Resident Evil 6 - My first impressions

GAMING Gave Resident Evil 6 its first spin tonight! Here's what I thought of it.
So far I've played through the prelude with Leon as well as the first chapter of Chris Redfield's campaign. Overall it's very much an action game with very little suspense. Even the zombies are packed with machine guns, blades and other weaponry now, which might act as a turn-off for the hardcore zombie and survival horror fans.

Cover system is a bit dodgy...

The Xbox 360 version is the one tested. The game is of course also available for PS3 and PC.

The controls aren't that bad, but the cover system for the shoot-outs (mainly in Redfield's campaign) is not the best. Definitely not as fluid as in modern 3rd person shooters, where you can jump in an out of cover swiftly. In the Xbox 360 version of the game, you need to first hold the left trigger to aim, and then push the 'A' button to crouch, while still holding the left trigger. There is no way to blind-shoot either. When not aiming the [right] trigger is used for random melee attacks.

...and so are the action buttons and quick-time events...

Resident Evil 6 also comes with a lot of quick-time events that sometimes feels very unnatural and a bit tacked on. The game uses different action buttons for opening doors, jumping off ledges, picking up items etc, respectively, which tends to cause confusion. Don't see why they couldn't have stuck to just one. Instead I repeatedly find myself hitting the wrong button, which just slows the game down as I constantly have to pay attention to what the screen prompts me to push. Nitpicking, perhaps - but still just a tad bit annoying.

Leon and the gang, gathered for some fun in the sun.

...But fun overall!

Anyhow, I had a lot of fun with the game so far! It's a lot more forgiving than the previous games, as you'll self-heal automatically. You'll also find supplies all over the place. Even the foes you defeated leave goodies behind, so you'll rarely run out of ammo.

Great game for newcomers

While some reviewer only recommended Resident Evil 6 for the die-hard fans, I'd beg to differ; if anything, Resident Evil 6 should be a great introduction to the franchise to newcomers. Fans of the classic games, on the other hand, might find this a little too forgiving and "casual". Let's face it: the series has come quite far from its roots by now, approaching the plain action territory more and more (much like the RE movies are).

It's a pretty nice game, though, if you take it for what it is - a bombastic, action-packed movie with zombies - turned into a game. Anyone hoping to get scared like they did playing the first games, will yet again discover that the series has completely lost its edge in that regard.

Will be interesting to see what the 3rd campaign holds in store as well. Apparently more of a platforming kind of deal, which sounds quite interesting...