Resident Evil 6

My god this game, as a Resident Evil, sucks so hard. But! As an arcade-y co-op shooter it rules so hard. We finished off Leon’s story last night which really was more of Helena’s story. We were searching for her sister DEBORAH! who had been taken by the secretary of state (?) and turned into a monster (??) and it’s sad, I guess, having to murder your sister who was in lingerie (???) and spawning spider legs. But the entire time Catrena and I just started yelling “DEBORAH!” like we were Ray Romano and my god it must have been so annoying for our neighbors.

I still think this game was supposed to be something else before it released as a main numbered game. Released in 2012, I think this becomes Capcom’s answer to Left 4 Dead. I don’t really know why the leader of the survival horror genre, which had, up to a certain point revolved around thoughtfully solving puzzles while also rationing health and ammo to blast your way through strange locales filled with zombies, decided they needed to take some direction from Left4Dead, a western-dev’d 4-person game which lets players live out a horror movie. It just feels like a strange departure for the series. Also amongst these influences it feels like they were also chasing the success of the Uncharted series - something that I will also leverage against Leon’s lengthy third-act stretch in Resident Evil 9. Here, Helena and Leon are running, jumping, mine-carting, exploding and swinging their way through underground catacombs… which were under a church… which was in a midwestern town … that was just nuked by the US Government. The existence of the catacombs doesn’t make any sense whatsover, the scale of it is too big and it was chosen as the current bio-lab of Neo-Umbrella and the aforementioned Secretary of State. The absurdity doesn’t stop there either - by the end of the chapter Leon, Helena & Ada Wong (who may or not be a clone) are destroying a major city in China as the virus breaks containment and zombies and monsters and BSAA are haphazardly running around every which way.

Look - I know trying to make sense of the plot of a Resident Evil game is a fools errand, but this one is egregiously bad. It’s very dumb! And it’s presented with a lot of over-the-top line reads that feel straight out of the House of the Dead series. Every five minutes it’s some new catastrophe that needs to be dealt with and it’s a lottery of how you will have to tackle it. Oh no! The side of the building exploded and now a giant terrifying monster of indescribable horror is chasing you. Will you:

• Fight it normally, 3rd person style with your limited guns and ammo?
• Run away from it, in a fixed-camera position, only being able to dodge left from right?
• An extended cutscene with vague yet frantic quick-time events?

The thing is, with this game, it could be that or any other number of equally bizarre options. Just last night as we worked through Jake & Sherry’s section, the answer was D - jump onto a pair of snowmobiles and outrun an avalanche. I don’t know why moments like this live in my mind as arcade-centric but they do. It must come from the many light-gun cabs I’ve played over my life which often have you and a partner outrunning and out-gunning various natural and supernatural disasters. From T-Rexes to giant zombies and earthquakes I think the arcade has seem them all and RE6 is picking up from that deep bench of varied scenarios. And just like in the arcade, I’m signing up to see what stupid bullshit this game lobs directly at my agape mouth next, because while it may be stupid and insane, it’s also insanely stupid fun.

My god Jake & Sherry, how many times are you going to get captured? How many times are you going to have to escape? Hopefully, for our sanity, no more. We wrapped up their irresponsible, globetrotting adventure and sent Ustanak back into the fiery depths of hell where he and that terrible haircut belong. Sherry, according to Catrena, was much weaker and less capable then Helena. Meanwhile Jake was an MMA master doing acrobatics all across the land while finishing guys with a palm slap to the face. Sherry should have had some regenerative powers, which features heavily in the cutscenes but not her gameplay. Glad this one is over, it felt too repetitive. I think we’re going to need to take a break before we start Chris’ route.

LMAO just saw this linked in a reddit thread.