You all know how Capcom loves to put out great Resident Evil Games. They pay a fortune for their ad campaigns and then pour more money into the viral advertising which is becoming all the rage now. The game has high production values, great graphics, creepy bosses, and hordes of zombies (or ganados, or whatever new zombies they have). The games are an event and they got bought by people waiting to devour the contents. They care about the characters and the story, even though it’s not particularly well written. The games become successful and help set the bar in the normally declining survival-horror genre. Later the game gets a couple of small critiques about the controls or some other minor issue, but by then the game has already proven successful. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is not one of those games, not at all.
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is more like the spiritual love child or Resident Evil: The Mercenaries and Umbrella Chronicles. Simply put, its crappy multiplayer the occasional reference to something from Resident Evil 2 & 3, usually an enemy. It doesn’t really add much to the series as a whole and the gameplay just feels generic and has very few positive points. This was a game that was made for a quick buck, or perhaps also for a testbed in the multiplayer for the next true Resident Evil installment, Resident Evil 6. Hardcore fans of the series may be able to find a few nuggets of story to add to the intrigue in the series, and they probably already beat the game and traded it in towards Resident Evil 6, as I have. People just looking for another good zombie game are better off staying where they are however, just keep enjoying your Left 4 Dead, Dead Island, Dead Space, and Dead Rising, (boy we need to get some survival-horror games without the word dead in the title) you’re much better off with them.
Controls in this game are…odd. Weather it’s using anti-viral spray, first-aid spray, selecting grenade types of your weapons, it all feels clunky and pulls you out of what should feel much quicker and natural. It’s awkward picking out your medicine on the D-pad then pulling a trigger to use it. Why the extra step? When I hit that direction on the D-Pad it should just apply the medicine, not confuse me with an extra step. Whenever I run in this game it feels reluctant, as if my character doesn’t understand why he/she has to run away from the zombie hordes; the answer is because I’m out of health items, and dangerously low on ammo. The last two flagship titles in the series had problems with strafing, (which is not a problem here, finally) fans of the series and shooters alike found this obvious lack of control frustrating. At the time developers said it was to help intensify the fear while playing the game, I suspect that will be the explanation here as well. But the truth is I expect developers to find more creative ways of scaring me than stripping me of controls. Video games can already tap into your psyche easily, brutally obvious tactics should already be a thing of the past, unless I’m injured my characters should run when I tell them always.
Combat is obviously where Resident Evil: O.R.C. was meant to shine, however at best it occasionally glints in the light. It’s generic, that’s the nice way to put it. The standard shooter cover system has been retooled, it’s meant to let you take cover whenever you walk up to a wall, ledge, or any other hip-high object. It feels new and different but rarely works correctly, I was amazed at how often I ended up running around looking around for a piece of cover that would graciously allow me to kneel by it’s side. I had no favorite weapon, none felt incredible to me, the best thing I can say is that they all worked, you just can’t aim. You have your pistols, rifles, assault rifles, and grenade launchers; but nothing special that you can’t live without. I still had fun putting a cap in the head of zombies but I couldn’t help but notice that my characters aim like they’re all drunk, your sights blur as you move them it makes me wonder where this elite guard of the Umbrella Corporation went for weapons training, just like I wonder why they seem to forget how to run after a few seconds.
To be fair, Resident Evil is never where I’ve gone to see amazing storytelling in video games. They’ve surprised me more than a few times but the overall for these games has campy stories, and dialogue just a hair better then the star wars prequels. The story here lives up to the reputation of the series, the only problem is that for this game there is no character I really care about. This elite Umbrella Commando group, (I forgot the actual title for these guys) are on a mission to recover samples of certain biological tests and destroy any evidence of the corporations involvement before the whole thing ends up on CNN, while the whole city turns into zombies and other terrible creatures. All the playable characters feel sub-human and unfeeling, as if destroying a small city was just another boring day to them; they never once seemed very conflicted about those circumstances. This made me feel like maybe my team dying wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen throughout the game.
This entry in the series is just filler, something to play while waiting for the next true sequel of Resident Evil. The multiplayer is boring, and to me, very unnecessary with Left 4 Dead around. The only differences were third-person, bad controls, and the fact that Left 4 Dead is actually fun. So let’s all settle in and wait for Resident Evil 6 and hope it’s everything we ever wanted in a Resident Evil game, cause this sure ain’t.