What a shame! I had hopes for this game. I never expected it to be more than a side show, a spin-off, but I also never expected less than a 6.0, hell! Even taking into consideration Capcom and PC ports. I read the first paragraph of the PC review -- that port got 4.0, 0.5 less than even this, but if the ports additional shortcomings are only the badly translated interface and such, I'll still think it's more enjoyable, seeing as this is one of those shooters you really can't do very well with an analog for aiming. Watching the action in this review made me cringe a bit, but as fidgety as the zombies are, I know I'd never have such a hard time blowing their heads off. And hopefully the guns won't feel so underwhelming as he states.
Really a pity, though, since these are, for the most part, basic flaws that I don't imagine taking much work to resolve, improve or polish. Fundamentally the game is strong, it's a Resident Evil, and that's why anyone will still buy it and even like it, so it could've succeeded without breaking ground and just generally been about shooting and going over a story that's already been finely combed and doesn't require much imagination to drum up. Hope is the last die... can always hope there've been patches to the PC port that shave off a couple of glitches or such nuisances.
I've just finished the game. Nothing to correct on my original impression, but a lot to add. I played the PC port, however. Beyond the interface remaining somewhat ridiculously unattended, nothing else seems to have suffered. Only improved. For starters, VanOrd says the game is too dark; well, I had a gamma adjuster in-game, the game prompts it the first time we run it even. Odd that the original version lacks it. He was right about the cover, you gotta get used to avoiding surfaces. It doesn't kill the experience, but sure doesn't help. Far from being the worst flaw, though.
I gotta contest the part about guns feeling underwhelming. Maybe its this port again, but weapons felt pretty well. Yes, enemies don't always acknowledge shots from all weapons, but most games are still that way. If you shoot a pistol or weaker SMG or rifle into a frenzied sprinting zombie, it won't give him pause, but a stronger rifle or shotgun yield different results. Main reason why I actually liked the feel of the shooting overall is that I found the sounds to be just about the best part of the game, mainly the shooting. Guns sound well, if not so much realistic (assault rifle sounds like a machine gun), yet at a distance, the difference to the sound of it, that you can tell from your team's firing, sounds realistically altered.
As for enemies soaking up bullets, well they're not easily sweeped, it's not 1-2-3, save for zombies if you hit them in the head. So sadly, living enemies take more than one to the head, unless it's a sniper round. They're also the most resilient of the common enemies, probably excused for wearing body armor, but still annoying, given their numbers. But I'll get there in due time. Scarcity of ammo? Not really, not in this port. I've rarely ever truly needed a refill. Primary weapons, mainly some of the full autos, have a relatively small maximum ammo count, but ammo refills are everywhere. Later in the game not so much, but sufficiently so, as long as you've got the hang of it and don't still spray n' pray. If you do, stick to machine guns, those don't run out quickly, as expected.
Could indeed do with having a tumble, handily linked to the space bar, given the quick pace of the game, how you often have to advance against suppressive fire and later on tackle sprinting zombies and specials.
The shooting locks off caches, yes, it serves no positive purpose towards the gaming experience. But again, with a mouse, I did not find it so halting. Borderlands certainly had a niftier way of presenting us such goodies, nonetheless.
The AI's unremarkable, but far from the worst I've seen. Mainly, I found it odd we can neither choose their equipment (demo guy uses a lame pump action shotgun throughout [whilst scientist girl wields a machine gun from the start]) nor can we give them any commands, at all. They'll simply follow us and shoot stuff and be generally sufficient at that. Medic is the only one that'll do more, at times, healing us and treating us for infection, if she happens to have either spray and ability ready and takes note of our status.
I've found practically no glitches in this port, save perhaps that the leveling bar after missions seems to increases nonstop until the timer runs out or we press Enter. I think only one time, that I replayed a mission and received a poor grade, did it stop before the timer. The other times, never, and the level I'd keep was always the one it was able to level me to before the timer ended. Smells like a glitch, but inconsequential, the experience gained and available to spend remained the same. I think. Clipping? Only ever saw that once, a zombie in the last mission, clipping a bit into the corner of a train car. Could still shoot him dead.
Lastly, while still referring to the video review: lol @ Nemesis taking a dirtnap at the end there. Expressive of VanOrd's overall impression, you can tell.
A couple of things he never mentions, however... for one, this game is definitely made for co-op. Anyone can tell, playing, that the experience is bound to improve exponentially, the more people that you have. Up to 4 players. Playing it with 3 buds, oughta make it wildly more fun. Even if, again, the AI is passable. In no way does it go beyond that though and make it more fun than without their presence, just less difficult. So if you got friends, even just one, to play this with, I'd say go for it. At least, when it's on promo on Steam or sumpin'.
(Because: character count. Yeah, wall of text. Well, it looks longer because the text is relegated to this slim portion at the center of the page.)
Finally, the other thing, two actually, is what I've found most detriments our enjoyment, above all else. Firstly, the living spec ops army you go against. Survival horror or no, we play Resident Evil to frag zombies. The fact that there's a veritable army of what should be precious few teams, at most, makes the game not only arcade and obsolete, but truly less enjoyable. I died to their bullets more than anything, even if I took it slow in the most difficult places, such as when placing those EMPs. They'd just barge out of closet rooms, which would so mechanically and script-like open in phases as you proceed with each activation, and promptly lay down a barrage of fire on you and your team even as they advanced forth to take positions. It was ridiculous, a place where it was particularly difficult to place yourself in solid, complete cover from all angles, against enemies that took far more rounds in them than any zombie. At that part, I found the difficulty to have spiked wildly. Certainly, the game could've done with a lot more zombies and monsters replacing most of those spec ops, who seem to number in the entire division of that special forces branch. Even the US mustn't have more spec ops troops than about the 500 we face in the game, I reckon. That's a loose estimate, actually. They number in the multiple hundreds, in Normal difficulty, in total, that's all I'm sure of. Zombies are definitely more enjoyable to frag, since they also respond more to shoots, though this reminds me that they ought not necessarily despawn a la Las Plagas. They're T-virus zombs. They've never despawned before, at least not in view. And my recently upgraded rig certainly could keep up with increasing bodies littering the floor. Should be an option, it makes a lot of difference; indeed, something they should've learned from Left4Dead 2.
The other thing (at last) that is inextricable and "unpatchable", which most makes the game worse... is its plot, in general. Both story and dialog. It is, all-too painfully, obvious that it was written by and for Japanese, merely having been more or less literally translated to English. The voice acting isn't great, but somewhat outstanding, literally. It can't shine however, giving voice to what is mostly drivel. I don't mean to say Japanese writing sucks, but I can't help but accuse as much. As you progress into the game, it becomes all the more glaring. This is a wee bit of a spoiler, although I wish to use it since I don't have much respect for the story -- I found that it was utterly absurd and ludicrous, both dialog and event, when Umbrella abandons Wolfpack. What mister "USS Command" says just sounds so typically Japanese and nonsensical. "Management has had enough", he whines in his unimposing tone. The writing is just far too juvenile and idiotic, not just that bit, but throughout. Only the western voice actors given some more inconsequential parts of the dialog some more value than the rest of it.
Hell, even at the end, when it gave me some surprise and showed me I actually DO get to frag Leon Kennedy, it reached for my proverbial underwear and tugged it. There we are, the whole team, Leon down and made submissive, when we're given a plot choice. The first and last, which should never have happened. Execute Leon Kennedy OR Defend Leon Kennedy. All because he goes "why do you do this? For Umbrella? For money?" Well, DUH! Yes, for Umbrella, for money. They do that for a living, you mo-ron! Stupidly, for the privilege of an extraction also. But wait, no, he's not the moron! Because it works and half the team is the moron and DEFENDS him, including or excluding you. It pits you in a forced PvP situation, since, like I said, this game is made for co-op. Me, I just had to kill my AI teammates, then Leon. Oh, yeah, he was wounded and all, but we had to fight him and win, AGAIN. This is spoiling, but f**k it. It sucks. Spoiling what sucks is like putting trash in the trash can. I THOUGHT that word, defend, smelled funny. But the other choice was to execute, so hell, I couldn't have imagined it'd be that stupid. I got amped up about them EXECUTING the hell outta that sassy hair jerk-off that we'd been chasing across the city, whom I never expected I did get to kill. But instead, we get to fight one last time and kill him, rather unenjoyably, in combat. Unenjoyably, given the prospect of EXECUTION, that the game just previously presented us.
Bless your butts, I am done. In a sentence: play it with pals, for the carnage. do not play it for the story. In fact, I hope this game sells as little as possible. This kind of work should not be rewarded, nor encouraged.
