I like this game. Not only as a huge fan of the series. I really like it. But I cannot recommend it to any fan of Resident Evil, nor anyone who wants a good survival action or simply third person shooter experience, unless they have a lot of patience and forgiveness for all the time the game does something stupid. Which happens way too often.
I really cannot fault developers for trying to find new direction for the series. I can fault them for forced “slow walking talk” sections, for forced camera angles and shots that show in your face what you have to do next without any respect for the player’s intelligence and, since such little cutscenes don’t pause the game, potentially setting the player up for instant damage once this cutscene is over. For trying to “attract fans of Call of Duty”… But not for trying new things, not for making incredible set-pieces, for creating such a grand storyline, which covers almost a year and several places around the globe. It’s not very “resident evil-like”, true, but it still would’ve worked perfectly fine, even while different, if the game’s different ideas always clicked together or even always worked as intended. But, sadly, they don’t. And it takes a lot of patience to suffer through horrible moments to get some unforgettably great ones.
The concept behind the game was rather interesting – designers of Resident Evil Outbreak (a unique online multiplayer take on the series from the time, when consoles didn’t do online all that well) and Resident Evil 5 wanted to make a game that will cover the ideas from the entire series. And created 4 main campaigns with 7 main characters, each with it’s own gameplay feel and focus. Leon’s campaign tries to evoke the oldschool RE feel, with zombies, survival and few tricks from RE4. Chris’ campaign tries to mix RE5 gameplay with more methodical cover-based shooter. Sherry’s campaign mixes ideas of RE5 with a more fluid and fast-paced third-person shooter gameplay, more Uncharted-style. And Ada’s campaign is a bit like Sherry’s, but with more stealth and slight Separate Ways feel.
This could’ve worked perfectly fine, but each campaign has serious problems. Leon’s campaign is really frustrating in its first 2 chapters, since zombies in this game are horribly designed. They are numerous, hit hard and their main attack is a grab, that can go through your attacks and, in fact, can connect even if the zombie is dead – it will die right after the grab ends, but the grab can still put you into dying mode. Chris’ campaign, while slightly bland and boring, works out fine in the beginning, but by the end the inventory limitation becomes a huge problem, as enemies mutate all the time, which eats through your bullet supply fast, and item drops are often not what you want. Sherry’s campaign is fun, but from time to time forces you in some stupid situation, be it QTE galore, or a badly-made driving section or a really stupid stealth section. And Ada’s campaign is fun, but has some minor annoyances.
Most problems could’ve been easily fixed, characters could’ve been given more unique traits (Sherry instantly regenerates a grievous wound in one cutscene, but it’s not factored into gameplay at all), some enemies and weapons could’ve been slightly re-balanced, camera angles changed. And stupid annoying “forced walk” or “look there” moments removed, so player is almost always in control. Sadly, it’s not how RE6 is.
But I do like the game a lot. It “gets’ the characters and what story works with RE. It has really fun moments and good ideas. New controls, while sometimes being a problem, are really fun. Main theme, in all it’s variations is great (rest of the music, though, is mostly forgettable “cinematic live orchestra”). It looks really nice and has some fun variety both in looks and in gameplay. It’s the first RE game, where I liked Chris, that’s saying something too. But unless you’re willing to forgive all the bad parts and elements, which are aplenty, you will not enjoy this game. Which is a real shame.