Resident Evil is a series that has seen a variety of changes throughout the years to it's once award-winning formula. Everything changed once Resident Evil 4 hit in 2005, changing the face of the series as we know it. Long gone was the camera controlled action along with slowly creeping around corners and newly introduced was a massive dose of third-person shooting while maintaining it's popular survival horror elements. Resident Evil 4 was critically acclaimed along the board and was believed to have inspired some of the more popular third-person action shooters of today. Capcom attempted to replicate this success with Resident Evil 5 and was treated with slightly mixed results albeit it was still mostly positive even when the game dropped the survival horror element for bigger action sequences and co-op, which was a first for Resident Evil.
Resident Evil 6 is now out and the amount of mixed results are staggering. The reviews range from near perfect scores to absolutely abysmal reviews that just rip the game apart limb from limb. Obviously, a reviewers opinion is his own and should only be taken with a grain of salt as if you're still curious, you should check it out for yourself, but here are my thoughts on a few hours in the game with each campaign.
There are three separate campaigns with two of them following arguably the series' two most popular characters: Leon Kennedy and Chris Redfield. The last follows a brand new character Jake Muller with connections with another major character but I'll leave out the spoilers.
First off is Leon's campaign. It attempts to harken back to Resident Evil games of old with creepy, dark corridors and even tossing in the traditional zombies again. Chris' campaign is basically Resident Evil 5 again. It boasts massive action sequences, with gun-wielding foes and enormous BOW's to face. As for Jake, his campaign is mostly similar to Chris' with a twist. The campaign takes a major focus on chase sequences where you sprint away from a massive BOW on a hunt for Jake and his partner Sherry Birkin.
Each campaign has it's own style in one sense or another but they all play relatively the same to one another. As for the gameplay, it takes a giant leap from the previous installments in the series with the biggest change of all: being able to move while shooting. Overall, the game takes a more action oriented focus when it comes to gun-play, allowing you to roll and dive around and newly introduced is the camera being able to fully rotate around the character instead of being locked to the shoulder. As with Resident Evil 5, this game re-introduces a cover system which is arguably one of most unusual additions to the series as it doesn't work at all. It's glitchy, you often find yourself not even being attached whatever surface you are up against and end up being shot up completely.
Capcom tried to re-integrate survival horror elements into the series by reducing the amount of ammo you receive and with that said, it's a ridiculous mistake due to the games massive action focus and you'll find yourself wasting the majority of your ammo quite quickly and being helpless especially in Chris or Jake's campaigns. Also a new addition is melee attacks. With a tap of a button, the character can initiate separate melee attacks that are limited by a small energy gauge. Sadly, melee attacks are far more effective than actually shooting your enemy in the head.
On top of that, weapon upgrades are now completely removed and the health system has been revamped. You get stuck with a set of weapons for each campaign, and while you can find a new weapon or two along the way, you can't choose what you want to use. Instead, a skill upgrade system has been chosen to replace weapon upgrades and to be quite frank, it's a lazy and boring mechanic. From what I saw, you had three slots to choose from and a massive list of skills to select, but still had to be bought or unlocked. They range from critical hits to improved piercing damage or even stronger melee attacks against certain enemies. As for the health system, you still pick up the different coloured herbs, but instead of using them as spray's, they now become ingested in pill form and each pill only fills a single block of health at a time.
As for the story, there are a large amount of cutscenes to be seen and while they are well produced, they occur far too often and break apart whatever tension there is in the gameplay. While the game remains enjoyable and has a decent control system for the most part, some of the new additions and changes are a little irritating and you'll find yourself dying... a lot. Although, you'll be interested to see how the story plays out and how each character interacts with one another.
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