Any Resident Evil 6 fans on The Escapist?

[Ambient_Malice]

I'm curious whether there's anyone on this forum who appreciates the flawed gem that is Resident Evil 6. Aka "Resident Evil: Ada Wong is Totally the Main Character.

As for why I love the game, RE6 is a really good third person shooter. In fact, it's probably the best in its genre from the perspective of gameplay. It's a bloated game, sure. But there's something ironic about a game being released with too much content being seen as a negative in this day and age. The game was in a shaky state when it first released, but Capcom aggressively patched it. Stuff like cutscene QTEs and vehicle sections were heavily improved, though the QTEs really should have been scrapped completely. Plus the game was given stuff like adjustable FOV. The PC port has some inventory niggles and only supports FXAA natively, but is otherwise flawless and beautifully optimised. The game's main visual failing is really inconsistent texture quality, something RE: Revelations 2 improved upon dramatically. But overall, it's a nice enough looking game redeemed by its art and lighting design.

The irony of RE6 is that because each of the four campaigns has a different gameplay style, there was absolutely no way the game was going to please everyone as a complete package. But the beauty of RE6 is that there really is something for everyone assuming they like TPS games with a dedicated backwards dive button and multiple important game mechanics Capcom neglected to explain outside the game's manual which was not actually included with the game.

Also, RE6's story is solid. It has good performances from all the actors. And the central twist was very well handled.

Spoiler

It's cut from similar cloth to The Phantom Pain, since the twist is that there are TWO Ada Wongs, one of whom was a scientist modified to think she's Ada Wong, yet where the Phantom Pain made you replay the intro to learn the twist, RE6 gives you an entire campaign with different gameplay to the other campaigns -- Ada's campaign is far more puzzle focused. If you don't play Ada's campaign, you'll never fully understand what was going on. The other campaigns feature an Ada who seems to have a split personality moment to moment. That was pretty good stuff.

On the negative side, RE6 suffers from being co-op oriented, though to a lesser degree than RE5 did. I don't care for co-op myself, only playing the singleplayer. But the game makes you babysit and coordinate with an invincible AI character with infinite ammo for every campaign except Ada's. They're rarely an annoyance like Chris/Sheva were in RE5, but you're forced to wait for them anytime you want to pass through a major door, and such. The game has (totally undocumented ingame, BTW, thanks Capcom) methods for giving orders to your AI companion such as telling them to target specific enemies, but that doesn't change the fact you're stuck with them whether you like them or not.

RE6 has a pause button. At no point are you told which button pauses the game. (It's PAUSE/BREAK on PC, by the way) Pressing ESC brings up your mobile phone menu thingie which doesn't pause the game. Oh, yea, and ESC skips cutscenes, so I hope you weren't watching an important one when you accidentally hit ESC trying to pause the game. Pause doesn't work in coop mode, sure, which makes sense. But the lack of documentation for such as basic feature is insane.

edit:
For those interested, here is a link to RE6's official, comprehensive online manual for 360, PS3, and PC - http://game.capcom.com/manual/bio6/en/index.html

Also, a link to the PDF manuals that weren't included with the console versions because reasons. http://www.capcom.com/manuals/re6/

 

[Andy Shandy]

While love would be too much, I enjoyed playing through it a lot more than I thought I would considering the reviews.

The shooting was pretty damn satisfying I'll say that.

 

[Zhukov]

I just remember an overly long blur of repetitive combat, bullet-sponge mini-bosses, boring characters and painful dialogue.

The Leon/Helen campaign was mildly fun for a couple of hours. Then the bullet-sponges showed up.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

This has been on sale a few times, and I've always been tempted (in fact I think it is on sale now on PS Store for like $6)

It seems they blew their load with Resident Evil 4, it's a shame that they couldn't follow it up with something good. Still, this may be the time I finally bite the bullet, even if it captures one tenth of the magic of RE4 it should still be worth it

 

[Lightspeaker]

Well...I OWN Resident Evil 6...

>_>

Actually I've had it for like two years now, I bought it when I bought a 360, but its still in its packaging. I've never quite got around to it. I guess I should at some point but my original plan had been to play it a bit with someone I got talking to and we never did and I don't talk to them much anymore so...I guess I'd be playing it single player.

It was probably a dumb purchase to be honest. I never really clicked with RE4 after all.

 

[R.K. Meades]

I bought the game on sale, and played through the entire campaign in co-op with my girlfriend. (mopped up trophies on my own) We had a blast. It was like an interactive TV mini-series.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

I loved Ada Wong's chapter, but it's a terrible game and it ain't fuckin' with Vanquish or Lost Planet 2.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I remember playing the demo for the first time and getting stomach flu. You may claim there's no connection, but I highly disagree.

So that little slice was already enough to make me loath it. Then recently I saw it in the bargain bin and I thought 'Eh, why not? Might be fun in shit kind of way'. Made it in about 1 hour, right up to the part where I'm Sherry/Jake and I'm fighting a shitty mini Boss in a horribly designed arena.

This game is garbage through and through. The only positive thing I can say about it is that Sherry's design is really good.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

I just remember an overly long blur of repetitive combat, bullet-sponge mini-bosses, boring characters and painful dialogue.

Well, the combat is only really repetitive if you just keep doing the same thing over and over and over. RE6's biggest design innovation was that the enemies mutate in a wide variety of ways. As for the game being "boring", I guess it can't be helped if you don't like it. No accounting for taste. I thought RE6 was probably the best written games in the series.

This has been on sale a few times, and I've always been tempted (in fact I think it is on sale now on PS Store for like $6)

Be warned that both console versions of RE6 have framerate problems. It may not be a huge issue for you, but I can't imagine truly enjoying playing a chuggy 20-something FPS version of the game, since fluidity is so huge a part of it.

It seems they blew their load with Resident Evil 4, it's a shame that they couldn't follow it up with something good. Still, this may be the time I finally bite the bullet, even if it captures one tenth of the magic of RE4 it should still be worth it.

RE5 and RE6 are cut from the same cloth as RE4. People claiming the series somehow lost its way are plain wrong. But RE4 was really defined by its horrible, horrible controls. The horrible controls helped mask the fact that RE4 is not really a survival horror game. It is a third person shooter with zombies that are hard to hit because of wonky controls and hard to avoid because you can't shoot and move -- this is meant to create tension and not frustration. I don't dislike RE4, but I think it's the weakest of the "modern trilogy", if we treat RE1-3 and RE4-6 as distinct complementary trilogies.

edit:
See, RE5 and RE6 are what happens when you remove the bad design from RE4, and are left with a huge hole you have to fill - that shambling zombies don't really work quite as well when you can strafe sideways while shooting. So Capcom had to introduce faster zombies. Mutating zombies. And since mutating zombies are hard to kill, they introduced acrobatics in RE6 like quick shot and backflipping and crouch slides and all that. Some may resent RE6 becoming more action oriented, but it was a logical progression. Revelations 2 tones back the acrobatics, for example, but it still allows you to dodge like crazy.

Recently I saw it in the bargain bin and I thought 'Eh, why not? Might be fun in shit kind of way'. Made it in about 1 hour, right up to the part where I'm Sherry/Jake and I'm fighting a shitty mini Boss in a horribly designed arena.

This game is garbage through and through. The only positive thing I can say about it is that Sherry's design is really good.

Did you try each of the four campaigns to see whether you liked them? Each campaign has its own tone and gameplay style. Leon is like Resident Evil: Damnation turned into a game. Chris is Capcom's attempt to make a manly horror brawler. Jake's campaign is an odd hybrid of the others. Ada's campaign is more focused on puzzles and stealth. I rank them as Ada > Leon > Jake > Chris. Jake's campaign has the best ending, though. Probably the best ending in the entire Resident Evil series.

Also, did you remember to turn on Auto Action Button? (This makes QTEs less of a problem.)

 

[CannibalCorpses]

I remember it quite fondly (though it has been a while since i played it). The bosses were a bit crap but the hardest difficulty setting was enough of a struggle to make me feel challenged...unlike most modern tepid shite. I also remember liking the way the campaigns overlapped and how the story unfolded (although the story was as mental and retarded as ever).

 

[stroopwafel]

RE5 and RE6 are cut from the same cloth as RE4. People claiming the series somehow lost its way are plain wrong. But RE4 was really defined by its horrible, horrible controls. The horrible controls helped mask the fact that RE4 is not really a survival horror game. It is a third person shooter with zombies that are hard to hit because of wonky controls and hard to avoid because you can't shoot and move -- this is meant to create tension and not frustration. I don't dislike RE4, but I think it's the weakest of the "modern trilogy", if we treat RE1-3 and RE4-6 as distinct complementary trilogies.

RE4 came out at a time 'survival horror' was a dime a dozen. RE4 basically mixed up that formula by bringing the game into the third dimension with more emphasis on action. That it incidentally became the progenitor of the modern third person shooter makes it one of the defining games in gaming history. RE5 and 6 were just weaker interpretations of that. They also looked at all the wrong directions for inspiration like co-op which was so popular by the time RE5 came out or the insane amount of bloat in RE6 which tried to have something for everyone.

RE6 had no focus or direction and was an inconsistent mess but having said that though I still played through the entire game twice as there were definitely huge chunks that pulled me into the game which I found enjoyable. Leon's campaign would be particularly awesome if not for the AI partner and some shoot-outs in particularly cramped spaces. But again this isn't so bad as the AI is invincible anyway. The other 2 campaigns are pure shooters(though one with more emphasis on melee) but again in general the action is well done and fairly satisfying. The game also seemed to run on a completely new engine which definitely also made the game more playabale.

RE6 pales in comparison to a timeless classic like RE4 but judged on it's own merits I don't think it's the 'disaster' many people make it out to be.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I've just replayed RE4 and despite it's few flaws (escort missions) it's not too bad. It handles well and there are plenty of strategies to employ for each encounter. The story is great, and has the best protagonist of the whole series (Leon). Every cutscene is great, from Leon's smart ass comments to the cheese factor in the villains. I had forgotten how well the praise was warranted.

However, I went into RE6 with an open mind because I wanted to judge it on it's own merits, not compare it to RE2 and RE3. And as a game in it's own right, it's freaking AWESOME. I like all the characters, except maybe Jake. Helena is a tad boring, and I prefer Ada's more anime-looking design from the earlier games. But the story had a bit of everything, controls are fluid and the combat is actually very deep once you get into it. I played Mercenaries mode with a friend for *hours* and never got sick of it. I'd say that today, it's my favorite RE game.

Despite the ridiculous QTE's, I give the designers props for ironing out a lot of problems. The revamped inventory system is nice, the combat is faster and more intense, they even let you adjust the FOV which for me is a godsend, because playing RE4 you're constantly getting blindsided or getting a headache. I don't know how they saw this beauty of a feature, and then when Evil Within came out, went the complete opposite way with a horrible letterboxed FOV that was borderline useless.

Every time I watch the more godlike people on youtube doing the Mercenaries on RE6 it makes me want to get back into it. Such an awesome and satisfying way to blow off steam. God I love those head-exploding counter moves.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I enjoyed it a lot more than Resident Evil 5 that's for sure. RE 6 has some big problems for sure, but it's not as bad as many folks would make it out to be. Micheal Huber on Gametrailers made a bunch of points that I agree make the game pretty lame in the context of the series, but it's not an unplayable mess.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Dear god no, it's an awful game with awkward controls and a plot that's superbly idiotic even by RE standards.

Having said that I've played the game quite a bit, simply because it's the one game me and my co-op buddy both own, and I'll play anything with a friend - even RE6.

And Mercenaries is still a reliably fun mini-game for when you're bored. Even if now they charge you for maps that used to be awarded to you through gameplay rather than money.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

RE4 came out at a time 'survival horror' was a dime a dozen. RE4 basically mixed up that formula by bringing the game into the third dimension with more emphasis on action. That it incidentally became the progenitor of the modern third person shooter makes it one of the defining games in gaming history.

The problem is that RE4 is basically Operation Winback crossed with Bad Fur Day, and instead of fixing those games' design flaws, RE4 sorta tried to turn them into "features".

In Conker's Bad Fur Day, you can move while aiming your weapons except during the Spooky chapter where your shotgun, which you aim using a laser sight, requires you to stand still while aiming it. This was the source of a lot of frustration.

edit:
No doubt RE4 was a significant influence on later games, but its combat is arguably lifted to a degree from older games. Without Winback, would we have RE4's laser sight aiming?

RE5 and 6 were just weaker interpretations of that. They also looked at all the wrong directions for inspiration like co-op which was so popular by the time RE5 came out or the insane amount of bloat in RE6 which tried to have something for everyone.

Co-op led to design changes. Some good, quite a few bad. It's worth noting that Shinji Mikami's The Evil Within has no coop, is supposed to be the spiritual successor to RE4, and yet it ends up strongly resembling a clunkier-playing Resident Evil 6.

RE6's movement is very interesting in light of the series' history. RE2 N64 introduced the idea that when you press down, your character should move towards the camera. Left, move left in relation to the camera. Up, move up. And so on. RE4 had tank controls. RE5 had tank controls. RE6 basically revives RE2 N64's movement system and pairs it with an aiming mode where you can strafe and dodge forwards, back, and sideways. This is a huge deal, and a game-changing improvement, albeit one that might be alien to people who weren't "N64 kids" as they say. And it doesn't help that some sections of the RE fanbase hate RE2 N64 for "ruining" the game design with its new control scheme.

The game also seemed to run on a completely new engine which definitely also made the game more playabale.

RE5 and RE6 run on MT Framework. Very nice engine that was only ever used in Japan due to politics and such. (Documentation was never translated. That's why Lost Planet 3 and DmC use the super janky Unreal 3.)

Dear god no, it's an awful game with awkward controls and a plot that's superbly idiotic even by RE standards.

How are the controls awkward? In my view, RE6 has amazing controls. It's like the Mario 64 of Resident Evil games. You can dive and cartwheel and crouch slide and do jumping kicks and backflips and Equilibrium-style gun-kata at close range and more and more. There's something euphoric about an enemy swinging a blade at you, while you dive backwards to avoid them, shotgun blazing. It's an astonishingly complex game that rewards the player the more they explore and test its mechanics. For example, a lot of enemies that seem like bullet sponges have a weakness. You just have to experiment to find it. Like those monsters Ada Wong finds in the lab -- the armoured shell ones. You have to goad them into charging at you, hit melee just as they're about to hit you, and then when Ada dodges over them, shoot them in the back. Sure, you can usually beat those sorts of enemies by filling them full of bullets until they die. But that's going about things the wrong way.

And what is idiotic about the plot? Compared to "Let's infect the president's daughter and use her to infect others via the world's stupidest kidnapping plot" of RE4 and "I WANNA DESTROY HUMANITY BECAUSE THEY ARE WEAK AND I AM STRONG" of RE5, RE6's plot about a secret society that intends to use bioterrorism to bring peace and uphold the existing order while a certain demented character plots to go behind their backs and wage bioterrorism on the whole planet because she hates everything and everyone while blaming it on Ada Wong" is actually quite interesting. Jake's campaign where a selfish warrior demands more and more for his "services" so to speak, before finally selling his blood which will cure the C Virus for a single dollar and his mercenary services for an apple. It's very Japanese, sure. But it's good storytelling. Also, the main story twist is executed in a way that puts Metal Gear Solid 5 to shame. I don't think RE6 has the same level of "Wait.. THAT is your plan?" that RE4 and RE5 suffer.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

I remember playing the demo for the first time and getting stomach flu. You may claim there's no connection, but I highly disagree.

So that little slice was already enough to make me loath it. Then recently I saw it in the bargain bin and I thought 'Eh, why not? Might be fun in shit kind of way'. Made it in about 1 hour, right up to the part where I'm Sherry/Jake and I'm fighting a shitty mini Boss in a horribly designed arena.

This game is garbage through and through. The only positive thing I can say about it is that Sherry's design is really good.

You know, Sherry's design stood out for me, too! It's kind of plain but it looks good, and is practical for the cold environment. It's the reason why I picked her over Jake. Check this picture out:

Spoiler

The female character is actually dressed for the cold! And the male character is showing more skin! How cool is that!?

So yeah, I caved and bought it. The game can be fun at times, I have the online part turned on and it is awesome to have someone join that I can play with and push the circle button to say "good job" or "thanks" when some cool stuff happens
But holy shit they need to just let the game breathe for a bit. I'll be running along mowing down baddies and having fun, then a giant fucking mutant will crash through the wall and it will force me to hold down X to run away from it. The core gameplay is fine, they don't need to throw in a snowmobile chase and a fucking tank battle!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

In my view, RE6 has amazing controls

In my view, RE6 doesn't.

How are the controls awkward?

Mainly it's the cover-based shooting.

-You have to hold down the AIM button for the TAKE COVER prompt to show up on the screen.
-If you release the AIM button you stop TAKING COVER.
-To actually AIM from BEHIND COVER you have to both hold down AIM and push around the R. ANALOG STICK.
-A more intuitive solution would be: prompt shows up on its own, hold down AIM to ACTUALLY AIM from BEHIND COVER.

Also:

-The CAMERA wobbles around messily whenever you're running.
-The HEALING system is too long-winded and could be reduced a step or two.
-You can't TRADE with your partner anymore, so much for inventory management.

It's like the Mario 64 of Resident Evil games

You're not winning anybody over by claiming Mario 64 has anything resembling passably good controls.

And what is idiotic about the plot?

All of it, beginning with the notion that the best way to cover up a zombie outbreak is... with another zombie outbreak.
It's a dumb, dumb, dumb game. It's filled with dumb, dumb, dumb moments.
Every time a character points a gun at a speedily mutating monster and does nothing.
Every time a character points a gun at a speedily mutating monster and tries to barter with it.
Every time a character doesn't finish off a monster, thinking they're dead.
Every time a character got on a vehicle and crashed it 2 minutes later, which after the 50th time got ridiculous.
It's a dumb, convoluted story featuring classic soap opera beats such as He Was Two Days Before Retirement, The Villain Is My Real Father, There Are Actually Two Of Us, It Looked Dead But It Wasn't Because The Fall/Bullet/Bomb/Fucking Lava Didn't Kill It.
And not once did I care for anybody, about anything, because everybody looks and sounds both snarky and nuanced.
It's the dumbest Resident Evil I ever played, and I've played RE1, RE2, Code Veronica, RE4 and RE5.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Trying to appeal to everybody ended up barely being appealing to anybody. I'm glad that you enjoyed it, but I thought it was boring. It lacked focus, and because it wanted CoD and GoW audience it tried too hard to be something else instead of being just Resident Evil that we all know and love. I still think that Resident Evil 4 is the best one in the series.

 

[omega 616]

I own resident evil 6, played the campaign with knock off nemesis, played half of another one and then couldn't will myself to play another second. The series seriously went down hill after 3, 4 came out as uncharted's version of the undead nightmare and was about as scary as the "scary movie" franchise, it had a miniature Napoleon for gods sake.

It also had that annoying as fuck Ashley derping about that you had to protect and I am still on the side of "fuck protecting stuff!", I don't want to defend shit either!