RESIDENT EVIL: OPERATION RACOON CITY (PS3)
You’ll ask yourself many things as Operation Raccoon City unfolds, but generally it all leads back to this: can anyone make a decent Resident Evil spin-off? It’s criminal that Slant Six’s attempts at making the series even more palatable to the west thanks to the now-obligatory focus on third-person shooting and online components, can come across so colourless and ordinary.
Of course, dodgy multiplayer RE games are not unheard of, and like the ill-fated Resident Evil: Outbreak (a botched PS2 foray into team-survival horror) before it, ORC takes one step forward and two back. It tentatively ventures something new, before promptly jettisoning its potential by failing to make good on some fairly basic gameplay fundamentals. For a game of its lineage, it feels uncharacteristically low-rent. Lacklustre presentation, a clunky, unsatisfying shooting system and humdrum level design combine to ensure an experience that’s conspicuous by its lack of quality.
Central to Operation Raccoon City’s woes is a pervasive lack of personality. Playing as an ensemble of villainous mercenaries amidst a smattering of Resident Evil-flavoured locations should in theory be pretty cool; your job involves essentially cleaning up Umbrella’s mess by wiping out zombies, undesirable survivors and all remaining links to the company’s involvement with ethically questionable biological weapons. But there’s little to identify with this generic assembly of archetypes one way or the other. Had they encouraged a bit of empathy for their dubious cause, or simply come across as unashamedly wicked, that would have been fine. Sadly, forgettable dialogues and bit-part demeanours ensure they achieve neither. This sense of detachment is mirrored in turn by the remarkable non-event that is Raccoon City itself.
One of gaming’s most iconic environments has somehow been reduced to a bland, almost indistinguishable sequence of corridors and streets. None of the levels stand out, and it’s on the wrong foot from the very beginning, with a painfully generic opening level that sees the player trekking through endless grey corridors and labs filled not with zombies, but gun-toting soldiers. The police station, emblazoned upon the psyche of a generation of gamers, is dull enough for you to legitimately miss completely, whilst the slightly incongruous reappearance of Kendo Gun Shop and the blazing oil tanker from RE2 prove uneasy reminders of ORC’s failure to assert its own mark on the series.
ORC isn’t terrible, it’s just depressingly middle-of-the-road when its licence is anything but. It functions in the basic sense but is lacklustre, with cumbersome aiming and bullet-sponge enemies (soldiers are a real pain as you can make them recoil half a dozen times and they just keep getting back up) that make weapons seem lightweight, headshots ineffectual and combat in general unsatisfying. The automatic cover system is also a bit of a disaster, as characters randomly choose not to duck behind certain scenery when it would be most prudent to do so, and losing health is an issue as it is non-regenerative.
Cramming the Campaign into seven exorbitantly drawn-out levels is a highly questionable design decision. Joining someone else’s game online can lead to disconnections which is understandable, but whilst it sometimes reverts to an offline one-player setup, there are times when being signed out of the network will unceremoniously dump you from the game, resulting in a loss of all the points accrued during the round, which is especially galling after thirty or forty minutes of ponderous graft. Though clearly designed with multiplayer in mind, ORC’s one-player Campaign is disappointingly handled, with a small selection of key errors rendering it inessential. Teammate A.I. on the whole is a bit ropey; they don’t quite die every two minutes, but they’re not especially effective in combat. More troublesome for those venturing out alone on to higher difficulties is that becoming incapacitated results in an instant game over, whereas multiplayer allows a solid time-frame for allies to revive you without having to travel back to a previous checkpoint.
ORC isn’t terrible, it’s just depressingly middle-of-the-road when its licence is anything but. It functions in the basic sense but is lacklustre, with cumbersome aiming and bullet-sponge enemies (soldiers are a real pain as you can make them recoil half a dozen times and they just keep getting back up) that make weapons seem lightweight, headshots ineffectual and combat in general unsatisfying. The automatic cover system is also a bit of a disaster, as characters randomly choose not to duck behind certain scenery when it would be most prudent to do so, and losing health is an issue as it is non-regenerative.
Cramming the Campaign into seven exorbitantly drawn-out levels is a highly questionable design decision. Joining someone else’s game online can lead to disconnections which is understandable, but whilst it sometimes reverts to an offline one-player setup, there are times when being signed out of the network will unceremoniously dump you from the game, resulting in a loss of all the points accrued during the round, which is especially galling after thirty or forty minutes of ponderous graft. Though clearly designed with multiplayer in mind, ORC’s one-player Campaign is disappointingly handled, with a small selection of key errors rendering it inessential. Teammate A.I. on the whole is a bit ropey; they don’t quite die every two minutes, but they’re not especially effective in combat. More troublesome for those venturing out alone on to higher difficulties is that becoming incapacitated results in an instant game over, whereas multiplayer allows a solid time-frame for allies to revive you without having to travel back to a previous checkpoint.
Co-op campaign offers some enjoyment if you play as a team, with each character class packing different complimentary ability and attribute, though as this is intended to be the game’s biggest selling point, surprisingly little has gone into developing the team element. Gaining XP allows you to splash out on guns, but though there may be a hearty selection, the vast majority are boring to use. Inevitably enough, there’s some multiplayer versus modes, but with such ordinary gameplay mechanics, the odd spin on the team deathmatch formula was never realistically going turn heads.
Whilst the dialogue is really bad (something of a Resident Evil hallmark, in fairness), the title music is suitably dramatic and there’s a few decent accompaniments to keep things chugging along. The graphics are competent but nothing more – enemies are acceptable but nothing special, the action runs relatively smoothly though the environments look drab and unattractive. The odd nice, action-packed FMV does at least liven things up a little.
Fighting through a zombie apocalypse with mates shouldn’t be boring. Battling through Raccoon City with dogs, zombies, lickers and head hunters on your tail should not feel routine. Fighting Birkin, the Tyrant and the Nemesis all in the same video game should not be a forgettable experience. That Operation Raccoon City manages to make the appetising seem ordinary neatly sums up what went wrong here.
Whilst the dialogue is really bad (something of a Resident Evil hallmark, in fairness), the title music is suitably dramatic and there’s a few decent accompaniments to keep things chugging along. The graphics are competent but nothing more – enemies are acceptable but nothing special, the action runs relatively smoothly though the environments look drab and unattractive. The odd nice, action-packed FMV does at least liven things up a little.
Fighting through a zombie apocalypse with mates shouldn’t be boring. Battling through Raccoon City with dogs, zombies, lickers and head hunters on your tail should not feel routine. Fighting Birkin, the Tyrant and the Nemesis all in the same video game should not be a forgettable experience. That Operation Raccoon City manages to make the appetising seem ordinary neatly sums up what went wrong here.
DLC Review...
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VERDICT
Visual: 5/10
Audio: 5/10 Gameplay: 4/10 Longevity: 4/10 OVERALL: 4/10 |
PIXEL SECONDS: RESIDENT EVIL: OPERATION RACCOON CITY (PS3)
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is something of a missed opportunity, being a non-canon shooter which allows you to experience the horrifying events in the titular city from the perspective of the baddies. Ultimately, its story doesn’t amount to much though, structuring a lot of cheap pops into one narrative. Memorable moments from the originals – such as Nemesis and the first appearance of Crimson Heads – fall flat here. Its shooting is functional but, though a levelling system and unlockable upgrades add some spice, gunplay ultimately becomes repetitive and dull. This is compounded by a clunky cover system, which often doesn’t register that you’re standing next to cover, and bullet-sponge enemies. In particular, Spec Ops soldiers are a nightmare. You know something is wrong when you fear human enemies more than the shambling corpses or lickers. Co-op does add some redemption, being a bit more fun, but the uber-brief campaign is not really worthwhile. Multiplayer has some interesting concepts, such as random zombie A.I. and becoming infected, but the bland shooting still prevails here. Ultimately, Operation Raccoon City just isn’t all interesting, and a pretty poor Resident Evil game at that. [4] - Shane Battams © 2014