The controls in 6 are still quite bad,
But even the iconic ink ribbon’s in pieces,
They've cashed in on the action fad,
Why’d this happen to the Resi that I use to know?
Ok, enough dated references, to the video games! As you may
have gotten from this little piece I wrote, I have lately been playing Resident
Evil 6, and by play I mean “been helping a friend of mine every Friday or so to
complete Jake’s Campaign on a higher difficulty”. Now from reviews, you’d
reckon I am with everyone else and hate this game as “it is a mindless action
game that betrays the good old games and urgh, my heart medicine!”
No, I don’t hate this game, I have gripes but none of them
have anything to do with Resi 1-3 or how close they are to them, if anything
I’d hate the game more if it was more accurate to Resi 1-3. Don’t worry, I am
not ill with anything and I am serious, Resident Evil 6 would be in my opinion
better off without being loyal to Resident Evil 1-3. Heresy? Well you better
send in…THE SPANISH INQUISITION!
…
…
…
Damnit, why do they never come when I expect them? Moving
on, yes I am the fourth man to admit that Resident Evil 1 through to 3 would
hamper and in some cases IS hampering Resident Evil 6. And now it’s time to
back up some claims with some explanations.
Let’s start
with something I never hear people talk about, resetting the virus from “rather
intelligent mutated creatures” back to “mindless zombies” narratively would
make no sense. Since the very first game, the antagonist’s goal be it Umbrella
or Tricell or Phenotrans, wait that was Dead Rising, never mind…point is all
these baddies were aiming to create super soldiers, mutated humans who were not
compromised by things like food, water, sleep and generally could shrug off 18
RPGs to the chest!
Pictured: Nemesis. Not Pictured: Zombie Dogs
Now I ask you, when a company is getting to the point of
having intelligent mutants that can operate machinery such as guns, why would
they ever ever ever ever EVER go back to using typical zombies? Why would you
aim for super soldiers, make Nemesis and then say to yourself, “Nah, this whole
super soldier thing’s stupid, let’s make more weak shambling zombies! Because
they work so well right?...Right?” And on the opposite end, why wouldn’t the
protagonists of past games train and gear up? People complained that Chris
looked like a muscle building obsessive titan and generally joked that he was
taking steroids. Here’s my counter to this, in Resident Evil 1 Chris saw his
idol Captain Albert Wesker turn on the team before dying thanks to Tyrant (he
got better). Imagine coming back home, sitting down after that and realising:
- Your role model and entire obsession was a lie.
- There’s GIANT SUPERHUMAN MONSTERS possibly on the loose!
Now, seeing as Chris would only reappear in Resident Evil 5
(excluding spin offs), wouldn’t that mean there would be a big time gap for him
to say “crap, I need to get stronger, I need to be in better shape to take
these things down!” Now imagine on top of that, he learns that Wesker is also
still alive and has now taken fashion and kung fu from Mr Smith, the same man
that betrayed Chris all those years ago. If I was planted in the same
situation, I would build myself up like a behemoth too…then I’d probably get
the Power Loader from Aliens, get a rocket launcher and rocket jump all the way
to Wesker where I’d systematically crush him with as many boulders in sight!
Heck, why wouldn't the agents who are now in the Resident Evil games carry
giant backpacks filled with ammo and health supplies in these cases? Why would
a military unit like Chris’ in Resident Evil 6 NOT have somebody either plant a
trunk of ammo for resupplying or even be able to call for more supplies to be
dropped? Why? Because Resi 1 to 3 didn't have it, so why should we?
Simply put, the technology on both sides are improving to
the point of warfare, without completely severing the storyline and rebooting
from the start, you cannot justify maintaining the exact same “horror”
gameplay, by that point players would ask questions like “Why are the military
not dealing with this?” or “Why is Raccoon City not nuked yet?”, which are
addressed in later games…not well, but that is Capcom for you.
Then there is another problem, the Resident Evils from 1
through 3 are not as good at conveying horror as many people’s rose-tinted
lenses would suggest. They try at some points, but it really just devolves to
jump scares an-
NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!
You guys have awful timing do you
know that? Now where was I, oh yes jump scares and gameplay infringing
difficulties. Neither of these things are scary, not even as good tools for tension,
they are just an annoyance. Jumps scares are just startling, that dog crashing
through the window could only be considered scary if aged polygons with bad
colouring terrifies you and you have the rationale of a 7 year old which would
not surprise me if some fans of Resident Evil did when they first played it.
Then there is the tank controls and the camera that feels the need to bend the
180 rule of filmography over its knee and smack its rear like the 180 rule just
broke Resident Evil’s camera’s beloved vase.
Ok horror games developers, I
understand that you want the player to feel a loss of power against the threat
and make them scared, but please for the love of all that is scared and divine
in video games do not try and achieve this by making it frustrating on the
player! Tank movement is not fun to deal with especially in tight corridors
where I need to make sharp 90 degree turns every now and then whilst running
away from a random zombie I can’t kill for reasons be they of my own fault or
the game forcing the fate upon me. In a game where ammo must be used sparingly
and combat in general can be difficult against just ONE enemy in a box room
where both parties have enough space to move around, where does the design make
sense when you essentially make fleeing, your go to solution for problems where
fighting is impossible, equally as impossible or at least more disadvantageous
to you when you realise fighting is necessary? And then there’s the camera, oh
boy the camera. It is irritating enough when I have to run down a corridor only
for my camera to flip from ahead of me to behind me, effectively forcing me to
recollect my bearings in later portions of the game without the result of such
violent camera changes also causing my character to run rather quickly into the
fangs and nails of the threat I am trying to flee from.
This is not scary, this is
irritating.
Now of course, the modern games
still have problems that cannot be fully traced to Resi 1 through 3, the whole
compulsory co-op partner thing seems pointless beyond serving the plot, quick
time events that happen more frequently than you find ammo can go to the
deepest cesspools of hell, and some set sequences can lead to a lot of deaths
because Capcom seems to want to add so many of them but forget to design them
in a way to make the player not get horribly confused and somehow die to those
3 snowflakes of an avalanche that just tapped their snowmobile and no more. At
the same time though, I can’t help but feel that Capcom is just trading one
thing for another, replace the tank controls for quick time events for instance,
both are sources of giving the player little control and maximum frustration. I
can’t help feeling that Capcom is being held back by the fact that they want to
please fans with horror gameplay like the old games and themselves with
coherent narrative and epic set pieces. But unless one side gives, Resident
Evil is going to continue this path…though judging by the release of Resident
Evil…that 3DS one, I don’t remember, onto consoles I am getting a feeling that
the fans are winning.
Ok, I swear my next article will
not be another Capcom one, between this, my Darkstalkers article and Max’s
Remember Me article you’d think we had a Capcom-themed month of articles…Marcom…Mapcom…Machcom?
Eh, whatever.
Greg
Amber Glass Broadcast
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