First Impressions: Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City (PS3)

[Gibb]

So yesterday I bought RE ORC and Ninja Gaiden 3. After reading the horrid reviews RE was getting, I played Ninja Gaiden almost the entire day. One of my friends however was playing RE and he called me and convinced me to give it a shot. Rather than rip open my $70 game (got the special edition), I went to Blockbuster and scored the last copy they had with my game pass (essentially a free rental since I get unlimited rentals per month).

I played through the first two stages with my friend and two AI partners, then played the 3rd stage with 2 friends (my roommate finally got home and had his copy) and 1 AI.

I can definitely see where a lot of complaints are coming from, but the game is also pretty decent at the same time. The online seems to work pretty well, and it doesn't require online passes, which is surprising seeing how Capcom has been behaving lately.

AI:

Ok I'll give the critics this one, the AI is trash. Not only do the AI teammates not make logical decisions, but they do things that are flat out broken from an AI standpoint. Bertha appears to be the worst from the short time I've played the game. She will often get into a state where she's just unloading clip after clip of machine gun bullets into a nearby wall. You can stand next to her and just watch in awe as she continues to fire mercilessly at the drywall. The AI teammates also don't seem to know to use anti-viral sprays or first aid sprays, cause they're always low on health and will often get infected and turn on you. It would be better to not have the AI teammates at all, so it's fortunate this game lets you play the campaign with a full squad of human teammates.

Glitches:

Another big complaint from the critics/internet, and I can see it. I think the 160 MB patch might have fixed a bit of this, but I still see some odd things every so often. One of my friends got attacked by a dog (which usually triggers an animation where he's on the floor fighting off the dog) and in this particular case his character disappeared through the floorboards while I was trying to shoot the dog off him. Before I knew it, he was standing next to the dog and the dog was dead. Also, the zombies seem to appear anywhere, without there being any place for them to enter. In a big area with 3 or 4 people running around, I've noticed the zombies simply climb up out of the floor, no sewage grate or anything, just right out of the regular floor.

Graphics:

Another big complaint from the critics/internet. I think the support the large amount of stuff going on, as well as the 4 player co-op, SlantSix had to dumb down the graphics to handle it. When you're just walking around killing zombies, the graphics seem fine, but for cut scenes (especially the ones with William Birkin in the first level) the character models look pretty awful. Birkin looks just above PS2 quality, and some of the zombie models look pretty ugly as well.

Gameplay:

Ok so this is where the game does a decent job. The 3rd person shooting mechanics are pretty solid, and I had a blast mowing down zombies and spec ops soldiers. I think I had the highest kill count in all 3 stages I played, especially the 3rd stage. The ending stats for stage 3 had me at 128 kills, with my friends at 95 and 17 kills. The friend with 17 kills felt like a failure, but he was the one that joined us on stage 3, so he didn't get a change to get used to the controls before diving right in.

The difficulty ramps of considerably with each new human teammate you get, so stage 3 was ridiculously hard for my friends and me. We ended up dying a few times each, and had to try the last area 3 times before we could clear it.

Anyway, the game does have its share of problems, but I don't think it's quite as bad as it's 50 metacritic rating states. Perhaps the patch did fix a lot of the issues. Now we just need some AI improvements and more glitch fixes and this game will be pretty solid.

[bloody_M]

Sounds pretty great. Would love to play it. But it might take some time till I can afford it.
2nd point: I mostly play offline (do not know so many online gamer's with a PS3 and if I play with others I always think I could seem like a newbie - although my skill is pretty high - but if you played COD online you know what I mean...) So the A.I. might be a huge problem for me unless I find some guys to play with online.
So if you are also searching for players - here I am! Network-ID is the same as here (bloody_m).
I'm really looking forward playing ORC. If I will play it I'll also give you a first impression.

[Vampire-Jekyll]

Me and 3 friends played through the campaign on veteren last night. Now I'll start off by saying the game is really fun and enjoyable. We all had a fantastic time. That being said, this game could have been a lot better. To start off it's incrediby short, only 6 missions if I remember correctly. I found myself constantly criticising some of the plot points, especially the ending. The game feels unfinished or unpolished as well. Some simple things like the controls and the interface could use some work. It would be nice to have a display in the upper left corner showing teammates health and items. Things like picking up items and reviving dead players requires way too much precision in regards to how close you need to be and where you need to be looking. The cover system could also have been improved by a simple crouch button. This game also has its fair share of bugs. In the one playthrough we encountered players taking cover behind non-existent walls, Lickers getting stuck in walls, Hunters that stand in one spot, Nemesis that didn't do anything but stand still for almost a full minute, and my personal favorite: Zombies walking on walls.

For all it's faults, Operation Raccoon City is still an enjoyable game, but only when it's played with friends, especially ones who are familiar with the series. At it's worst it's a 5/10, at it's best it's a 7/10.

[Gibb]

bloody_M, I'll add you to my friends list and see if there's a good time we can play together (might be hard since it looks like you're in Germany and I'd either be at work or in bed when you're up playing).

The AI is pretty abysmal. I played another 3 stages last night, 1 solo and 2 with my roommate. On the stage I played solo (stage 4), my teammates were dead probably 70% of the time. On the stages I played with 1 human teammate we all stayed alive for most of the time, so it makes a huge difference.

At one point in stage 2 I believe, I got attacked by some dogs, and they kept knocking me down over and over again while 2 of my AI teammates just stood around and watched. It was as if they were trying to record it to put on youtube or something, ugh! Eventually my human teammate showed up and took out the dog, but I literally couldn't do anything for about 60 seconds.

So far I've been doing pretty good in the games I've played, and I think I've netted the highest kill count every time so far amongst my friends. In the game I played last night (stage 2) with my roommate, I had 161 kills and my roommate had 87 or so. I was using Beltway with the Riot Gun and Sticky grenades. LOVE those sticky grenades because it's basically a free grenade every 25 seconds. Can't beat that.

[bloody_M]

Sounds great!
But with the AI... I think I would be better off if I just shoot them at the beginning of the mission :-D (unfortunately I guess this will not work...)

Well, though I'm working as a freelancer I often play late at night (mostly somewhere between 10 PM to 5 AM GMT+1) so I guess we will find a good time to play together

I'm really looking forward to it.

[adamassc]

I lucked out with Bertha, her AI seems to be the most functional in my game. The other two spent most of the first few minutes shooting at empty catwalks and throwing grenades well past the enemy force.

[135forte]

I watched Bertha shooting a wall, had to dodge Beltways sticky bombs, Four Eyes has an unhealthy obsession with mines, they all love to set themselves on fire, and have frequently found myself hung up on everyone in narrow walkways.

[adamassc]

Vector decided to spend the entire level guarding the entrance, until I ran up and meleed him. He refused to move without being encouraged every few minutes.

[Gibb]

In stage 2 I've repeatedly watched the AI teammates walk into a trip mine, get knocked over, get back up, then proceed into the next trip mine (in the big room full of lickers).

I ended up taking my unopened copy of the Special Edition of the game back to the store and getting my money back. I'll keep the rental copy I have a bit longer, then I'm pretty much done with the game. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty fun game with 3 friends, but this game is just too poorly made that Capcom doesn't need my support money. It might be better after a dozen patches down the road, and at that point I can pick it up for cheap to add to my Resident Evil game collection.

[135forte]

April is supposed to bring a 7 mission DLC with Echo Team if you believe what the RE wiki says.