Resident Evil 6: Take the Controls
Following an unpleasant evening spent in Racoon City
Tall Oaks, special agents Leon Kennedy and Helena Harper score a pair of first
class plane tickets and escape to China, to fight bioterrorism and shoot
foreigners. Thanks to the lax security at Tall Oak’s International Airport, the
pair are able to smuggle aboard their favourite firearms and herbs as a deadly
carry-on; their blatant disregard for luggage regulations pays dividends, as
the plane is eventually overrun by infected passengers and a fat zombie covered
in tits.
I had decided to play Leon’s campaign first as he has a
pretty good track record (RE2 & 4) and I thought it would be the most
likely of the bunch to adhere to series convention. The first hour or so did enough
to prevent my disappointment from overflowing, but the aeroplane chapter was
just too much, magnifying all the issues that had already begun to grate. The
offending scene includes a short action sequence which culminates in Leon and
Helena storming the cockpit, with our floppy haired hero taking the controls
and successfully orchestrating a QTE crash landing. In the space of ten
minutes, you are subjected to the very worst of Resident Evil 6.
Making my way through the first class cabin and then into
the cockpit, I battled with a camera that is motion-sickness inducing and falls
to pieces whenever the action moves to close quarters. It also has a nasty
habit of suddenly shifting at the most inopportune moments, leaving you
disorientated and either running into a wall or lashing out at thin air. The
lack of feedback from shots and punches renders the combat unsatisfying. As I
battled through the aisles, I was never quite sure whether or not my bullets
had found their target – I can't recall RE ever having a problem with this, even in its
earliest incarnations - and Leon's wet kiss of a roundhouse kick did little to
convince the final zombie to vacate his position near my next QTE trigger.
Resident Evil 6's biggest problem is its incessant quick
time events. Like every other section of the game, Leon's crisis at 35,000 feet
is overflowing with QTEs that'll have you stick waggling, button smashing, and
praying for a non-interactive cut scene. With the pilot dead and the inflatable
replacement nowhere to be found, you must land the plane via a succession of
quick time prompts that are as ill-fitting as they are ill-explained. It took
three game-overs before I finally understood what was expected of me - search
the dashboard for the QTE prompts - having suffered three fail states that did
little to reveal the requirements of a safe landing. It would have been easier
to fumble my way through had the button presses actually related in some way to
the actions that I was expected to perform; it would have made sense to
gradually pull back the analogue sticks to bring up the nose of the plane,
instead of smashing X until my fingers fell off.
Happier times in the cockpit |
I'm not quite sure why the RE team(s) is so enamoured
with quick time events and so bloody-minded in their implementation. When used sparingly
and at the right time, they are a useful method of keeping the player involved
in a scene where straight forward controls would complicate matters, but Capcom
insists on thrusting them upon events that should have been either completely
player lead or cut-scene only. If a quick time event does not make the action
more exciting or the scene more involving, then it does not belong.
Leon's struggles in the cockpit are representative of the
overall issues that make Resident Evil 6 such a disappointment. I suspect that
there may be a good game somewhere behind the rubbish, obscured by the awful
camera and ill-advised design choices, one that the December patch may help to uncover,
but no amount of fixing is going to rectify the unfortunate stick waggling and
button bashing that plagues RE6. Quick time events are a key part of the move
to a more action orientated franchise, one that began with Resident Evil 4.
Resident Evil 5 took it a step further, perhaps a step too far, while RE6 goes
above and beyond, while discarding the very essence of traditional RE.
Resident Evil 6 demonstrates no understanding of its own
limitations - flying a jet fighter and taking that bloody camera into the
narrow holds of a submarine are two examples of developer cluelessness - and
the four-pronged narrative quickly becomes repetitious. Although seeing events
through the eyes of different protagonists does strengthen the narrative,
visiting the same locations and undertaking the same mission from a slightly
different perspective is as exciting as it sounds.
While Resident Evil 6 is a thoroughly flawed game, it
does have some redeeming qualities. The characters are interesting, especially
when you are privy to their history, and the hideous bosses and mental
narrative are in keeping with a series that has yet to take itself quite as
seriously as other third person shooters, though it has clearly long since
rejected the tongue-in-cheek charms of the series debut. High-score chasing in
Mercenaries is still fun, co-op looks promising and every now and then the single
player campaign strings together an exciting sequence of events, where everything
falls into place. Even still, Resident Evil 6 is certainly not the game that I
was hoping for. With the latest instalment, this much loved series continues to
regress, unsure of its own strengths and too concerned with imitating far
superior games. Also, where the hell is Barry?
Hi Matt. I'm kind of intrigued by this game and will hopefully play it at some point. I've played quite a few RE games but I don't feel like I know any of the story at all - would you say that story is important to this game? In terms of QTEs, I sometimes enjoy the ones where you have to mash one button, but the timed presses are infuriating. That said I liked Fahrenheit which was essentially one long QTE. But yeah, despite sound pretty horrible, I'm drawn towards RE6
ReplyDeleteHey Joe. Knowledge of the RE story isn't crucial, especially considering how ludicrous the plot is anyway, though it will make a little bit more sense and is probably more rewarding if you do have some background on Wesker, Ada, the Birkins etc.
DeleteRE6 is already around £20 online. It's not a terrible purchase at that price and there is certainly no shortage of content. Just be prepared for some frustration.
Cheers for stopping by.
I agree with you about the QTEs. They also sucked in RE5, but fortunately there weren't that many to deal with. RE6 sounds very frustrating. I really enjoyed Asura's Wrath however, and that's mostly QTEs... Maybe it's all about expectations...
ReplyDeleteAlthough I found there to be far too many QTEs in Asura's Wrath, they were consistent and made sense within the story and the things you were being asked to do. It felt like there was little to no thought going into their use in RE6.
DeleteCheers for stopping by.