Resident Evil 6: Yawn of the Dead

I never thought I’d say it, but I got bored playing Resident Evil.

The new release from this long-running franchise simply can’t make up its mind wither to be an interactive movie or an action-shooter.

The one thing it isn’t is a survival horror game. That’s a terrible thing to say when the franchise virtually created the genre, but it simply isn’t moody enough to qualify – not when it’s up against genuinely creepy games like Silent Hill: Downpour.

The basic plot is that the virus created by the Umbrella Corporation has spread worldwide. We get to play a number of different characters coping with the Zombie Apocalypse and, uh, well, that’s pretty much it.

As the game begins we play Leon Kennedy (last seen in RE4) attempting to fulfil a mission we know nothing about alongside Secret Service Agent Helena Harper. The whole thing is an extended cutscene, interspersed with the occasional button-push to stick-wiggle to make Leon do what he’s supposed to. Miss, and it’s back to the checkpoint to watch the cutscene again.

Just as I was beginning to get thoroughly frustrated by the whole experience, the game started. Great. A 20-minute prologue? Capcom’s getting self indulgent.

Once the game proper begins, things get a little more interesting – but not terribly so. The heavy use of cutscenes continues. Maps and missions are utterly linear. There is no opportunity to leave the beaten path.

And the Japanese style button press continues, even in hand-to-hand combat: get grabbed by a zombie, and the game pauses while you perform one of three or four different button or stick moves to break free.

That, combined with the cutscenes, makes the game a very stop-start experience, which totally destroys any atmosphere the graphics create. Despite the cutscenes, even the storyline is disjointed.

And the graphics are nice, though I couldn’t help but notice the amount of time (and computer resources) taken up with making Leon’s hair floppy enough. I couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t take the time spent on Leon’s hair and use it to open up a couple of optional paths or hidden areas.

Linearity is often an issue in videogames, but designers usually take pains to disguise it a bit. There’s no attempt to do so here. One of the areas Leon first encounters is a university dining hall. He has to take a convoluted path between the tables because every other option is blocked by chairs, and he’s incapable of lifting or kicking them out of the way.

Further on, he’s in an underground railway – well, at least that’s an acknowledgement we’re being railroaded.

If the game were more immersive, that wouldn’t matter so much. The fact that I noticed these niggles is merely a sign that the game failed to engage me.

And it’s a shame. The graphics really are nice. The zombies are suitable gruesome, and headshots and kerb-stomps lead to a satisfying pop and brain explosion. And fighting them isn’t easy – a zombie or two is easy enough to take down with kicks (got to conserve that ammo), but they’re difficult to handle in large numbers.

That aspect of the game is fun. It’s what we play Resident Evil for. There are still little touches of the magic there – and maybe there are enough of them to keep you going through the disjointed plot.

Leon’s story isn’t the only one available. You also get to play Chris Redfield (the main character in the original Resident Evil, and last seen in RE5) and Jake Muller.

Complete all three campaigns, and you get to play a fourth as Ada Wong.

This really doesn’t help the stop-start nature of the game. If anything, it makes it worse.

There’s still life in the Resident Evil franchise somewhere. But I get the feeling that Capcom can’t find it yet. In the absence of a clear vision for the game, they’ve taken the shotgun approach: throw as much as you can into it, and hope some of it hits the mark.

It’s an approach more likely to earn RE6 a place in the bargain bucket than the hall of fame. And that’s a shame.

Resident Evil fans are going to buy and play this, of course. For everyone else, I’d recommend the recently released HD collections of older games in the franchise: they’re the ones that earned Resident Evil its reputation and spawned the comic-books and films.