Why you've hated (or loved) RE since RE4...

What I liked about the old Resident Evils is that in being survival horror games they actually quite effectively tapped into the spirit of certain other landmark horror works/genres and came out as inspired works of pulp. I mean, they *never* featured strong characters or narrative, but that didn't so much matter. They dealt in archetypes and that mostly worked. In the first two REs you have the obvious indebtedness to Romero's Dead saga. You find yourself trapped in a secluded mansion in the first one, paying obvious homage to Night of the Living Dead, and it mostly nails the atmosphere. The game feels secluded and abandoned, and each encounter with a zombie/hunter/etc. feels like an event. Two, similarly, owes much to this formula, adopting a less is more approach so that every enemy you encounter still feels like a legitimate challenge where determining whether to fight or flee feels like a rather crucial decision--each action you take feels like it has import and consequence (even if it doesn't, it's the illusion that matters). Two also sort of referenced the expanding nature of the apocalypse, thereby tapping into Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead a bit.

Something like Nemesis interestingly changed gears a bit. While still owing to its zombie genre predecessors (the city-wide infestation again recalling later Romero films), it introduced a stalker, and suddenly the series was rather effectively drawing inspiration from slasher flicks. Again, the story and characters were always surface level, but their was an urgency in every encounter and decision you made, and it's that urgency that made these games thrilling to play. Code Veronica started to take on a slightly more global scope (thereby foreshadowing the turn the series would take), but it remained true to its predecessors' commitment to crafting situations that felt like they had dire consequences, while also carving out its own aesthetic niche, this time turning the horror into something a bit more Grand Guignol.

What the later Resident Evils lack is just that: the feeling that anything you do has consequences or urgency, and they lack a clear aesthetic niche. 4 maintained something of a thoughtful aesthetic: the village section has some integrity, as does the gothic castle, but by the time you get to the island, it's devolved into a pretty aesthetically insipid action game that doesn't distinguish itself from other action shooters in any meaningful way. With 6 these sorts of problems have only escalated to sometimes infuriating proportions.

Where the earlier games had genuine ambiance and mood--created artistically compelling tones--6 is the blandest yet outside of Leon's first two chapters. There's just nothing inspired in the way this game is designed or visually/aurally presented. Enemy designs have gone from ridiculous in a fun sort of way (Birkin's further mutations) to ridiculous in an uninspired fanboyish sort of way (let's make him a friggin T-Rex! No a skyscraper sized FLY OMG), or are just downright mundane and too "earthbound" if you will (the J'avo remain one of the worst decision this series has ever made). Now, the mentality is simply "more--always more" and that doesn't work, because as I expressed in other threads, returns diminish. You can't bring each boss back 15 times. Noboby gives a crap at that point. You can't have 15 different (really lame) chase sequences. Why would I care at that point. No moment in this game feels any different from any other, in texture, presentation, urgency...it all blurs together as one raucous Michael Bay sized mess. And we've moved from dealing in archetypes, to dealing in bland stereotypes. Basically, in a twist that defies all logic, instead of the RE movies using the games as inspiration, the games have used the ludicrous, forgettable movies as inspiration. I'm coming across as really harsh, and I guess I don't mean to. I *did* enjoy RE6. But it's flaws are pretty glaring, and I don't think the direction the series has taken has the same integrity.