The horrific Resident Evil playthrough, part ten
Resident Evil 6 is the big one that I was anticipating when I started this series playthrough in March. Itâs the one that seems to have split the fanbase like no other, the one that some folks love and others abhor, and the one that took Resident Evil so far into the realm of explosions on top of zombies on top of exploding zombies that the franchise had no choice but to dial the entire thing back in Resident Evil 7 in order to give everyoneâs minds a break before those exploded too. There is, in fact, a particular sort of enemy in this game that represents it well - called the Whopper, itâs a giant Fat Albert-looking thing that charges at you in a truly grotesque example of fun character design. Itâs a bioweapon to be reckoned with, and when you see one coming your way, all you can say is âOH SHITâ as you try to blast its head apart before it barrages you into a wall.
RE6 is a whopper of a game. Itâs chock full of so many different gameplay styles, so many plot threads, so many bits and pieces barely holding together at the seams in a mad effort to appease all sectors of the fan base - the people who preferred Resident Evil when it was eerie and quiet, the fans who fell in love with the series when Resident Evil 4 introduced an emphasis on action and the shippers who just love the characters and want to see them press the trigger of a Magnum at the same time and let loose with a bullet that will send the remains of a hulking Serbian mutation go stumbling backwards into the flames of a burning wind tunnel.Â
The only way to properly assess RE6 in the midst of all this madness is to look at its four campaigns one-by-one, which took me 33 hours in total to complete, a staggering number for this series.Â
Leonâs campaign - Everyoneâs favorite Resident Evil protagonist who is still rocking Leonardo DiCaprio 90s hair (even though heâs aging in real-time and is apparently in his late 30s now) is BACK in this campaign, which seems to be the one that the game wants you to play first. Itâs a rollicking adventure which I personally thought was the best of the bunch, though I wouldnât blame you if you found Chrisâ campaign better. I think I was won over by the fan service, since Leonâs opening chapter immediately channels Resident Evil 2 by forcing you to escape Tall Oaks, an American metropolitan area thatâs essentially Raccoon City 2.0. Zombies will be lurching at you from the darkness like the old games, youâve gotta run through subway cars just like in RE2 and RE3, and the whole vibe actually approaches scary at a few moments, which is something that the rest of this game has absolutely no time for. Partnered with Leon is Helena, a new character whoâs also a US government agent but frankly kind of boring, and the pair quickly find themselves wrapped up in a conspiracy engineered by a politician named Derek Simmons. To figure out the extent of his conspiracy, youâve gotta play Adaâs campaign (all the charactersâ stories intersect at various points, which is one of this gameâs best ideas), but letâs just say that Leonâs party ends in a wild rush to a made-up Chinese city named Lanshiang - which, from the POV of someone who lived in Hong Kong for six years, is clearly HK under another name. Half of Lanshiang gets blown up, Simmons transforms into what looks like a T-Rex and then a giant insect kaiju, and the general tone is deliciously batshit, though if you donât like batshit then your mileage will vary. Leon gets music that I like to call "Funky Zombie Porno Breakbeatsâ for his ending theme, and I feel like this phrase can summarize the tone of the entire Resident Evil franchise perfectly.Â
Chrisâ campaign - If Leonâs adventure was the cheesy-but-occasionally-spooky âLETâS TAKE THESE ZOMBIES TO SUPLEX CITY, CHUMSâ vibe of Resident Evil 4 on acid, then Chrisâ campaign is the âMILITARY ESPIONAGE ACTION AGAINST BIOWEAPONS, BRUHâ vibe of Resident Evil 5 on acid. It begins with Chris suffering from a bout of PTSD after losing a contingent of his men in a made-up country thatâs supposed to be Serbia, then moves to Lanshiang after ace sniper Piers recruits Chris for one last mission. Instead of zombies, you fight mostly Jâavo, a breed of terrorists using viruses to give themselves horrific limbs, and everything resembles a Call of Duty or SOCOM game, with Chris hearing instructions from his squad leader through his headpiece, ducking behind cover to shoot Jâavos apart and generally being a weathered, grumpy soldier. The main theme of Chrisâ campaign is actually removed from the overarching tale involving Simmons, and the focus is instead on the quieter, MANLY subplot about how all these years of fighting monstrosities has worn Mr. Redfield down. He needs to learn how to be a soldier once more, and Piers - a guy who I was initially suspicious of because heâs a pretty boy with nicely groomed hair, and those sorts are usually lame in Japanese video games - comes through as one of the most likable additions to Resident Evil lore in a long time to offer Chris much-needed support. The entire campaign might actually be better if played as Piers instead of Chris, especially due to a touching ending scene which is probably the one moment where the gameâs plot transcends crazy horror action and enters the realm of something actually thought-provoking. Chrisâ campaign, in general, is also where RE6 seems the most focused and confident, though the cover shooting mechanics are clunky when compared to titles that actually specialize in cover shooting, like Gears of War. Chris also doesnât have Funky Zombie Porno Breakbeats for his ending music, so Leon gets a tiny point ahead of him in my book, but not by much.Â
Jakeâs campaign - Iâve read a few reviews that call this campaign the âexperimentalâ one, and...yeaaaaah, it is. Jake, whoâs the son of former Resident Evil baddie Albert Wesker, was presumably designed to serve as a bold new protagonist for future games, but heâs kind of an emo douchebag, so I played through the entirety of his missions as his partner Sherry Birkin. Sherryâs the little girl from Resident Evil 2 all grown up, which I think is genius, because she serves as a tangible example of this franchiseâs progression over the years. You could probably show her picture to anyone unfamiliar with Resident Evil and be like, âThatâs a formerly 10-year-old side character from the second game grown up into a secret agentâ and get a response of "Woah, cool,â so yeah, I like Sherry a lot. In fact, her presence made this whole campaign tolerable, because Jake is an edgelord and his missions run the confused gamut from shoot âem up sections to weird exploration bits that seem to want to channel the spirit of the old games but donât succeed. Then there are the stealth and chase sequences against Ustanak, the âhulking Serbian mutationâ that I mentioned a few paragraphs ago. This fellow was clearly created to remind Resident Evil veterans of Mr. X and Nemesis from RE2 and RE3, but while those guys would break down walls and pop outta nowhere to put a lump in your throat, Ustanakâs every impending arrival is advertised from a mile away, to the point where heâs not really frightening - just redundant. And the stealth bits against him seem like B-tier ripoffs of sequences in Metal Gear Solid, because RE6â˛s engine is really not engineered for sneakiness. At one point, Sherry and Jake have to hide in garbage dumpsters as Ustanak sniffs around, and that serves as an accurate representation of what large portions of their campaign are. These two kiddies do get a cheesy love ballad for their ending song, though, because the game really wants you to ship âem. Sherry, ya deserve better.Â
Adaâs campaign - As messy as Jakeâs campaign is, however, itâs nothing compared to Adaâs, which was originally an unlockable extra in the original release of RE6 and designed to tie up loose story threads. It does do that, though the resulting plot - where Simmons got so obsessed with Ada Wong that he whipped up an entirely new virus to re-create her and then lost track of it - is pretty meh, though it could perhaps be an intriguing exploration of the depths of male entitlement in the hands of a better writer. Aside from these pieces of so-so story, Adaâs adventure offers aggravation in the form of bad level design and a truly horrid slew of Quicktime Events and wretched stealth sections, which, once again, this game just doesnât do well. It opens with her investigating a sub filled with guards that sheâs encouraged to sneak past, except you canât really sneak in RE6 and eventually they all notice and decide to gangbang you, and then the sub floods and thereâs dizzying shaky cam everywhere that made me feel sick. Youâre given a minimal amount of seconds to succeed on the Quicktime Events to escape the rising floodwaters, and I felt like I was playing a game of Dragonâs Lair, where you need to press right or left immediately or risk seeing yourself die over and over again. That sums up the frustration of Adaâs campaign, which also made me realize one important thing - I really donât find Ada Wong to be much of an interesting character. Sheâs little more than a walking femme fatale trope, and even people who insist on shipping her with Leon will probably have to admit that those twoâs ârelationship,â if you can even call it that, is little more than quick winks and five minute interactions that have amounted to nothing over the span of nearly twenty years. The pair of them get ONE good scene on a bridge in this game, but thatâs it, and honestly, their cornball kiss near the end of RE2 is still a more genuine character interaction. Oh yeah, and on the topic of ending music, since I seem to be coming back to that a lot in this post, Ada gets generic filler tunes for her credit roll. How appropriate.Â
As you can see in the impressions above, in its own special way, Resident Evil 6 has something for everyone, ranging from a quality tale about battle-hardened men shooting biomutations to terrible levels that feel like they came out of a 2005 PS2 game that was quickly relegated to the bargain bin at Gamestop. Reviews were all over the place when this sucker came out, and still are today, with just as many people insisting that this game is the shit as there are people emphasizing that it is shit. My verdict? Itâs BOTH, with some truly excellent parts and some truly abhorrent ones. It could have done with some trimming, for sure, and at the end of the day, Leonâs and Chrisâ campaigns feel like the only real important ones here. A streamlined and likely better-received version of Resident Evil 6 wouldâve only focused on those two guys - since one pivotal scene where the pair meet for a few minutes, briefly scuffle and POINT THEIR GUNS AT EACH OTHER YEAAA FAN SERVICE - seems to have been written first. That wouldâve given Resident Evil 6 a better balance, with Leonâs missions possibly focusing on old school survival horror and pulp while Chrisâ missions would lean hard on the military action stuff.Â
But we didnât get that. Instead, what we got is a shambling whopper of a game - at times as unwieldy and ridiculous as the enemy bearing the same name, at other times just as satisfying as a real-life beef whopper. Resident Evil 6 is both good and bad, the video game equivalent of an excessive and expensive comic book crossover, and shit, I think Iâve just written the most about it than any of its predecessors.
That, at the very least, has to count for something.
All screenshots taken by me. For more, check out this Twitter thread showing my step-by-step progress through the game.
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