Game Rant’s Curt Hutson reviews Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
Operation Raccoon City provides a different take on the Resident Evil series by offering a team-based shooter, and while the game couldn’t have asked for a better set of ingredients to create a unique and exciting perspective during a popular period in the series, Operation Raccoon City lacks in just about every departement, most notably the chilling atmosphere the series is known for – leaving the only real scares coming from its atrocious gameplay.
It’s hard to think of an easier formula than allowing players to take on the role of a bad guy working behind the scenes during the events of Resident Evil 2 & 3, a favorite era for fans. In this case, that role is an Umbrella Security Service, who are deployed to gather virus samples and inadvertently set the famous events in Raccoon City into motion. The majority of the game is then cleaning up after Umbrella by destroying evidence of their involvement. The foundation for a fantastic game was there, but the execution left a lot to be desired.
Being a team-based shooter, companions are crucial to progressing and surviving. However, in ORC, teammates do little to contribute – little may be putting it mildly, they do practically nothing. The AI of teammates is possibly some of the worst imaginable. The ability to control or direct them would have been a plausible solution, but it is nonexistent, and even the most rudimentary tasks prove difficult to them. When they aren’t providing backup, they are running into walls, fire, tripwire mines or finding new and creative ways to get themselves killed. Even when they are around for the action, they don’t really contribute. When the game is built around a team-based dynamic, it’s impossible to let this slide. Levels are exceedingly long as well, so that frustration has plenty of time to fester.
The enemy AI is no different. Regardless of the enemy, they all act like mindless zombies, which is fine for the actual zombies, but when dealing with “human” opponents, it’s downright embarrassing. BOWs, which are supposed to be ultimate killing machines, often wander around, occasionally confronting the player, only to turn around and wander some more. Capcom‘s famous franchise is filled with some truly fearsome creatures, but they feel a lot less fearsome with the brain of a gerbil.
Taking on some more modern shooter elements, Operation Raccoon City includes an auto-cover system that allows players to stick to walls when they make contact. If that evokes images of characters sticking to practically everything in and out of combat, that would be accurate. Even when cover could be useful, it rarely is. Most times it’s hard to tell what is cover and what isn’t, other times it’s easier to just run up to something and shoot it in the face.
A huge part of the game deals with gunplay, which players can purchase or pickup around the game. Gun stats are displayed before setting out so picking the right one is a breeze before jumping into a mission. Buying a stronger gun with high stats should logically direct a player to think it would perform better in combat - unfortunately that isn’t the case when shoddy aiming is a factor. On top of flailing about, hoping any bullet lands, the strength of a weapon isn’t consistant. Sometimes several clips will be unloaded into an enemy with nary an effect, other times just a couple of bullets will do the trick and they’ll keel over before a player has a chance to care about what it was they were shooting. Melee is also confusing and extremely inaccurate. For an attack that deals with things right in front of the players’ face, it sure misses a lot.
All of the Resident Evil atmosphere and tension the series is known for is missing in this installment. Stopping to take in creepy details and slowly edging around corners in anticipation for big scares is gone. ORC doesn’t even feel like a Resident Evil game, aside from all of the zombies and the mention of Umbrella every so often (a company that is hardly even explored in a game built around being within their ranks). Opportunities to learn secrets and explore the history of the mysterious organization is wasted.
On top of a flat and depthless world, the Umbrella Security Service characters themselves are bland and uninteresting. Besides a short bio at the beginning that doesn’t go beyond their combat training and whether they are sociopaths or not, hardly anything is revealed. The characters barely interact with each other outside of briefly mentioning objectives. With no story arcs or the most minuscule hints of personality, they are portrayed as mindless robots of the Umbrella Corporation – but I suppose they do that description justice in how they play. There is more character development in the game’s cinematic trailer than the game itself.
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is a game that most will not want to play alone. Not because it’s particularly terrifying, but because it’s practically impossible. Multi-player and Co-op modes aren’t anything to write home about, and it’s nice that they were included at all, but any chance to play with another human being is a welcomed reprieve from the irritating AI.
The four multi-player modes can support up to eight players. Heroes mode allows players to play favorite past characters, such as Leon, Claire and the like, in a four-on-four team match. There is the standard capture the flag variation called Biohazard (where players capture virus samples), a survivor mode (which is pretty self-explanatory – survive until extraction), and Team Attack (which is the game’s version of a deathmatch – where scoring the most kills earns players a win). There isn’t a lot that separates the multi-player experience from the standard fare packaged in with any game wanting to provide muli-player for the sake of multi-player. Some creative choices might have put some interesting spins on these classics, but like the main game, it’s severely lacking in that department – as well as suffering from the same gameplay issues.
Overall, ORC provides an extremely lackluster experience. With so much in the Resident Evil series to draw inspiration from, it’s a wonder why it felt like the developers were scrambling for creativity. Any attempt to bring the series in a unique direction was squandered with atrocious AI, uninspired locations and its complete lack of memorable characters or any real story. Operation Raccoon City is a shooter that completely misses its mark and hits the player squarely in the head in an attempt to make them brain dead enough to not notice its many flaws.
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is available now for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Game Rant played the Xbox 360 version for this review.
Our Rating:
2 out of 5
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All the uninspired locales and moments would be forgivable if the game was fun. Which it isn’t. Multiplayer is a confusing mess. You run out of bullets, mash weirdly into cover and have no idea what’s going on. Sigh.
Sadly the AI is even worse when playing with 1 other person. Having to wait for the ai to catch up to even move on to the next area. This is also not a game for people who dont know the series. Leaving the story of Hunk off randomly and Nicoli just disappears also makes the story just down right depressing. I only know what happens from being a fan of the series but this im trading after only having it a week. The levels were long but the story was short. If that makes sense. For a series that prides itself on its story modes this was the shortest and worst of them.
But its not a “residendt evil” game” some say? Then dont put the name in the title. You get false hopes up. It couldve live with “operation raccoon city” an the fanboys would know but not expect the same.
And done. Hand hurts from typing this on my iphone
Been waiting to see what GameRant thought, I bought the game on Tuesday and traded it in two days ago. It’s enjoyable with tons of friends but it’s definitely not worth $60. If your a big RE fan than maybe a rent but I would skip period. Also, I hated how the guns felt, they felt so weak and light, only a few of then seem like they had kick to them. Overall a very unpolished game.
Just watching game play made me lose interest in the game. its to run and gun for resident evil in my opinion
Thats the point. They wanted to try a different genre but still put it in the same story. It didnt work. Plain and simple. Its sad because they probably could have made it work if they put more behind it but it felt like they threw it together and was like… good enough..
The run and gun could have worked if you could run or gun properly in it.
I liked this game. I was not expecting it to be anything as great as RE2 or even RE3 but it was still decent. It was however very freaking short and Killing Leon at the end was hard as hell compared to saving him but over all I say 6 stars…only wish I would of waited to get it when cheaper
I’ll stick with RE:Revelations which I still haven’t finished.
Good man. At least that game is a real Resident Evil game.
Unlike ORC, Revelations is a very polished game that offers a full home console gaming experience. It’s not gimped or anything of the sort. 10-12 hours of gameplay plus a very satisfying multiplayer co-op mode for local, off-line & online play.
If not for Resident Evil: Revelations and the promise of RE6 being better than RE5, survival-horror in the RE series would’ve died with ORC.
I thought it was a decent game, but not worth $60. But I also felt that it was a very unpolished game. How long did they work on this thing? 2-3 years? It should NOT have felt this clunky. Teammate AI was so whacked that they were NO help against anything more than zombies (though credit where it’s due, it was easy to tell where enemies were because of laser pointers). Guns were bugged, my sidearm was infinitely more useful than my main weapon (sniper rifles were USELESS!!!!). And my biggest complaint is that hunter were just short of invincible! I got gang raped by those damned things so many times on the Expendable level that I had to go for a long walk just to cool down.
This could have (should have) been a great game. The concept was great. But still a decent game.
Como pegar zumbi de refem? A primeira foto ilustra exatamente o que quero me ensinem please para Xbox 360!
The game needed at least a full year of development. And not by the same developer either, Slant Six Games. But instead, Capcom should’ve taken charge of it to avoid the brand name of its popular series to be tarnished in such a way way.
Because thanks to ORC, many kids and new gamers will begin to think of the franchise as merely a mindless action shooter. And will no longer be receptive to the methodical, slower gameplay that defined the franchise for most of it’s history. I’ve seen this very reaction with some people who played RE5 and will refuse to play the classic games or even the masterpiece that was the 2002 remake of RE1. Since in their opinion, those games are not “fun” because they don’t have wall-to-wall action and nearly unlimited ammo and enemies. For them, survival-horror is meaningless. And that’s something that is true with ORC. All the way.
BTW, Slant Six Games has been posting on Twitter any positive reviews that they can find of this game. I guess your review here will most likely get ignored (avoided is the word).
Fact is, Capcom used their popular brand to sell a glitchy, unpolished sub-par shooter game. A game that under normal conditions and if it had been devoid of such a popular brand, would’ve been cancelled before even hitting the shelves. Never mind not selling a fraction of what this game is currently selling.
I guess Capcom learned this strategy from Michael Bay and how he manages to hit the jackpot by making awful Transformers movies. Movies that are only making money because of the brand and their “fun” CGi mixed in with mindless action. Food for drones both products.
P.S. Those that cannot wait for RE6 to come around at the end of the year, can play “Resident Evil: Revelations” instead. Now this game actually plays like the classic games for the most part. It has a lengthy console-quality campaign mode (longer than RE5′s), and also a multiplayer mode that you can play co-op on local or online.
If RE6 is even half as good as Resident Evil: Revelations was on the 3DS, the game will be worth buying.
They’re trying to get that Call of Duty money.