Resident Evil/Biohazard series has come a long way since it first introduced in 1996 as Playstation game. It makes me aware of the Japanese company who developed these survival horror/action titles - Capcom. When RE1 was released on Playstation, I have trouble playing it after I watched the infamous zombie head-turning cutscene in the mansion (yea, that's 15 minutes into the game). In the end, my brother got hold of the controller, gunning down zombies while I helped him to solve puzzles.
Fast forward to present, Shinji Mikami, the creator of the series, left Capcom in 2007 after the critically acclaimed 4th instalment. 5th and 6th games have different directors to inject new elements to the horror franchise. Despite the upcoming logo looks like a giraffe getting happy sack (judge for yourself from the image below) and
Capcom's evil on-disc DLC strategy, it won't hinder long-time fans from purchasing the game on day one.
Thanks to the earlier purchase of
Dragon's Dogma, I'm able to redeem a code for Resident Evil 6 demo. I finished the 3 short single-player campaigns within an hour. Below is my review solely based on the demo, final copy might have addressed some of the issues.
First Impression
Leon S. Kennedy & Helena Harper
Classic Resident Evil vibe, dark indoor environment with strong light source from the windows
Jake Muller & Sherry Birkin
Escape from boss and fight him afterwards in a confined place
Chris Redfield & Piers Nivans
Located in an asian city, just shoot everything that moves!
Improvement
+ Characters can finally strafe and aim simultaneously, no more stand-still-to-shoot
+ Using an modified version of the MT framework engine, lighting and graphic quality has improved
+ Thanks to
Uncharted series, character's animation seems to be more human-like. This can be noticed in Leon's campaign where he would hold on to the side of the door when he walked out a room
+ Shortcut control for accessing inventory
+ Interesting design of monsters, bigger action sequence
Issues
- Bad lip-synching
- Weird camera angles interfering gameplay, make me nauseous at times
- Big chunk of space is allocated for UI, displaying user's health, quick item slots etc
- Linear corridors shootout, the marked path in Leon's campaign spoilts the exploration even more
Day 1 Purchase?
If you've the patience, wait a year for the inevitable Gold or Platinum edition. For me, it's just too hard resisting the urge to play the campaigns after the game releases on 4th October. I will definitely skip the upcoming movie, Resident Evil: Retribution (released on 14th September), I just couldn't bring myself to watch another sucky RE's movie adaptation by Paul W.S. Anderson. However, I love the CGI movies, Resident Evil: Degeneration (2008) and Resident Evil: Damnation (2012), it's like watching game HD cutscenes all the way.
Trivia:
Q: Who voiced "Resident Evil" at the game's title screen?
A: Joe Whyte (Chris Redfield)
source
Are you the guy who says, "RESIDENT EVIL!" at the title screen in that demonic voice?
[laughter] Yeah. Yeah, that's me. At the end of all the sessions, they asked me to do some little extra lines. There were just some little extras - some little pick-ups that weren't actually Chris Redfield; they were just sort of in the game. I also did some of the vo for Richard in the game. The scene where Richard gives the radio to Jill and Chris is my voice. Pretty funny to hear my voice coming from two characters.
Q: Is there a variety of ink ribbons in the series?
A: Yes, I'm surprised to know that.
source
- In Resident Evil, if played on original, the ink is white, if played on Training, the ink is Green. In REmake this is changed slightly. On all difficulties the ink is white unless the player is playing on "Once Again..." Mode, in which case it is green on Easy mode, white on Normal mode and red on Hard mode. On Real Survival Mode, the ink is blue, and on the special "Invisible Enemy" mode, it is Orange.
- In Resident Evil 2 is played on Easy mode the ink is white for both characters, while in Normal the ink is red for Claire and blue for Leon. In Extreme Battle, the ink is green for everyone.
- In Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is played on Easy mode, you can get an unlimited amount, and the ink is blue while in Hard mode the ink is white.
- In Resident Evil Code: Veronica, there is always an ink ribbon right of the first typewriter and three ink ribbons per saving point (typewriter).
- Resident Evil Outbreak and Resident Evil Outbreak File 2 as well as Resident Evil 4 did not include any ink ribbons but still used a typewriter as the save point.
- Resident Evil 5 ditched the typewriter altogether, and replaced it with a more "modernized" automatic checkpoint save system. When asked in an interview for Official Xbox Magazine, the game's producer commented that "They simply couldn't find a way to fit them into the game.".
UPDATE on 21 October 2012
Progress:
✔ Finish 5 chapters of Leon Kennedy & Helena Harper story
✔ Finish 5 chapters of Chris Redfield & Piers Nivans story
✔ Finish 5 chapters of Sherry Birkin & Jack Muller story
✔ Chapter 1 of Ada Wong story
✘ Agent Mode
✘ Mercenary Mode
Impressions:
☻ The most ambitious game settings in RE universe
☻ The updated
MT Framework provides excellent lighting to the environment and slight update to graphics, I don't have any too-dark-to-see issue as seen in message boards
☻ Characters' animations are smooth
☻ Save point system is good, fast revive after death cut scene
☻ Partner's AI is improved compared to RE5 but they can be annoying sometimes. E.g. outside of the cathedral which was overrun with zombies, I've trouble getting Helena to open the door
☻ Story is cleverly bound together among the 3 pairs of characters
Gameplay:
☻ Points obtained can be spend on skills which is similar to the perk system in Cod: Modern Warfare series
☻ Melee combat is enhanced and it's tied to stamina
☻ Player can shoot while strafing, awesome
☻ Innovative, apart from the familar Mercenary mode, they added Agent Hunt mode which lets other players to join the game as monsters and take down the main human characters, can't wait to try this mode
☹ Melee and shooting controls are standard. But mixing herbs and dodging require a combination of buttons
☹ In some sequences which require the player's attention, camera angle is fixed, making the player hard to navigate, E.g. running /sliding through obstacles while escaping from the claws of the gigantic B.O.W in Chris's story is pain in the arse
☹ Expect to have good coordination of eyes + hands and fast fingers as there're a lot of QTE (Quick Time Events)
Things to improve:
- Die hard big boss: I know they're meant not to be killed easily but it's ridiculously for a player to kill it again and again and again in a single story. What worse is they died cheaply in the end.
- Player's UI occupies a large chunk of screen space: I don't mind characters have unique on-screen UI (User Interface) but it's taking too much space. What I would do is removing the life bar indication, different level of health can be shown on character's animation. E.g. Character will be limping on low health
- Optimise controls: Holding L analog stick (L3 button) for more than 3 seconds will initiate run animation instead of pressing [L3] + [x] button. Clicking on L3 will run in the direction that the player is facing. [x] button + [L3] can then be used as dodging instead of pressing [L1] + [L3] + [x]
- Remove the idea of destroying crates to find ammunition: I understand crate is served as placeholder to make the environment less empty and it's easy for players to identify where to get ammo supply. But in a linear gameplay, it should somehow encourage the player to explore these fantastic game environments by checking out drawers, cars, boxes or even plants.
No doubt that Resident Evil franchise, particularly in game industry, is getting bigger by every release. I wouldn't say it's still heading in the action horror direction, at least the people in Capcom are taking the risk to bring in various changes. Looking at their first foray into open world game *Dragon Dogma*, I would very much hope that Resident Evil 7 will be a major overhaul to the PS2's Outbreak series which could be played in single or multiplayer mode in a semi-open world. Fingers crossed.
Related:
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Resident Evil theme park in Japan's Universal Studios
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Resident Evil wikia
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Resident Evil Wikipedia
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Angry Joe plays Resident Evil 6 demo
