Resident Evil 6 was a surprise announcement this year by Capcom, released a month early on October 2, which had fans salivating and waiting impatiently for zombie slaying. The wait has been somewhat worth it, with the new gameplay mechanics adding more replay value and more multiplayer modes. However, the actual plot and story of Resident Evil 6 is one of the weakest entries in the series.
Now, players are no longer limited to just standing still and shooting or pressing context sensitive buttons to dodge, or even perform melee attacks on enemies. Everyone can now shoot and move, dodge at any time and do a variety of melee attacks from all directions. But because of this new sense of mobility and freedom, the enemies are ten times harder and deal double the damage compared to their incarnations in previous games. Zombie grabs can be downright lethal and the constantly mutating J’avo spice up the combat by re-growing lost limbs or changing depending on how fast a player attacks them and where.
Multiplayer has been refined as well, this time supporting up to four players at once during certain story segments, in moments called crossovers. Here one story can bleed into one of the other three stories and have total strangers cooperating trying to take on bosses or short run and gun segments.
Returning also is the Mercenaries mode, where players can either go solo or team up with a friend/stranger and try to get the high score from killing 150 zombies and/or J’avos while keeping track of the ticking clock on the top of the screen. Not just in Mercenaries mode, but throughout the game, each 8 playable characters — besides one very hidden character, moving the count up to 9 — are all very unique in the fact that they each play differently and carry different weapons/tricks up their sleeve.
There’s a deep meta-game to be had here when playing Mercenaries for high scores or just the levels in the actual game themselves for constant speed runs.
While all of this sounds really great, the game does have one major flaw, the actual plot is severely lacking on all fronts. Instead of having just one solid and coherent storyline to follow, Capcom decided to split the game up into four very radical and diverse stories. This may sound good on paper and inception, but the actual way it goes about it is all so very conflicted. Easily this is the worst laid out story even though it’s the biggest game in the series’ history.
This is one of the reasons for the draw back, but it is well worth the price of admission of $60.00 or even a rental. However, don’t walk into this game thinking Revelations-like greatness which mixes the old school survival horror aspects with the modern Resident Evil 4 and 5 controls, instead this game is a bigger blend, borrowing more from games like Vanqvuish, with frenetic action set pieces to push the player along the unconventional narrative and addictive explosive combat.
I can’t say this game will be for everyone, even for the hardcore Resident Evil fans that stuck through 4, 5, Operation Raccoon City and Revelations. This is a new type of Resident Evil. I was easily impressed by the additions to the combat system it is easily the best Resident Evil that has ever been done when it comes to fighting. Yet the story is the downer here, leaving me scratching my head at the plot points and that pesky boss that should have probably died five other times. Still, this is the game to play if you want to get a zombie-slaying fix just in time for Halloween, give it a shot.
