. I disagree completely. SORRY THE GAME IS TOO EPIC FOR YOU. Yes, each of the three (a fourth is unlockable) campaigns features distinct tone and gameplay. However, this versatility is part of what makes RE 6 so great; instead of limiting itself to one static model, RE 6 manages to pack in more content and diversity than ever before. Wanted one RE 6 game? Well, you get three. Try not to bitch too much, America. This allows Capcom to craft a visceral, dynamic campaign that features great characters and epic set pieces.

Three games in one

RE 6 could have been Leon’s campaign on its own, and that probably would have pleased most scrubs; instead, Capcom went the extra distance, weaving a dark, ambitious tale through enough content for Resident 6, 7, and maybe even 8. Each campaign follows a different character and their partner, as they unravel the mystery behind a new threat that may be the greatest in the series history:

• Leon Kennedy’s segments focus on more traditional zombies and horrors, and take cues from classic zombie flicks (weaving through the undead in the streets of an infected city, holding out in a church while zombies descend on your position, etc.).

• Jake Mueller’s segments are more action heavy, but usually incorporate a mechanic of being hunted, whether by a tank, helicopter, or the terrifying and brilliantly designed Ustanak (think Nemesis, but more mobile and adorable).
• Chris Redfield, he of rock-punching fame, is pure action movie, with some segments seemingly pulled from popular action films like Black Hawk Down and The Raid: Redemption.

These stories link and overlap with one another to flesh out the overarching narrative which, in my opinion, is Resident Evil’s best. Yes, some of the dialogue is awful, and some of the ideas are cheesy, but the voice acting is pretty great across the board, and what the game lacks at times in story it makes up for with characters.

RE 6, without a doubt, does the best job in RE history with characters. Leon, while a badass in RE 4, was not really a character players could relate to; amidst his knife fights, advances onto ladies, and trash talking the villains, he was more of a caricature than a character. In RE 6, however, he is a man who is weighed with the burden of this new attack, and reeling from the loss of his good friend in the opening minutes. Care is taken to humanize him, and to great effect.

Emotional investment

While Leon’s character is much improved and will most likely be the common scrubs’s favorite, my vote for most enjoyable characters go to Jake Mueller and Sherry Birken. From the outset, their chemistry and dynamic is great, and continues to build throughout their campaign. This allows the player to develop more investment in these characters, and creates moments that are not only compelling, but emotionally genuine. Any game allows you to vaporize zombies/monsters/aliens, but the ones that stand apart aren’t the ones that mechanically do it the best, but the ones that make you care about who is doing the ass-kicking. Dead Space 2 took a page from this idea with the introduction of Ellie, and I’m glad RE 6 is following suit.

With a game that puts so much emphasis on its characters, my only real complaint is that, once again, Jill and Claire, two of the series most iconic characters, have once again been left on the back-burner. Jill hasn’t been featured in a titled Resident Evil game since 3 (DLC notwithstanding), and Claire has been MIA since Code Veronica. It seems like it would have been really easy to include at least one of them in as a partner in Chris’ campaign, but it’s hard for me to complain when all the other characters, new and old, are so well done. There’s always RE 7, where I can hope a full female cast of Claire, Jill, Sherry, and Ada kick ass of zombies and monsters and whatever else Umbrella decides to throw at them.

Gameplay, sucka

At the end of the day, if the gameplay isn’t fun, the best characters and story in the world won’t matter. Thankfully, RE 6 is an advancement in almost every area from its predecessor. Characters are much more mobile and defensive, melee attacks are more easily executed, and the inventory system is the most manageable yet. I’ll spare you the details of the boring stuff, like dodging, rolling, and quick shots, and just say that when zombie dragons and spiders and small guerrilla forces have surrounded me and I’ve run out of ammo because I keep shooting boxes instead of punching them, I still found myself able to hold them off with the new tools at my disposal.

Speaking of tools, too many scrubs complained about the weapon upgrade system. For the first time since 4, there is no treasure/weapon upgrade system; instead, players collect skill points to upgrade their characters, buying skills to augment gameplay such as greater defense and more powerful melee attacks. I will say the old system will always hold a special place in my heart (WHADDYA BUYIN?), but the new system works well, and the ability to switch out skills to best fit the oncoming obstacles is a nice touch.

As of writing this review, I have not yet tried the co-op. I’m too hard, too stone cold, to need help from a friend. But the game is clearly built around the idea of co-op, more so than RE 5, and I foresee playing along with a friend to be very fun, possibly more so than the single player. The good news is that your AI partner this time around has been very well implemented; you don’t have to worry about them dying, and they really only help you out. Especially Sherry. I was playing and Jake and was downed in a particularly nasty sequence. Angry that Sherry was taking so long to pick me up, I eventually came to and was going to give her a piece of my mind…when I turned around and every freaking monster in the room was dead, their heads blown clean off. I don’t know what she did. Maybe I don’t want to. Suffice it to say, your partner not only takes care of themselves, but often bail you out as well.

Summary

Here’s what you need to know; not everyone is as good at videogames as I am, and can’t handle the intensity of some of the over-the-top segments associated with RE 6. So, because they cannot comprehend it, they deride and complain about it. Yes, some of the pieces in RE 6 are admittedly a spectacle, but they are a grand spectacle, creating exciting and memorable moments frequently throughout the campaigns. It provides the sort of white knuckle intensity that is rarely found in gaming. Are we going to shun it simply because it doesn’t fit the RE template? If so, then you’re going to miss out. This is not your father’s Resident Evil, and it does pack more action and frenetic situations than it probably should. But I urge you to ignore the reviewers and give RE 6 a try. If you know going in what to expect, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the title’s versatility and just plain entertainment.

I award Resident Evil 6 four Super Saiyan Sherry’s out of five.