Resident Evil 6 is one of the most maligned entries in this long series, often considered a low point, despite the numerous peaks and valleys these games have seen over the years. In truth, even at its worst, RE6 easily exceeds the low bar of some of the series’ worst spin-off titles. However, it still noticeably suffers from far higher expectations as not only a mainline entry, but one with a ton of marketing and hype leading up to it that felt all the more let down by its numerous shortcomings and bloated and ironically monotonous design.

One of the most immediately striking features of this entry is that the game features four separate campaigns, generally featuring pairs of characters with one recurring series character paired with a new character. Further, in a sort of attempt to please everyone, each of these campaigns has a distinct style and feel to it. Leon and Helena start with a story of political intrigue, but attempts to capitalize on some of the series’ horror roots with a more subdued, slow-paced spooky aesthetic and progression. Chris and Piers follow a story much more in line with RE5’s action as the pair mow down enemies in a more military context and style. Jake and Sherry come in somewhere in the middle with a more character-driven narrative that has no shortage of action, but is much more toned back and exploratory than Chris and Piers' adventure. Lastly, Ada’s campaign (Ada doesn’t have much of an official partner, but a second player can join her in co-op playing as an anonymous masked agent partner), which unlocks after completing the others is kind of all over the place in playstyles but features some stealth capabilities absent from most of the other campaigns. This structure is fairly central to a lot of the game’s definition, goals, and ultimately, its biggest pain points, so I’ll mostly focus on it by drilling into them individually below.

But first, it’s worth noting at the outset that there’s a lot of overlap and interconnection between these campaigns. It’s not so simple as each campaign is playing the exact same levels over and over, but the same few settings are found in multiple campaigns with few settings being unique to one campaign. There was a cool idea behind this in that your games online can intersect with other people and for instance, if while playing as Leon and Helena, you get to a part of the story in which you’re working together with Sherry and Jake, other players playing as them at that same point can queue up with you in the same session. Though this wasn’t that great an idea in practice, it is at least neat in theory. The downside of this is that the game feels quite repetitive since you're playing the same timeline from different angles four times over. One of the most grueling things about the game is that not only is it fairly dull, but it’s very long for a game of its type clocking in at about 24 hours when one of RE4’s few consistent criticisms is that it was a little too long at 16 hours. But this issue is exacerbated by the fact that so much of that time feels like retracing the same steps. Even if the levels are laid out quite differently for the different campaigns, it still often feels tiresome retracing the same few story beats and watching the same cutscenes of the characters interacting with each new campaign you play.

As an unsurprising disclaimer, I’ve seen a wide variety of opinions on which campaigns are good and bad. The general consensus on the game among series veterans tends to be fairly negative but even its greatest critics tend to have their pick of which campaigns fare worse than others. For me personally, I think Jake and Sherry’s is the best for reasons I’ll get into. Ada’s I think has some interesting ideas and Leon and Helena’s is occasionally good, but Chris and Piers’ I found painful. In general, I’ll often just name the campaign by the name of the recurring character as a short-hand.

I’ll start with the bad: Chris’ game I find miserable every time I play it. The enemies are given the ability to wield guns, which really takes away from the classic Resident Evil feel, but further makes it hard to differentiate the game from a slew of other shooters. Calling it Call of Duty is a common—if exaggerated—refrain. There is some truth to this criticism as for the most part, the enemies might as well be reskinned soldiers you’re fighting rather than monsters much of the time and the military-style squad Chris leads often fits that kind of narrative, though I do consider the description to be a touch hyperbolic. Still, this simply isn’t what I come to this series for. There’s nothing wrong with shooters in general and I’ve found plenty of them fun, but I don’t come to Resident Evil just to play a mindless shooter and that’s often what this campaign feels like. There is some interesting potential with the story as the game sets up a character arc of Chris dealing with the immense trauma we’ve seen him dealt by the horrific events of the too-many games he is in and witnessing the terrible losses he has. Unfortunately, this arc is not executed very well at all and utterly flops its ending, which could have actually made for a fairly satisfying conclusion.

Leon’s game is a bit better as we have more of the dark lighting, slower-paced survival horror-type aesthetic throughout most of the levels. There was some effort here to touch on the very thing I would’ve liked to see from the series after the action-packed letdown of RE5, but the game’s snappy action controls that fit Chris’ campaign well enough often take me out of it here. Further, the gameplay in general still just feels too repetitive and like there’s a bit too much slogging through repetitive waves of enemies to capture the feel of the older style. Some of the over-the-top amusing villainry the series is notorious/beloved for is present, but the plot is at times overly-simplistic and at others confusing and convoluted. This is especially a point where the game’s choice to confine the iconic in-game notes to an out-of-game menu certainly don’t help its coherence.

I won’t say too much about Ada’s game given that it’s kind of hard to discuss it much without spoilers, but the experience itself is pretty hit or miss. In my opinion, she gets a few of the cooler parts in the game, they're just few and far between. It just doesn’t really add enough to a game that’s already struggling, especially when you're playing it after three other fairly grueling campaigns and are probably about ready to just be done. Perhaps worst of all, the game prior to this ends with a lot of open questions that this campaign seems like the obvious answer to that will make it all fit together. But it doesn't deliver at all and the plot development is not remotely interesting, despite that potential.

Sherry’s campaign is the only one I feel a bit more positive on. Its defining feature is a pursuer-like monster called the Ustanak which stalks the characters much like RE3’s iconic Nemesis. This feature doesn’t work that great given Ustanak’s encounters are heavily scripted like much of this incredibly linear game and thus there’s no real interesting gameplay aspect to Ustanak’s relentless pursuit. Further, the monster simply isn’t nearly as interesting in design and just looks like a knock-off Nemesis with a weird comb-over. However, to me, I think this campaign is the most fun because of its protagonists who steal the show. Having Sherry return as a bad-ass agent is a fun development. But despite the patently ridiculous and silly idea to have Wesker’s son as a too-cool motorcycle baddie, Jake is actually a pretty good character in himself and the two have a good chemistry throughout. This allows for some actual character development and dynamics that makes their story much more engaging than the other campaigns that generally at best only go through the motions of their character arcs. While I much prefer the series’ more slow-paced survival horror entries, I also find the sort of in-between horror and action of Sherry’s game the best fit for RE6’s gameplay rather than the faux-horror of Leon’s game that might on paper seem more up my alley. All that to say, as should be apparent, I still don’t think Jake and Sherry’s game is great and it definitely has its pain points—ie, the terrible snowmobile segment that may be the worst part of the entire game—but it’s to me definitely the part they should have fleshed out into its own game rather than the other directions the game branches into with the other campaigns.

And that last point really drives home the biggest overall problem I have with RE6. It’s clear the game is aiming to be this grand coming together of so many different styles the series has featured before. It was in some sense trying to have “something for everyone.” But in my opinion, as is often the case with trying to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. Obviously, the game sold super well and definitely does have its champions, so clearly it worked for some. I can't literally mean no one. But I do think this attempt to cover all bases is why the game ultimately earned its notorious reputation among many disappointed fans. The compounding reason for this is that the game was heavily built up to with tons and tons of marketing leading up to it. I doubt anyone thought it would be a series finale, but it had all the build-up of a massive series climax of some sort. The scene of Chris and Leon coming into a head-on conflict was really played up in the marketing, sparking all kinds of theories of what might lead up to this conflict and how it could play out. If I had to pick the game’s single biggest failure, it’s probably how built up that scene was. I won’t spoil too much, but the scene itself is incredibly contrived and worse, it is resolved with all the consequence of a shrug almost immediately afterward, which is perhaps the most exemplary illustration of the game's disappointing performance.

I don’t have a lot of positives to say for the game but I can speak on them briefly enough. The game does look pretty cool for its time. I think some of the aesthetics detract from a more subdued horror I would have appreciated, but it is admittedly cool seeing these iconic characters with touched-up new models that really come to life. Even if they're repetitive, a good number of the cutscenes and action sequences do look pretty good and explosive. While I don’t like the action emphasis too much, for what it is, the game has a lot of really fluid movement. You can use a ton of melee attacks, sometimes a little too effectively. You can jump over obstacles, slide all over the place, and run rather fast too. The item menu is terrible, but otherwise, there is some pretty fun action gameplay in itself throughout.

If there is one thing I do especially like about the game, its actually its legacy as a series flop. RE6 is a part of a sort of dark ages in the series with a slew of rough releases interspersed at best by middling titles like Revelations. Despite its notoriety today, the game did sell incredibly well. It kind of had to given its massive budget, but still, it remains one of the top 5 best-selling entries in the series and it wasn’t long ago that it was undisputedly in the top couple spots along with its immediate predecessor (I’ve seen differing numbers so I’m not totally sure exactly where it sits now). Capcom could have taken that as a message that the game was in every sense a success and in some ways, that would be a pretty smart move and at least financially is hard to argue against. But while we can speculate the reasons they did it forever, the direction the series has taken since suggests that the developer took many of the long-time series fans’ criticisms to heart. Resident Evil 7 is almost definitely a response to those criticisms with a revamped approach that is in many ways a return to form rejecting almost all of RE6’s core design. Though I try to see its merits in fairness to those who do adore this game, I have liked this game less and less every time I have played it. But I think it’s also fair to say that without its many pain points, the series heights we’ve seen since would not have emerged as they have.

My other Resident Evil reviews:

• Resident Evil (1996) - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil 2 (1998) - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil 3 (1999) - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil: Survivor - ★★★
• Resident Evil: Code Veronica - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil: Survivor 2 – Code Veronica - ★★
• Resident Evil Remake - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil Gaiden - ★★
• Resident Evil 0 - ★★★
• Resident Evil Dead Aim - ★★★
• Resident Evil: Outbreak - ★★★
• Resident Evil 4 - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil Outbreak File #2 - ★★★
• Resident Evil Deadly Silence - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles - ★★★
• Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles - ★★★
• Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D - ★★
• Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City - ★★
• Resident Evil Revelations - ★★★
• Resident Evil Revelations 2 - ★★★★
• Umbrella Corps - ★
• Resident Evil 2 Remake - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil 3 Remake - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil 4 VR - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil 4 Remake - ★★★★★

Review for the PS4 re-release.

A friend and I originally played this game on the Xbox 360, but never finished, so we were excited to pick it up as a PS4 title and get the Platinum trophy. This is the key to enjoying this game: Playing co-op with a friend. The game is cheesy enough to laugh together at how bad it can be, and when it's good, it's a fun experience. The game's highs are high, and the lows are low.

This game really highlights Capcom's current mental state in 2016, even though the game was originally release in the PS3/Xbox 360 generation in 2012. Each of the game's campaigns has a totally different playstyle, perhaps to try to please at least some of the fans, but who knows what Capcom was thinking for sure. Leon's campaign is similar to RE4, complete with cheesy one-liners. Chris's campaign is a run-and-gun style game, not like any main title RE game. Jake's campaign features a giant monster following you just like RE3. Ada's campaign is partially stealth-based.

The story writing is simply bad. Leon's campaign starts out with Leon and Helena killing the president who turned into a zombie. That's literally the opening cutscene. You won't feel any sadness or remorse over his death though. In fact, you'll have no connection whatsoever to any character who dies because you know almost nothing about them at their time of death. That said, Jake and Sherry's campaign was really fun. So much so, that I hope those two get their own game or at least show up in future RE titles. Their campaign easily has the best story writing and character development.

Side note, Chris is the elevator. Probably because he takes people down:

The boss battles are annoying as well. Capcom took the idea of really strong enemies to the extreme. Each campaign has their own boss that you'll kill, and then later in the campaign, they show up again. And then they will show up yet again! You have to kill each boss multiple times. As an example, the main villain in Leon's campaign is Simmons. You kill him in several forms, including a T-Rex, a dog with a machine gun tail, and a giant fly. It's just ridiculous.

If you're going for the Platinum trophy, you'll likely have to play the Agent Hunt mode for some medals. This mode allows you to play as the enemy creatures, but don't expect anything as great as Left 4 Dead. It's rough. The controls for the monsters are just terrible. Seriously, I haven't felt pain while playing a game in a while, not until I played as a zombie dog in Agent Hunt. The dogs are so slow to walk or turn or do anything, it was as if the fun train ran off a cliff. A serious buzz kill. Also, you die easily against the players in this mode so don't expect to be a hero zombie or J'avo.

The game also includes mercenary mode, and all the original DLC. I didn't play any of the DLC, and only tried mercenary mode twice, which was okay.

The game certainly won't make any new Resident Evil fans. In fact it may push people away from the series. Anyone interested in the series would be better suited starting out with the RE Origins Collection (which includes 0 and 1), Resident Evil 4 which is coming to PS4 probably in 2016, or Resident Evil 5 which is released July 2016. RE5 is a much better co-op experience too. If you don't care about owning all of the RE games but want to experience the story of the latest main title in the series, renting the game is a fine option. At the sub-$20 price, you can buy and resell it as well.

Score: Resident Evil 6 out of 10.

Check out our stream of the Jake and Sherry campaign. If you want to see some additional co-op gameplay with me and Sir Bentok, check out Bentok's YouTube channel.

Note that I care a lot about story in a game where even if the gameplay and other elements are a bit weak if the story makes up-to it I'm ok with it. I really liked what they did with resident evil 6.A story line from the perspective of different characters in a way where it wasn't repetitive or boring. One of the main reasons i loved this should be because of all my fav characters coming together in this one(where a few like Jill and Claire wasn't there :'( .

All of the four campaigns were fun and unique in its own way bringing new enemy types and level designs in each one. Me personally would pick Leon and Helena one as my fav even-though all of them are really fun. There are some parts in Leon's campaign that I really loved like the part where we went to the cathedral ...The atmosphere in there was soo good i could feel the panic those characters were having as there is a zombie outbreak going outside and they're trapped in this cathedral

I also really loved the Chris and piers bond almost teared up in the ending. Jake was a new addition and i didn't have any negative feelings about him. Looked like a pretty basic normal character that i didn't hate. It was good to see sherry back after RE2.

Coming to Ada's story, this one was the last one I played,(I went according to the order in the game)at this point i was feeling a little tired after finishing 3 campaigns. That's one complaint I'd say I had with this game, even-though its different perspective and there is a mystery in this story generally u know what's gonna happen in the end and some parts after u play 1-2 campaigns. Ada story was in no means boring though I did really enjoy it especially the ending.

I get that this game has received a lot of hate since it didn't have the og resident evil feel to it but for me this one was really fun and I didn't mind the different approach they took and some goofy action scenes. Overall I'd say super fun game with awesome story and if u really loved the characters from previous RE games like Chris,Leon,Ada,etc you will definitely love this one.

This game is fascinating. Capcom really banked on this being the ultimate AAA release for them. It fails in a lot of ways, but it is still quite incredible that it was even made.

Let's recap: after RE4 and especially RE5 Capcom was definitely not beating the "not real survival horror" allegations, and rightfully so. RE4 is a great Horror Shooter, whereas RE5 is a good Shooter with some Horror elements, but neither provide a survival experience of the PS1 trilogy.

So, Capcom, realising that, does a major pivot: the next Resident Evil title is an incredibly big-budgeted Hollywood summer blockbuster shooter. Cutscenes, set pieces including piloting a jet, escaping a sinking sub and a 30 HOUR story mode (played solo on Normal but admittedly died a lot). 4 (!) different campaigns to choose from with intertwining plots.

Let's talk specifics: what exactly has been changed to accommodate this new concept? For starters, most elements regarding your inventory: no shops, no weapon upgrades, no trading items with your partner.

Core gameplay is further modernized by letting the player move while aiming. This is a big one, since that was a major source of tension and difficulty in the previous games. Having said that, calling this a Resident of War would be incorrect. At odds with the rest of the game being a complete dumb-down, the movement system is upgraded and even made somewhat difficult to master. You can now dodge, duck, go prone, and slide. While dodging is straightforward, the prone position is quite interesting: you can jump away from danger and land on your back with your weapon ready to fire, or you automatically assume the position if you receive too much damage. It's pretty cool to blast away an enemy right after being swooped down.

Other than the movement system, melee has been vastly expanded. You now have a dedicated melee attack button that, depending on the context, will allow you to perform combos or do finishers. Wrestling moves are back and they're even more over the top, but that's just half the story. Stamina is added to prevent the player from spamming CQC moves left and right so there are some limits to the power fantasy. Additionally, a quick firearm attack is added where you character whips out a gun and shoots the closest enemy causing them to stagger.

The number of new mechanics honestly boggles the mind, since your average Gears clone barely has a quarter of all the stuff i just described. Why go out of your way to provide high skilled players with all these tools if the intention is to capture the attention of the Average Joe? I don't know.

Now for the story and levels. You start with Leon. The story in his campaign is quite intriguing, you team up with a new character, Helena. Umbrella is back and now a US National Security Advisor wants to unleash a global virus outbreak for some nonsense jingoistic purposes. You start in a zombie-overrun Washington and it's pretty amazing to witness a city actively being destroyed by an outbreak, something that was only briefly shown in the RE2 CGI opening. Later Leon and Helena even find survivors and barricade in a restaurant. Having other friendly NPCs is also a pretty cool addition which has not been done previously safe for a brief moment in RE5 with Josh. Afterwards, the game puts you in a more conservative setting of a cemetary and later catacombs with underwhelming attempts at puzzles, boring environments and total lack of variety compared to Washington. The novelty of urban chaos is not present here and what's left - core gameplay - is not engaging enough. Later you end up in a different urban environment and it gets a bit more interesting again, but after the initial WOW-effect that you get from an impressive opening - it wanes down and that feeling of something missing creeps in. Overall it's good, definitely has some very fun moments and is the best campaign in the game because of the first impression.

Chris' campaign is next - it's a slog. Chris loses one of his soldiers and falls into depression and experiences memory loss which makes him forget the traumatic event. He is brough back to assist with a virus outbreak - in the process he remembers what happened - and more importantly - the culprit. It's Ada Wong. At first the game makes an impression that Chris plays very differently to Leon - more tactical, wielding assault weapons and being overall a bulkier heavier character. This campaign introduces firearm-wielding zombies. At first it's pretty cool, but after an hour or so it too gets repetitive and downright annoying. Hordes of oncoming zombies are more fun to fight than a couple of "zombies" with assault rifles sitting behind waist-high walls. I mean come on! Everybody knows that. Worst campaign, nothing of note happens, drags on, gameplay is the worst.

Jake is the next playable character alongside Sherry Birkin. Jake is Wesker's son and as such, possesses some of his abilities, particularly cooler melee moves. A Nemesis-like character is introduced but doesn't really work because it's a 100% linear game and you can't get surprised while backtracking like in RE3. There's some chemistry between the two characters, a few cool moments but at that point the game has been going on for more than 20 hours. Nothing against lengthy games, but what's offered here can not be extended to such lengths without feeling padded out.

The last campaign is Ada's. She learns that her doppelganger is involved in the whole outbreak thing and she follows her tracks to learn the truth. Ada's campaign has a few very simplistic stealth sections, again, some cool things here and there but ultimately nothing about it stands out.

And that's it. It feels like Capcom tried to offer every type of gamer an experience: Leon's is the most horror-themed, Chris' is a proper third person shooter, while Jake's campaign is similar to an adventure game like Uncharted. Ada's story is hard to fit into a genre, I guess stealth, but there's barely any there.

As a result the game doesn't have a proper identity, like the previous REs. Judging each campaign individually makes you notice that they all miss something, whereas the whole package is kind of a hodgepodge of ideas, attempts at different narratives and gameplay mechanics with a ton of production value. To think that such a production would actually happen, with this much content and this much effort put into something that people just call garbage, that's crazy.

All that being said, RE6 is passable. I'm eager to try RE7 seeing as it radically changes evertything once again, much like RE4 did.

NOTE: Review originally posted on Steam on October 30, 2017:

Resident Evil 6 isn't what some die-hard fans would consider a Resident Evil game and yes it's not a survival horror game (except for the first 2 chapters of Leon's campaign). But when played as a third person action-shooter game it's one of the most fun third person shooters of it's time. Due to the multiple campaigns I'm gonna go through them in the order I played them Also note that my Resident Evil experience up to now is limited to playing a portion of 7 on PS4/PSVR, part of Revelations, and I happen to have the remake of the original on PS4. MINOR SPOILERS COMING UP:

Chris: Apparantly picking up 3 years after RE5 (2 1/2 years for the flashback chapter), this campaign follows Chris Redfield and his squadmate Piers Nivens as the former seeks revenge for the deaths of his squad while they and the BSAA are also fighting a bioterrorist attack in a fictional Chinese city. This campaign's gameplay is predominantly that of a third person military shooter a-la games like Gears of War. Stylisticly I feel it's similar to Call of Duty, particularly the Modern Warfare series. With it's Michael Bay eat your heart out setpieces, fighting of various terrorists, portion set in a war-torn country, and constant dude-broing. It does play well, especially when you enable the Item Drop Increase skill. Talking about the story, it's actually quite decent with a good performance from Roger Craig Smith as Chris. Though the blinded by revenge against the villain thing goes on for a bit too long. Piers is also great, he does a good job trying to keep Chris in line and I bought their friendship. Overall this campaign was a lot of fun for the 7 hours it lasted, unlike these next two campaigns...

Leon: 9 years after RE4, Leon S Kennedy is still part of the Secret Service, now protecting President Adam Benford. Whilst on a visit to college town Tall Oaks, an outbreak of a new virus called the "C Virus" occurs, infecting the president and forcing Leon to kill his zombified friend. Now he must team up with fellow Secret Service Agent Helena Harper to uncover the truth, avenge the president, and stop those responisible for the president's death and the outbreak. The first 2 chapters are a throwback to Leon's first 2 games. Featuring many zombie story tropes, there isn't many surprises here. After the 3rd chapter though things switch over to action. When Leon and Helena arrive in China things go off the rails, both literally and figuartively. By the end of the 6 or so hour campaign you will have killed a mutant shark, survived numerous vehicle crashes and death defying stunts, and fought a ridiculous multi stage boss. But none of this is any fun. Not even Leon's quips and one-liners that have been delivered appropriatly by Matthew Mercer could save this campaign. Also Helena is one of the most annoying and hateable non-evil female characters in all of gaming (and the one I hate the most since I first saw Stacey from A View To A Kill). By the end I was wishing that the easy to spot, different from the other campaigns and terrible main villain would just f**king kill her. Also while I'm complaining, the setpieces are terribly designed as well as being so horrible and implausible they put the infamous CGI surfing scene from Die Another Day to shame. While this one got off to a good start, it's by far the worst of the 4 campaigns.

Jake: Newcomer to the series Jake Muller starts out working as a mercenary in the same war-torn country from Chris' campaign. It turns out he has anti-bodies to the C-Virus. As a result government agent Sherry Birkin is sent to retrive him. However they go missing for 6 months and then have to find a way to the US while evading capture by the towering Ustanik. This campaign's setpieces are more styled like Uncharted. But like Leon's campaign the setpieces aren't that well done and they feel like discount versions of similar setpieces from Uncharted and similar action games from the early 2010's. Jake and Sherry's romance is surprisingly believable thanks to the actors chemistry, though it is cliche. Ustanik was alright as a recurring boss, though his death was contrived. Jake was also okay, despite Troy Baker's best efforts. Overall this campaign was just alright; nothing great, but nothing bad either.

Ada: This campaign sees Ada generally acting behind the scenes as she deals with both main villains as well as her own issues. This campaign makes use of a Splinter Cell Blacklist or Dishonored like stealth-action formula where you can choose whether you want to sneak or attack. Ada's crossbow is lot of fun to play with as is her move set in general. Doing a backflip and firing the crossbow at an enemy mid flip never gets old. I can't talk much about the story without spoiling the other 3 but it's actually quite entertaining and features a satisfying ending. I really loved this campaign just as much as I loved Chris'.

General Thoughts: The game's visuals do hold up quite well for an early 2013 DirectX9 title. The controls do work well on both a mouse and keyboard and an Xbox Controller. Also, in my experience, online coop is broken and split-screen coop doesn't work with the setpieces, so I played solo for the most part. This ended up being alot more fun, aided by your excellent and reliable partner AI. I actually missed the partner AI during Ada's campaign to be honest, though I see why it was initially single player only. The Mercenaries mode, paired with the fun and over the top gun-play is great and I see myself coming back to it for a while.

Conclusion: Overall I like RE6 as an action game. Those who come in expecting survival horror will be disappointed, but those expecting an over the top shooter will be satisfied. Just know that the coop isn't all it's cracked up to be... Rating (this review was written before I switched to my current ratings system): 8.0 out of 10/80%

Although I sometimes don’t like hearing about the hate of a game before playing it in case it distorts my perspective, I am glad that I learnt this one was the worst to mentally prepare myself. That being said, I was willing to give it a chance and when I opened up Leon’s campaign I was definitely intrigued and excited to see what unfolded. However as the mission dragged on, my intrigue dropped. The story leaves MUCH to be desired as after playing all four campaigns I felt very empty and confused. While in other RE games, the purpose of a certain virus or outbreak feels justified, this one felt odd and weird. It certainly did not help introducing a new villain with a suggested secret society that was never explained in full (unless I missed something). All in all the plot felt disconnected, boring and a repeat of every other Resident Evil Plot. Although it could be argued that all the RE games follow that formula: a virus breaks out, a corporations interest is exposed, and you eventually enter a lab. However the other games attempt to make it interesting but incorporating different villain motives, while RE 6 just uses the “I want to destroy the world” argument without any evidence or substance. Although the plot was bad, I cannot say the same for the characters. Although I wasn’t really impressed with the characters in Leon’s campaign, the next three campaigns worked brilliantly in introducing new characters while also showing new sides to old ones. Chris’ Campaign stood out to me as his arc, although focused on saving the world, was really about catharsis and healing, which provided an alternative view at the stoic hero we’ve come to love. Jake’s character I also grew to like, as well as Sherry, although I would’ve liked to see Sherry be a bit more critical of America’s involvement with bio weapons instead of assuring Jake that they were the good guys. Sherry and Jake, as victims of virus as well as governments, offer potential in expanding Resident Evil into societal criticisms that I hope they endeavour to attempt. Ada as well was a very interesting character as it felt that in this game she shifted away from the previous perspective of her being a one dimensional femme fatale and we were able to see her in a more personal light.

In regards to recommending this one, I would for those who have played the previous resident evils and want to continue but I wouldn’t recommend this to players foreign of resident evil. For avid resident evil players I may just recommend playing the campaigns of your favourite characters rather than playing it entirely. I think Chris one is the best and would pair that up with Ada if you want to figure out what’s going on with her plot-wise but I wouldn’t suggest a thorough play through. You won’t be gaining anything too great by doing that anyways.

From the reputation, I was expecting a disappointment with Resident Evil 6's massive and nearly incoherent looking campaign that fully embraces its action gameplay, but I was left with a solid and high production co-op experience that somehow managed to be the sum of its parts and more.

The game follows four pairs of players as each of them plays a part in the outbreak of the new C-Virus and the leader behind the shady organization responsible, Neo-Umbrella. A lot of it rehashes a lot of the old stuff from the T-Virus, but manages to give it an action movie sheen with layers of plot where character meet others and help out from different angles, making it a lengthy and fun little TV show's length of action.

The gameplay varies from segment to segment but mainly builds on the third person shooting of RE4 and RE5, focusing on a variety of weapons (sniper, shotgun, handgun, crossbow, grenade launcher, etc) and a lot of melee moves, much moreso than its predecessors. You'll be kicking, combat knifing, punching, and QTE-ing your way through a lot of enemies, with a lot of hidden moves and ways to play the crowd of zombies, mutations, and other such monstrosities. Not a lot of it is told to you up front, unfortunately, but it's worth exploring and seeing what the game allows you to do in a fight. There's also plenty of helicopter segments, car chases, and boss fights to keep you busy.

There are also other game modes such as Mercenaries (and the brutal No Mercy), skill points that allow you to add certain abilities, and online play as well as a great co-op experience. Especially after the update to Ada's campaign, every step of the way has room for a friend to lay off the pressure of the J'avo hordes.

As for music, much of it is generic and forgettable, but the visuals seek to impress, especially for the 360/PS3 era. Everything looks gorgeous and well-detailed and the monsters are unique even for a later Resident Evil game, with enemies that morph their bodies based on where you shoot them and bosses that are as gorgeous as they are disgusting.

In the end Resident Evil 6 might not be by far the best Resident Evil, but the leaps it has made up to this version (note: PS4 version) create a high quality co-op third person shooter where it simply has to be played with a friend. The story's wacky and the instructions a bit mystifying, but it's very rewarding to dig into.

If there was ever a game that was mechanically sound, but just fails to click, it would be Resident Evil 6.

• As a 3rd Person action game, it plays competently and the controls/aiming are fine.
• The voice acting is well done.
• For a game that came out late in the life the Xbox 360 and PS3, it was a real looker at the time.

...but in spite of that, I cannot say I enjoyed the game. The plot was nothing particularly special, you had to play through it 4 times to see the entire thing, some of the areas & bosses were frustratingly difficult, and the constant use of quick-time-events for even mundane activities like opening a valve was annoying. If the site allowed for 2.5 stars, I'd grade it at that (but 3 stars is too high).

Capcom basically misjudged fan and critic expectations, creating a verdict that (in fairness) snowballed its negative reputation to a level that is somewhat exaggerated and divorced from the actual faults of the game. Like other unpopular entries in otherwise popular series, it became "fashionable" to hate the game, as evident by it being listed as the 37th worst game in this site's list of Bottom 100 Games. But separating fan expectations from the merits of how the game really plays, it's not truly as bad as the masses might make it out to be.