Take a sure-win premise, and completely ruin nearly every aspect of it.

User Rating: 4.5 | Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City X360
Anyone who plays video games has played, or at least knows about the Resident Evil franchise. Debuting back in 1996, Resident Evil told the tale of the pharmaceutical company known as Umbrella, who developed bilogical weapons for use in combat situations and the military. Upon the development of the T-virus, an accident in the lab causes an outbreak to the neighboring town, Raccoon City, which brings upon an infection to the inhabitants which turns them into zombies as well as a few of the nastier B.O.Ws to escape. Operation Raccoon City takes place between the events of Resident Evil 2 and 3, and you are now in control of an elite Umbrella mercenerary group who are tasked with erasing all evidence of Umbrella's involvment in the viral outbreak.In a nutshell, you are now the antagonist in this Resident Evil spin-off in what could of been a game of epic proportions, turns out to be mostly a recipe for disaster.

Operation Raccoon City never really delves into a coherant story. One minute you're trying to secure the G-Virus the next you're in the city town hall burning evidence of your whereabouts and disabling generators. Herein also lies another problem: Raccoon City itself. There are barely any memorable locations and any familiar instances, like the police department, are short, uninspired and too few-and-far between, you'll feel you're not even playing a Resident Evil game. That's the sad part. Slant Six has taken a franchise we know all to well and made it almost alien to us. Most of your trek through Raccoon City is in underground facilities and unfamiliar buildings, leaving you with a sense of ambiguity. To top it off, the short campaign will take only 4-5 hours to complete and ends abruptly no matter which ending you choose.

A short campaign and a story you could care less about aren't Operation Raccoon City's main faults however. It's the overall game itself. It doesn't feel like the old-school Resident Evil nor the Over-the-shoulder feel from the past two games. RE: ORC feels simply like a "SOCOM-with-zombies," to put it bluntly. You easily forget you're actually in the Resident Evil universe until a familiar name or location is mentioned. The game plays like a "fast-messy-gunplay-romp." to top it off, your squad lacks any real personality and the story is so short, that there is no room for any type of character development.

Then of course we get the gameplay side of things, and here is were many of the faults of RE:ORC come to the light. Controlling your character shouldn't be difficult if the game would just allow it. The game has an automatic-cover system, which poses many problems. It's quite annoying to stick to walls when you're trying to get away or just explore. It's nice to be able to take cover, it's not so nice when I pop in or out of cover at the wrong times. Not having a dedicated "cover" button is sheer laziness. And why can I only blind-fire on certain cover spots but can't use ADS? Too many times, have I wanted to pick up an item or reload, and my character just stands there waiting for the next command input. Aiming down the sights can prove to be a problem with far too much weapon sway for your pistol along with a target reticule and laser sight that don't seem to match up.

But it's not just the controls that can be a hinderance. it's also the situations that Slant Six decides to put us in. Every Boss or "Activate/Destroy x amount of things" encounter is peppered with some hair-pulling catalysts. Not only do you have to complete the objective, at times you will be watching out for zombies or other B.O.W's, Spec Ops soldiers shooting at you, grenades, reviving team-mates, watching your health, making sure not to get infected, not running out of ammo, and of course a Main character spraying you from afar with a sniper rifle. I'm sorry but this isn't fun gameplay, the only thing this will do is remove years from your life due to anger and frustration, especially on harder difficulties. As another low blow, first aid sprays are found everywhere, but during these encounters or bosses: nothing. To top it off, if you had a can and died, be prepared to scour the area for another cause you will no longer have it. Familiar bosses such as Tyrant and Nemesis are easy to triumph in and require little skill, but instances with Main characters like Ada or Leon, will require you to pull some off miracle, as you dodge their bullets clearly meant for Superman himself. Nice one Slant Six.

Each member of your team has a different set of skills such as cloaking or invincibility, that can be obtained with the basic XP system. XP is gained from each level after its completed. XP is also used to buy different weapons and sidearms.The experience gained here also reflects your online persona, allowing you to use those obtained skills on your oppenents. Unlocking new weapons is nice but some of the skills just feel uninspired.

Of course,your team, how could we forget about them? You aren't alone in your venture, you've brought along 3 incompetent neanderthals with you to die hopelessly at your side. Sad, but true, one of the biggest glaring flaws of RE:ORC is the pitiful A.I. of your enemies and teammates. Unfortunately, in an I.Q. test, the enemy wins by a landslide. Your team's sole purpose is to hinder any progress you wish to make. They don't take cover, the run into Trip-wire mines, refuse to heal you when you need it most, and simply will not move, just to name a few. Dead teammates must always be revived by you. Even if they continually step on their friends skull, as they lie in a pool of their own blood. Your squad absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, will NOT revive anybody. It becomes annoying to see all three of your teammates down for the count as you rush in a burning room filled with Lickers. Enemy A.I. can be brutal or downright retarded as well. Hunters tend to have the habit of going only after you or just standing still as you riddle it's body with bullets.Of course if they go after you, be prepared to find yourself caught in an "endless animation-of-knockdowns," very annoying. Zombies are known to be dumb...but not this dumb, running around in circles not knowing what to attack, seems like the attitude of a headless chicken, not a zombie. Also Spec Op soldiers take a clip and a half to down. Headshots are here for fun whereas zombies go down with little effort, headshot or not.

RE:ORC features online, the one thing that could've been this games saving grace, but in the end it's equally as buggy and unsatisfying as the Single-player. The story can be played via 4-player coop online only(Developers are stupid) which is nice to have, but in a game like this, the only enjoyment you'll get is mostly the fact that you don't have spastic A.I. flunkies to ruin your "fun." Operation Raccoon City boasts some modes that, like previously stated, sound good on paper, but are executed in failure. Any modes that require some strategy are hampered with how crowded and chaotic the battlefield is. Yes, having zombies, hunters, and lickers about on the play field sounds good, but it's not. It's not only annoying but a killjoy to have captured a vial and while running to base have a zombie grab you or a hunter put you into its "infinite-animation-execution" loop, or having a heated firefight with another player end because a zombie popped out of nowhere. It's also no fun at all to fight players who are 60+ levels higher than you just cause they played the campaign solely to level up and reign supreme over all who go straight into the multiplayer. One thing every one seems to do though is run up to you and melee. Seriously. That seems to be the winning strategy in the deathmatch modes. Jamming the melee button and timing in an"insta-kill" on you. Now that's pure fun right there, seeing 5-6 players meleeing each other around your dead corpse as you wait for the respawn timer to hit "0."

If I could sum up the graphics in one word it would be "bland." Character models look, for the most part, decent but your surroundings and enemies lack character. It's a wonder to me how Slant Six managed to make Raccoon city's familiar locales look so drab. Sound is a mixed bag of boring and "off." Many weapons sound either similar to another or completely off and the voice work is mediocre at best, dishing out some emotionless dialogue throughout. The overall soundtrack and atmosphere is completely inaccurate for a Resident Evil game, not helping in the least bit.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City does nothing for both shooter fans, and even less for Resident Evil fans.Operation Raccoon city suffers from buggy gameplay, weak and short story, terrible A.I. and complete disappreciation for the source material. As a fan of the lore and games of Resident Evil's past, Operation Raccoon City does nothing to further bolster the franchise or story. What Slant Six games has done here is a complete disservice to fans. As a diehard Resident Evil and zombie aficionado, I wanted to like this game, but even I cannot recommend more than a rental. Glad that's the route I took.