Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City review
If I said to you name a game where a team of four fight against hordes of the undead, you’re likely to say Valve’s Left 4 Dead games. Now it’s time for Capcom to have a go along a similar theme but this time set in the Resident Evil universe. And it makes sense – it’s a franchise that’s been around since the PS One and they know a thing or two about good zombie games right? Well, unfortunately, this is one game that Capcom should really destroy all evidence of which is coincidentally what you’re trying to do in the game when it comes to the T-Virus.
In the campaign mode which can be played with three AI team-mates or co-op with four players, you play as members of the Umbrella Security Service who’ve been sent in to Raccoon City to recover all evidence that links the company with the outbreak. You’ll revisit well-known locations such as the police station and the train yard and fight some familiar monsters including Lickers, Hunters and even the odd Nemesis here and there. He really should go see a plastic surgeon, they can work wonders these days.
As you fight through the missions you earn XP which can be used to buy extra weapons and perks but the main thing you’ll really miss in this game is ammo. Even human Spec-Ops enemies take a tonne of damage before they go down and you’ll spend a lot of your time switching to your pistol and hunting desperately for ammo as you’re attacked from all sides. To my knowledge this is also the first Resident Evil game with controls you’d expect in other 3rd-person combat games. You’d expect this to be a good thing but the controls are flighty and the cover system sucks. Instead of pressing a button to stick to cover your character automatically does it when you go near a wall. Sometimes you stick to things when you don’t want to and other times you won’t take cover when you want to. If you also run towards an item to collect it and don’t stop sprinting first, you’ll dive onto the item instead which isn’t much help when you’re low on energy. It’s also possible to get stuck in an endless loop of death when trying to get up and being constantly pounded by some of the bigger beasties. The whole game’s also set at night which makes everything look muddy and the frame rate can drop considerably at times during combat as well. This coupled with invisible walls and AI opponents that won’t revive each other or you for that matter only compounds things more!
There is some fun to be had with versus mode though. There are four modes to play in spread across a number of iconic locations that play on deathmatch and capture the flag mode themes and a mode called Heroes where you only have one life and must search and destroy the other teams. Leon S. Kennedy and Ada Wong also make appearances and I must say it looks like Ada’s been partaking in some comfort eating. Chunky. There’s also an enjoyable Survivors mode where you must face off against the enemy to get to the last chopper that doesn’t have room for everyone!
This game is incredibly flawed in many ways and it’s difficult to recommend it. If you want some recent Resident Evil co-op action I’d recommend the superb Resident Evil: Revelations on the 3DS. If you just want to shoot zombies then Left for Dead and its sequel are much more fun and less frustrating to play. Operation Raccoon City just scrapes a 5 out of 10.
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