Early on in the third, final section of the Resident Evil 6 demo, we're shown a cinematic in which new character Jake Muller detonates a red barrel to slow a bullet-retardant behemoth. This hands-off rendering of an idea most players will understand instinctively says a lot about the latest Resident Evil - a mammoth attempt to wrest back control of blockbuster brain space from the first-person shooter, and thus an indirect assault on the primacy of choice. Welcome to the Capcom of today, ladies and gentlemen, a company that's apparently so desperate for customers it's happy to deny its own mechanical clichés even the basic redeeming status of interactivity, for the sake of a money-shot. Welcome to Resident Evil 6, a Capcom game which blows up the exploding barrels for you.
Sherry's apparent inability to die at our pursuer's massive, needle-pronged hands proves handy, granting us a window to thin out the rank and file with Street-Fighter-worthy backfists and roundhouse kicks. Eventually, we find time to draw his attention from her severely pummelled form with a couple of wild pistol shots, luring him round a corner into a small side-chamber, where we 'nade his ass - an explosion which somehow jolts everybody back to the centre of the room for a final cutscene. I guess you can't have hulked-out nasties dying where nobody can see them. Think of the spectacle, people. Think of the framing.
Leon's section comes off worst, which is saying something given that it starts by gunning down an undead US President. As you tour the gloomy, cluttered halls of a fictional American university, searching for survivors of the latest outbreak, you'll find yourself frequently constrained to a walk or prevented from aiming your weapon, the better to pace ambient scares (e.g. pop-out ceiling vents) and scraps of dialogue. We've seen and forgiven walk-and-talk storytelling in other shooters, of course, but in the context of an attempt to evoke the Resident Evils of yore, it's a more than usually obnoxious cop-out. Welcome to Resident Evil 6, ladies and gentlemen - a "horror" experience you'll tip-toe through because you're actually denied the ability to run.
25 comments so far...
schwepterbrowser on 3 Jul '12 said:
Not had time to read this properly, so this may have been mentioned. I felt they'd gone from one extreme to the other with the controls; they're loose and way too fast now, which I find far worse than the lumbering tank controls. It's especially annoying in the Leon section, being in a cramped interior location the movement speed was stupidly fast and the camera whipped around way too quickly - it kinda killed any tension and made it hard to explore/take in the atmosphere. Even after lowering the camera speed it didn't feel right.
*Edit: Read it and you seem to feel the opposite way Ed. I liked walking, I always walk through environments like that in 'horror' games; I find it builds tension and thus gets me into the right mind-set. When running I got stuck on pieces of the environment and couldn't correctly position the rubbish camera, leading to walking into walls, etc.
We can at least agree on the fact it isn't great...
comabob on 3 Jul '12 said:
Are either of you guys really surprised its underwhelmingly medicore?
I feel like im the only one who thought 4 was a step in the WRONG direction to begin with -it was a decent game - maybe a good game - but it was in no way a resident evil game.
5 was awful - there was NOTHING that made any kinda attempt to show they were trying anything different with 6. Especially once that 1st gameplay trailer hit./
Clanger67 on 3 Jul '12 said:
Didn't mind it,quite slick i thoought.The Leon bits reminded me of 4 and the Chris bits of 5.Didn't have any trouble with the controls on any,might be after playing Max though,lol.Thought the Leon bit was a bit Lite on things to do,should have expected as much it being the same demo. as the vid.
Edit: Of them all the new character Jake bits seem most faithful to the originals.With the big bad monster chasing after you,don't really get much sense of the character in the demo. though.
Overall though now it plays like a proper 3rd person and the nice graphics and the different pacing and stories for the different characters,think it will probably be on my purchase list.Plus everybody is forgetting it's a demo.quite a few demo's lately haven't done the full game justice.
JCHN on 3 Jul '12 said:
Whoever thought of the QTE with the wiggly stick should be shot. It is atrocious, awkward to do during the game (due to the sudden switch from butons to wiggling the stick like a madman) and will very quickly hurt your hands as the only way that seemed to work for me was using the palm of my hands, which will eventually give you blisters. It needs to go back to buttons or just remove the QTEs overall.
Spiderless on 3 Jul '12 said:
I think it was more that it forced you to walk so you knew when all the 'scares' were coming.
Johnbhoy69 on 3 Jul '12 said:
The enemies towards the end of RE5 with machine guns just felt wrong...so why why why are Capcom doing the same thing over? Im sure the story will be great,it usually is...but somehow i get the feeling Ill tolerate the gears of war-esque gameplay only to progress the story.
Clanger67 on 3 Jul '12 said:
I only got the sense of it being Gear esque on the Chris bit.Given it is like five though not really suprised.And given you as Chris have a platoon of guys i suppose the machine gun weilding enemies are so it is more of a challenge.
I get the sense from all the characters the Leon bit will play investigative so a bit slow and methodical.The chris bit is a bit Gears shooter.The Jake bit maybe a mix of both i got the sense on his play through of it being the most faithful to the series.
schwepterbrowser on 3 Jul '12 said:
They may not have been RE games, but I LOVED 4 and quite enjoyed 5 for what they were. I'd say from the demo 6 is weaker than both and the biggest departure yet. The latter isn't surprising, but I think the former is - this is being developed by the biggest team Capcom have ever used, so why is it one of their weaker games?
Will I get, though? Probably...
golliwoza on 3 Jul '12 said:
The more I see of this game I feel less interested. The E3 demo I thought was pretty poor and generally this demo has received alot of bad feedback. Sid was kind enough to lend me a demo code but it turned out I needed to be at the Dragons Dogma main menu to use it. Oh well I can try it for myself in september.
OXM JamSponge on 4 Jul '12 said:
4 was amazing, 5 was rough, 6 is looking increasingly guff.
DropTheDime69 on 4 Jul '12 said:
Resi 1,2,3 and code Veronica were all ace. 4 was really good IMO.
Not played 5 and probably not going to.
Will most likely rent this.
Make a resi with tank controls and I'd be even happier.
sonicmark on 4 Jul '12 said:
Did anyone else laugh a little inside when they saw that ear mounted flashlight on Leon's head? For some strange reason, it reminded me of Trip from Enslaved when she had that robotic spy fly tucked in behind her ear!
.
Decent_Jam on 5 Jul '12 said:
Well this is depressing, though not entirely unsurprising. It's your classic case of trying to have your cake and eat it, and ending up in a great big mess.
I know Capcom love their Capcom-ness, but if Dragon's Dogma managed to be such an effective game (according to all of you lot, whom I respect the opinion of highly), then why should the fact that this is an established franchise hold it back?
Obviously we are all of a generation (or thereabouts) which has played previous games, some all the way back to the beginning, but think of the newcomers to the market, what are they going to think when they play this? Are they going to think that Resident Evil is a chilling, often frantic horror title which has you darting in all directions when an enemy appears, trying to escape, or merely a ham-fisted attempt at a cover shooter with hints of scare which never really materialise?
Frankly I feel let down by Capcom, since their plan could have worked in theory, but so far at least they haven't pushed the envelope enough to keep anyone happy, let alone everyone.
There's still time....but I don't see this one coming back from the brink.
Bezza89 on 5 Jul '12 said:
I'm going to go out there and say this - Dragons Dogma is essentially a really rubbish game, but it's a great new IP and it is very enjoyable, it is quirky and has amazing combat and the sharing of pawns is something I think elder scrolls would benefit from (having each others playable character as a companion? Yes please)... but that's it really, the story is terrible, the graphics are average, characters non-existent, dialogue terrible and delivered by the retarded monks of mongolia. But somehow DD is brilliant despite all that.
I think we just forgive it because it's new, it's interesting, it's fun - resident evil has the problem of being the sixth installment, and juggling trying to fit in amongst the current sales goldmine action people, the traditional RE combat, and trying something new. Imo, it's doomed by trying to cater for everyone with mass produced food, rather than being a good game and making the people come here for the good food.
SidTheSloth on 5 Jul '12 said:
Or you could say Resi 6 fails by pandering to the masses whilst Dragons Dogma said 'bollocks to the masses, here you go RPG fans'?
There seems to be a huge, no doubt profit related fear of making games for niche audiences nowadays. I'm not a fan of either game but it sounds like Dead Space & Resi have moved away from the survival horror so there's nothing left for fans of that genre...? We've already seen how un-stealthy the new splinter cell is, how un-rpg mass effect became...
CunningSmile on 5 Jul '12 said:
And yet one of the biggest selling games of the last year was about as hard core an RPG as gets produced. When will people other than Bethesda realise that you never go bust catering to a niche?
SidTheSloth on 5 Jul '12 said:
Hear hear...
Seems that we must rely on Bethesda, Valve and the ever increasing indie/kickstarter markets for our niche fixes nowadays...
Bezza89 on 5 Jul '12 said:
What about Rockstar 'let's create a niche and then take our sweet arse time in making a sequel' games?
Bully, LA Noire, Red Dead Redemption, GTA - all unique games, albeit with gta widely cloned, but then they went and made gta go in a different direction creating more uniqueness.
SidTheSloth on 5 Jul '12 said:
Is what R* did with GTA any different to what Capcom are doing with Resi & EA are doing with Dead Space? They built up a big fan base and then went in a different direction, disappointing me and a lot of people in the process. On the flip side loads of people (loads of wrong people like you) loved it, but i've enjoyed both of the previous saints row games far more than GTA IV which on paper is a better game in pretty much every aspect!
I would shave off all my ass hair and wear it as a beard though if R* would make a sequel to Bully next!!
But yeah, R* also deserve a lot of credit, hard to fault any of their games, even if i didn't personally like GTA IV it was still a very strong game
Bezza89 on 5 Jul '12 said:
It's a lot different, they saw the market was full of games aspiring to be GTA and so went their own unique direction, kept the basics and made the game they wanted to make that was brilliant for a lot of people, and still left the market full of games - like SR - for people after batshit crazy.
This is rather than Resi and EA changing the game, and genre to make it similar to games selling well purely to increase sales, As I said, R* create the genres really, they invented the realistic open world to further their game.
CunningSmile on 5 Jul '12 said:
Agree with most of that. GTA 4 was a very good game, but I couldn't get more than an hour into it because it wasn't a GTA game. Preferred Saints Row 2.
Disagree with the arse-beard bit. I really want a new Bully, but that's just weird.
SidTheSloth on 5 Jul '12 said:
A lot different? Now that's a convenient argument if ever i heard one - using the word 'unique' instead of 'different' may wash with you but for me, no dice!
I agree and understand they needed to move the GTA franchise on, they couldn't just keep pumping out the same thing in a different city, but for me a others too much was changed so the 'essence' was gone, which is pretty much the same as the capcom/EA thing. They may have had different reasons for doing it (and i'm a bit too old and cynical to believe R* did it all for artistic reasons and not to try and increase sales etc) but the net result was the same no?
Bezza89 on 5 Jul '12 said:
What I'm saying is it doesn't make a fair comparison - Resi and Dead Space are clearly going 'action up/hollywood' in a bid to increase sales, whereas GTA being an already established brand went in the direction of one keeping ones artistic integrity and making it all about the story and realism, let's forget Nikos split personality character traits (trying to give you choices sort of backfires). My point is it's the complete opposite, and that is the only similarity - the fact that something was changed.
In a bid to please fans of gta of old, they released the Ballad of Gay Tony - which is stupidly fun, but this was all about keeping long term fans happy too for sales reasons, so I'll give you that one.
stevejcrow on 5 Jul '12 said:
Surprised at the couple of comments saying how the Jake section is most like the RE series. I felt the Leon section was most similar to the RE I remember over the years and was looking forward to more of that, in which I felt the story could develop. The other two parts just abandoned the key component & style of a RE game and coupled with loose controls had me reaching for the off button. I also suffered from graphical glitches the same as I'd encountered in the Dragons Dogma demo although they have all but disappeared in the retail version. Don't think I'll be picking this one up though...
pauloselhombre on 6 Jul '12 said:
You're not the only one. For me, RE4 was the point at which the series stopped being a) horror and b) of any interest.
Sure, I've played subsequent games (those I've had access to anyway), but whereas I used to get massively excited about a new Resident Evil game, now any announcement of a new game just inspires disappointment that the series I used to love is gone.