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"The Jet Gamer" Game Review: Resident Evil Op. Raccoon City
10 years ago
I managed to pretty much get a brand new copy of this still in the plastic for $10. Yeah, this was coming home with me. =P
Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City
I have been a fan of most games in the Resident Evil series for a while now. I’ve played most of them, since I was actually a lot younger than I am now, and here I am getting another entry in the series. This one though is definitely a different take on the series though, but with a throw back to what the series is best known for as well, the events of Raccoon City and survival horror. Is this Resident Evil belonging in the upper rankings of Resident Evils, somewhere at the bottom, or somewhere in between? Let us take a closer look and find out shall we?
Gameplay
Unlike the on your own survival horror Resident Evils’ of the past, Operation Raccoon city is about squad based combat and running and gunning down everything you come across before it kills you. That is definitely a different take on this series as this series is mostly known for its conservation of ammo and being very conservative on what you do and don’t kill and how you handle your ammo. So basically, this game is definitely more of a shooter more so than a survival horror. While you do have to sometimes be careful with your ammo, there is usually plentiful amounts of ammo lying around the levels for you to pick up and use as you need. You are playing as one of six characters, each with their own special abilities, so it is up to you have you want to play, be it an assault character, or a medic for example. You can pick which kind of playstyle you are going to want to play. But at the same time, each character is mostly the same in terms of how they play as well, which is sort of flip flopping on what I just said. You don’t really notice that much difference between the characters other than their special abilities. These abilities though aren’t exactly super helpful in most cases though, so their effects are usually minimal at best. Some are helpful yes, but they are just so minimally helpful over all. You have really only a couple of enemy types you will fight throughout the game, but each one has its own advantages and disadvantages of taking on. Zombies of course, are slow, but usually travel in large numbers, and can also infect you with the virus, so you do have to make sure you have antivirus spray on you to counter this or it will slowly kill you. There are Crimson Heads, these being the fast zombies that can run you down and slash you with their claws. These are basically just the normal zombies just super charged and more dangerous. Then of course there are the bigger enemies such as Lickers and Hunters, these being old Resident Evil staples as well, just a lot more powerful and usually do take a lot of ammo and some help to bring down in certain situations. But an additional thing is human soldiers as well. These can actually be more damaging than the zombies as the soldier’s guns can be quite annoying as unlike the zombies, these guys can attack you from a distance and can deal some good damage to you before you can take them down as they do take a lot more punishment than zombies. The soldiers can be a bit annoying to deal with though in my opinion, and I really wish more focus had been put on the zombies in some missions. Some missions are way more focused on these guys than I think they should be. For the most part though, you are fighting the traditional enemies, which is a good thing. The biggest hit to the gameplay though is of course the AI of your team mates. It isn’t that good at all. They will walk right in front of your shots quite often, resulting in friendly fire. They will throw grenades at your feet or walk right into your grenade throws. Worst of all is that occasionally they will snake the first aid sprays which are very useful to you as they are the only health item you can carry with you in an emergency. While the AI will occasionally come over and heal you, it usually isn’t at the time when you could use it the most. So overall here, I wouldn’t say this concept is super flawed, but there are definitely some bugs. This also goes hand and hand with this game being a game that is heavily based on co-op and online play, so playing on your own is a somewhat short and likely not as fun experience as it would be if you had competent friends and people playing with you instead of the AI, more on this later. If you don’t mind playing it alone though, I’d say you would still like this game if you enjoy shooters with a tiny bit of tactics to it and shooting zombies of course.
Story
You are a member of umbrella’s security force and it is your job to follow the missions given to you by central command as you work to try and keep umbrella’s name from coming up as being responsible for the T-Virus outbreak in Raccoon City. You will travel in several levels first looking to hide umbrella’s involvement in the outbreak, and then trying to help out with killing survivors and making sure the BOW’s are doing their jobs as well. You are also going to see several familiar faces in the game that connect to some of the older RE games, so do expect to see what some characters were doing while these soldiers were roaming the city. However, there are two really big downsides to the story of this game. I’m not going to spoil the entire game, but these two things really do affect the story of this game quite a bit. The first big problem is how short this game is. You can honestly complete it in around five to six hours and after that, you have all the story of the game seen and completed. There are literally only like six missions in the game. That is sort of pitiful and a bit unacceptable for a story of a game. The story that is actually in the game isn’t that bad as it progresses, before, during, and after the missions. You won’t be bored as people will be talking as you play. However, with how little there really is, you will be begging for more. That’s where the other problem with the story comes in. That is with DLC. There are actually other story missions you can play in this game to make it longer, but it is all locked behind DLC. Unless you are willing to crank out the money to pay for DLC that is once again worth more than the game itself, you are pretty much out of luck on getting to play the extra missions in this game. They do sound like they would be interesting and follow more characters from the games, but I’m not spending the money just too play more missions in this game. Some might do this, but I won’t. The game is just too short, and these extra missions should either be a lot cheaper or in the game in the first place. I just couldn’t believe how short this game is, at least for what it offers. I know Resident Evil games are short, but this one is slightly different after all.
Graphics
Operation Raccoon City actually doesn’t look that bad. Some people may say it is a bit dark, and I am one of those as I did have to turn the brightness up a bit to see everything. However, once you get it to where you can actually see comfortably, you will notice they did excellent work on trying to make Raccoon city look like a city lost to a zombie apocalypse. There are fires everywhere. Cars and buildings abandoned and on fire, and most all people you encounter all zombies and looking to munch on you. You will run across many familiar areas from RE 2 and 3, so do look forward to getting to go through some familiar or redesigned familiar areas from your past, along with some new areas as well. All the characters and enemies all look well done as well, especially the really important enemies and characters. The generic zombies and soldiers though all do look similar and I think are based on only a handful of models. The soldiers all look pretty much the same, while with the zombies, you will get used to seeing the same half dozen people over and over again. There must be a lot of the similar people in this city. They really could have added a couple more dozen variations to all of these to create more uniqueness to the zombies. I know these companies are limited a bit, but I would like to see more variation at times and not multiples of the same zombie when you encounter groups of zombies. For the most part though, you are roaming a dank, gloomy, and abandoned city wondering what could be around the next corner. They definitely grabbed the atmosphere here for sure.
Sound
The sound is alright here as it does do a good job of being creepy and ominous at times and intense when the action is going down big time. If a big fight is going on, get ready for some strong music, while in areas where you are just roaming and shooting things, expect creepy and almost nonexistent music that relies more on ambient noise and other such creepy sounds of zombies and environmental items going off in the distance. However, the music isn’t something you really notice in this game. It is there, as I did notice it when I tried specifically listening for it, but it isn’t anything memorable. It is there more to set the mood than to be music you are going to sit down and listen to for enjoyment. The voice acting though is actually pretty good though. All the characters do their line just fine, and the cut scenes and such all sound and are voiced perfectly in my opinion. There is none of that cheesy bad acting here from what I can see. What little story there is, you can at least listen to it and have it sound really nice to your ear.
Control
The controls in this game are alright for the most part. You are really just running, gunning, and taking cover when necessary to make sure you hit your mark and aren’t overwhelmed easily when you encounter enemy soldiers. There is really no need to hide from zombies. The shoulder buttons are your main buttons in this game, that being to closer aim, shoot, grenades and change from main weapon and handgun. Knowing how to press these buttons and when to do so is your main chore in the game and also what your main learning curve is as well. I know these shooting games want to use all these buttons for active controls, but I do think it is still too easy to make mistakes at times with them. By the end of the game I had this down, but still I would make a button mistake every now and then and throw grenades when I meant to just shoot. Other than that though, moving around, aiming, and such really aren’t much of a problem. At least they were good enough to make sure the controls worked as you would expect them to, that being somewhat close to the Resident Evil 4 style that seems to dominate these days in Resident Evil games.
Replay Value
Honestly, the replay value is where I feel this game sort of suffers. This game is heavily based on being played either with friends or online. When you don’t do that and play it on your own, there is only so much you can do in this game, other than grind to earn levels and buy abilities and weapons. Sure, there are trophies you can earn as well, but several of those are very grind heavy and also many are locked behind online play. It just seems really, due to the short story, the very few levels, and nothing really worth unlocking, that this is a game that is more enjoyed with your friends either in person or online. When you don’t have that, you don’t have much reason to play this game other than once or twice, unless of choice you are really into this game and don’t mind grinding for the extra weapons and playing the game through multiple times as the other characters. Still, on your own, after doing that once or twice, you might get bored. There is little difference between playthroughs as other characters, so there is honestly little reason to play the game over again. If you can get a friend though, or a couple of friends to play this game with you, even if the levels aren’t changed at all, having friends would make this game more tolerable here as you then don’t have to deal with the bad AI of your team mates. You then just have to deal with human team mates instead.
Overall, Resident Evil Operation Raccoon city isn’t the worst Resident Evil game I’ve ever played, but I have played better ones as well. This RE game seems to come somewhere in the middle when it comes to this game series. If you have friends to play with, you are going to likely have a ball with this game. If you play it on your own though, while your first one or two playthroughs may be enjoyable, after that, you will just be seeing this game as a grindfest for XP to spend on guns and abilities. While the run and gun tactical gameplay isn’t for everyone, those that can play it with other people I feel are going to enjoy this game. Also, those that want to see a little more about what happened with the Raccoon city incident will enjoy this game, at least for the time being with the little story and gameplay there is. You can get more if you are willing to pay for the DLC, but overall, I feel most people aren’t likely to do that anymore with how cheap this game is now. The game is a nice experience, it just needs a little more to make it great.
Overall, in my opinion at least, I give Resident Evil Operation Raccoon city on the PS3 a seven out of ten.
Gameplay: 7
Story: 6
Graphics: 8
Sound: 7
Control: 8
Replay Value: 5
Overall: 7
Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City
I have been a fan of most games in the Resident Evil series for a while now. I’ve played most of them, since I was actually a lot younger than I am now, and here I am getting another entry in the series. This one though is definitely a different take on the series though, but with a throw back to what the series is best known for as well, the events of Raccoon City and survival horror. Is this Resident Evil belonging in the upper rankings of Resident Evils, somewhere at the bottom, or somewhere in between? Let us take a closer look and find out shall we?
Gameplay
Unlike the on your own survival horror Resident Evils’ of the past, Operation Raccoon city is about squad based combat and running and gunning down everything you come across before it kills you. That is definitely a different take on this series as this series is mostly known for its conservation of ammo and being very conservative on what you do and don’t kill and how you handle your ammo. So basically, this game is definitely more of a shooter more so than a survival horror. While you do have to sometimes be careful with your ammo, there is usually plentiful amounts of ammo lying around the levels for you to pick up and use as you need. You are playing as one of six characters, each with their own special abilities, so it is up to you have you want to play, be it an assault character, or a medic for example. You can pick which kind of playstyle you are going to want to play. But at the same time, each character is mostly the same in terms of how they play as well, which is sort of flip flopping on what I just said. You don’t really notice that much difference between the characters other than their special abilities. These abilities though aren’t exactly super helpful in most cases though, so their effects are usually minimal at best. Some are helpful yes, but they are just so minimally helpful over all. You have really only a couple of enemy types you will fight throughout the game, but each one has its own advantages and disadvantages of taking on. Zombies of course, are slow, but usually travel in large numbers, and can also infect you with the virus, so you do have to make sure you have antivirus spray on you to counter this or it will slowly kill you. There are Crimson Heads, these being the fast zombies that can run you down and slash you with their claws. These are basically just the normal zombies just super charged and more dangerous. Then of course there are the bigger enemies such as Lickers and Hunters, these being old Resident Evil staples as well, just a lot more powerful and usually do take a lot of ammo and some help to bring down in certain situations. But an additional thing is human soldiers as well. These can actually be more damaging than the zombies as the soldier’s guns can be quite annoying as unlike the zombies, these guys can attack you from a distance and can deal some good damage to you before you can take them down as they do take a lot more punishment than zombies. The soldiers can be a bit annoying to deal with though in my opinion, and I really wish more focus had been put on the zombies in some missions. Some missions are way more focused on these guys than I think they should be. For the most part though, you are fighting the traditional enemies, which is a good thing. The biggest hit to the gameplay though is of course the AI of your team mates. It isn’t that good at all. They will walk right in front of your shots quite often, resulting in friendly fire. They will throw grenades at your feet or walk right into your grenade throws. Worst of all is that occasionally they will snake the first aid sprays which are very useful to you as they are the only health item you can carry with you in an emergency. While the AI will occasionally come over and heal you, it usually isn’t at the time when you could use it the most. So overall here, I wouldn’t say this concept is super flawed, but there are definitely some bugs. This also goes hand and hand with this game being a game that is heavily based on co-op and online play, so playing on your own is a somewhat short and likely not as fun experience as it would be if you had competent friends and people playing with you instead of the AI, more on this later. If you don’t mind playing it alone though, I’d say you would still like this game if you enjoy shooters with a tiny bit of tactics to it and shooting zombies of course.
Story
You are a member of umbrella’s security force and it is your job to follow the missions given to you by central command as you work to try and keep umbrella’s name from coming up as being responsible for the T-Virus outbreak in Raccoon City. You will travel in several levels first looking to hide umbrella’s involvement in the outbreak, and then trying to help out with killing survivors and making sure the BOW’s are doing their jobs as well. You are also going to see several familiar faces in the game that connect to some of the older RE games, so do expect to see what some characters were doing while these soldiers were roaming the city. However, there are two really big downsides to the story of this game. I’m not going to spoil the entire game, but these two things really do affect the story of this game quite a bit. The first big problem is how short this game is. You can honestly complete it in around five to six hours and after that, you have all the story of the game seen and completed. There are literally only like six missions in the game. That is sort of pitiful and a bit unacceptable for a story of a game. The story that is actually in the game isn’t that bad as it progresses, before, during, and after the missions. You won’t be bored as people will be talking as you play. However, with how little there really is, you will be begging for more. That’s where the other problem with the story comes in. That is with DLC. There are actually other story missions you can play in this game to make it longer, but it is all locked behind DLC. Unless you are willing to crank out the money to pay for DLC that is once again worth more than the game itself, you are pretty much out of luck on getting to play the extra missions in this game. They do sound like they would be interesting and follow more characters from the games, but I’m not spending the money just too play more missions in this game. Some might do this, but I won’t. The game is just too short, and these extra missions should either be a lot cheaper or in the game in the first place. I just couldn’t believe how short this game is, at least for what it offers. I know Resident Evil games are short, but this one is slightly different after all.
Graphics
Operation Raccoon City actually doesn’t look that bad. Some people may say it is a bit dark, and I am one of those as I did have to turn the brightness up a bit to see everything. However, once you get it to where you can actually see comfortably, you will notice they did excellent work on trying to make Raccoon city look like a city lost to a zombie apocalypse. There are fires everywhere. Cars and buildings abandoned and on fire, and most all people you encounter all zombies and looking to munch on you. You will run across many familiar areas from RE 2 and 3, so do look forward to getting to go through some familiar or redesigned familiar areas from your past, along with some new areas as well. All the characters and enemies all look well done as well, especially the really important enemies and characters. The generic zombies and soldiers though all do look similar and I think are based on only a handful of models. The soldiers all look pretty much the same, while with the zombies, you will get used to seeing the same half dozen people over and over again. There must be a lot of the similar people in this city. They really could have added a couple more dozen variations to all of these to create more uniqueness to the zombies. I know these companies are limited a bit, but I would like to see more variation at times and not multiples of the same zombie when you encounter groups of zombies. For the most part though, you are roaming a dank, gloomy, and abandoned city wondering what could be around the next corner. They definitely grabbed the atmosphere here for sure.
Sound
The sound is alright here as it does do a good job of being creepy and ominous at times and intense when the action is going down big time. If a big fight is going on, get ready for some strong music, while in areas where you are just roaming and shooting things, expect creepy and almost nonexistent music that relies more on ambient noise and other such creepy sounds of zombies and environmental items going off in the distance. However, the music isn’t something you really notice in this game. It is there, as I did notice it when I tried specifically listening for it, but it isn’t anything memorable. It is there more to set the mood than to be music you are going to sit down and listen to for enjoyment. The voice acting though is actually pretty good though. All the characters do their line just fine, and the cut scenes and such all sound and are voiced perfectly in my opinion. There is none of that cheesy bad acting here from what I can see. What little story there is, you can at least listen to it and have it sound really nice to your ear.
Control
The controls in this game are alright for the most part. You are really just running, gunning, and taking cover when necessary to make sure you hit your mark and aren’t overwhelmed easily when you encounter enemy soldiers. There is really no need to hide from zombies. The shoulder buttons are your main buttons in this game, that being to closer aim, shoot, grenades and change from main weapon and handgun. Knowing how to press these buttons and when to do so is your main chore in the game and also what your main learning curve is as well. I know these shooting games want to use all these buttons for active controls, but I do think it is still too easy to make mistakes at times with them. By the end of the game I had this down, but still I would make a button mistake every now and then and throw grenades when I meant to just shoot. Other than that though, moving around, aiming, and such really aren’t much of a problem. At least they were good enough to make sure the controls worked as you would expect them to, that being somewhat close to the Resident Evil 4 style that seems to dominate these days in Resident Evil games.
Replay Value
Honestly, the replay value is where I feel this game sort of suffers. This game is heavily based on being played either with friends or online. When you don’t do that and play it on your own, there is only so much you can do in this game, other than grind to earn levels and buy abilities and weapons. Sure, there are trophies you can earn as well, but several of those are very grind heavy and also many are locked behind online play. It just seems really, due to the short story, the very few levels, and nothing really worth unlocking, that this is a game that is more enjoyed with your friends either in person or online. When you don’t have that, you don’t have much reason to play this game other than once or twice, unless of choice you are really into this game and don’t mind grinding for the extra weapons and playing the game through multiple times as the other characters. Still, on your own, after doing that once or twice, you might get bored. There is little difference between playthroughs as other characters, so there is honestly little reason to play the game over again. If you can get a friend though, or a couple of friends to play this game with you, even if the levels aren’t changed at all, having friends would make this game more tolerable here as you then don’t have to deal with the bad AI of your team mates. You then just have to deal with human team mates instead.
Overall, Resident Evil Operation Raccoon city isn’t the worst Resident Evil game I’ve ever played, but I have played better ones as well. This RE game seems to come somewhere in the middle when it comes to this game series. If you have friends to play with, you are going to likely have a ball with this game. If you play it on your own though, while your first one or two playthroughs may be enjoyable, after that, you will just be seeing this game as a grindfest for XP to spend on guns and abilities. While the run and gun tactical gameplay isn’t for everyone, those that can play it with other people I feel are going to enjoy this game. Also, those that want to see a little more about what happened with the Raccoon city incident will enjoy this game, at least for the time being with the little story and gameplay there is. You can get more if you are willing to pay for the DLC, but overall, I feel most people aren’t likely to do that anymore with how cheap this game is now. The game is a nice experience, it just needs a little more to make it great.
Overall, in my opinion at least, I give Resident Evil Operation Raccoon city on the PS3 a seven out of ten.
Gameplay: 7
Story: 6
Graphics: 8
Sound: 7
Control: 8
Replay Value: 5
Overall: 7
Nero-Fox
~nero-fox
It really is just Ghost Recon meets Left 4 Dead.
