Resident Evil 6 Demo Impressions

I was never really excited for Resident Evil 6, mainly because of how disappointed I was with the previous instalment. After playing this new demo, my expectations of the game have just been lowered even more. The demo is split up into three campaigns, each one offering a different gameplay style; problem is only one shows potential of being a good campaign, whilst the other two feel like lacklustre third person shooters.

Leon’s and Helena’s campaign was the first one that I tried out and is the only one that shows any kind of potential. The gameplay tries to imitate the old style tension and horror of the first Resident Evil games and seems to succeed to a point but is let down by some gameplay mechanics and level design. You move around the campus of a university at night, investigating each room you come across, recreating the slower paced style of the old games but they all seem too predictable at the same time. Sometimes you will enter a room with no zombies and in another you will find bodies around on the floor that come back to life when you get near them. Music plays a big part in horror, but in this it actually ruins the experience, as you will hear the noise of a zombie when you enter a room taking away the element of surprise. Then we have the gameplay, the shooting works well and the sensitive attacks work well but the rest of it doesn’t seem to click together. Being able to move around whilst aiming your gun really makes a difference but the inclusion of a dodge mechanic just does not work, as there are two types of dodge, each one has a similar button press, making it frustrating in some instances as you perform a move you did not want to. Just the inclusion of a dodge mechanic, takes away from the horror as you will never feel cornered. Ammo is sparse in this campaign adding to the tension, but even if you do run out of ammo you are still able to perform hand-to-hand combat, making the idea of sparse ammo…well useless. A big problem that I have with all three campaigns is the addition of regenerating health, especially in Leon’s, as 1) you never feel like you are in any serious danger and 2) it makes the addition of herbs practically useless. With all these issues though it is still possible that this campaign will at least be decent, as I have just played a very small section of the game and the campaign could still offer surprises and scares.

The other two campaigns, however, feel very generic. Chris’ and Piers’ campaign plays a lot like an action movie, you move from cover to cover shooting down enemies as you see them, occasionally performing the odd hand-to-hand combat, but when you have plenty of ammo to spare it seems pointless to even attempt hand-to-hand combat. Then you have a boss fight that feels very much like El Gigante, which was already rehashed in Resident Evil 5 with Ndesu, you face a skyscraper enemy that has a weak point on its back. It feels like Capcom just got really lazy with enemy design, making this encounter feel like a chore. Shooting feels satisfying but for some reason, the reticule disappears every time you fire your gun, making it really hard to see what you’re aiming at. This is especially an annoyance when it comes to the boss fight and you need careful aiming. The cover system works OK, but does not feel as responsive as it should. The normal enemies that you face regenerate body parts that you shoot off in a new and interesting way, for instance, if you shoot one of their arms off, it could regenerate as a shield. The idea of this is clever, as it could have provided a tactical element to where you should shoot, but when you can just run up to them and kill them with a sensitive action button, it does not feel threatening.

Every problem that I faced in the previous campaign can be seen in Jake’s and Sherry’s. There is not an inclusion of the Ustanak, which is supposed to create a similar feel to Nemesis in Resident Evil 3, whereby you are constantly on the run. However without Ustanak, the campaign plays too much alike to Chris’, causing this part of the game to have a lack of identity.

Animations in all three-campaign demos sometimes were on the borderline of just plan silly. The way that Jake runs up a set of stairs looks ridiculous, it’s a small complaint but in the end for me it all adds up to a bad experience. Only 1 campaign shows any signs of promise and, let’s be honest, 1 out of 3 is not good at all.

For more info on the demo click here.