A lot of fans hate RE6. I'm not one of them. I've played, beaten and love the game for the original ideas that it puts forward. Now, as a fan myself I can see where the hate stems from: Capcom going back on their promise to go back to survival horror. I don't quite remember whether or not Capcom stated RE6 would "go back to the series' roots", but if they did, they weren't lying; they just failed at their meager attempt. But, in regards to RE6, and with an open mind, I can see why the action fans are defending this game; its an engaging, fun experience if you're willing to look past all its shortcomings. In the end, that's what depresses me to a point where I literally want to cry myself to sleep:
Resident Evil 6 is not quite the awesome, over-the-top action game that it clearly wanted to be, and it's not at all the atmospheric, slow-paced, survival experience that it tries to fool long-time fans into believing it is.
No, Resident evil 6 is a cash-grab, plain and simple. Capcom tried to appeal to the survival horror fans, sure, but only in relation to how many they believe there are, as apposed to the number of action/shooter fans. Put those odds on a scale, and it becomes quite clear the direction that RE6 would take, hence why one could say that Resident Evil 6 is merely a horror-flavored action game. Well, why not just appeal to the action/shooter/multiplayer fans with a big budget spin-off game, and appeal to the survival horror fans with a smaller, numbered game? Sounds simple right? I mean, they were already going in that direction if you look at Resident Evil: Revelations (3DS) vs. Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City (home consoles). However, its when you attempt both (Resident Evil 6), that you end up ruining it for mostly everyone. A mistake on Capcom's part. As an open-minded fan of survival horror, I have nothing against linear action games. They're fun, fast, instant experiences. Where I do take issue, is in the arguments I've found online that try to refute survival horror, and even attempt to disregard it entirely.
The argument has been made that RE6, despite abandoning its original genre, needs to be judged on its own merits, and I agree with that 100-err... %50. Although I do agree that you must (especially as a professional reviewer) judge every game based on its own strengths and weaknesses, that only partly applies when you're dealing with sequels. One must be able to balance whatever merits the sequel has with an open-minded analysis of the game as it stands on its own. Some people can do that, some people can't, and some claim that they can but clearly cannot. Now, you can argue about how non-profitable or "un-fun" survival horror is, and you can even attempt to argue that it simply doesn't work anymore, mainly because we've all grown up, and that the effectiveness of a survival horror game depend on its graphical presentation (which would degrade with time). The latter would be, partially, a weak argument. Although it has become harder to scare us with age, the "old graphics" card will only get you so far my dear, ignoramus.
Graphics are only a single element of what makes survival horror scary; they, alongside excellent sound design, art direction, and environments merely create half of the experience; the atmosphere itself. The sense of urgency, high stakes and player decisions constitute the other half of the experience; the strategy. The "high-stakes strategy" is what engages nail-biting gamers like me while the atmosphere merely grounds us within the game's world. Games like Dark Souls and Xcom: Enemy Unknown are perfect examples of high-stake games available on home consoles. Both games put great emphasis on strategy with high-stakes, and neither of these 2 games are survival horror games (although Dark Souls easily could've been). With survival horror (and high-stake strategy games in general), there is actual weight to every decision the player makes, big or small. Every decision yields rewards and consequences that can mean the difference between success and failure, whether immediate or hours from now.
Whether or not I'll make it to that new room, or that I should even attempt the effort and just back-track to a safe room to save my progress first, is MY decision to make, and is why I adore Survival Horror. Should I clear out this room of monsters, or save my ammo for what could be ahead? This kind of second-guessing and even paranoid decision making reflects that of a traditional top-down strategy game. The game puts the player in charge like a real-time strategy game would, putting great emphasis on quick decision making, and micro-managing resources. However, the game also grounds the player within the world itself like a 1st/3rd person game, creating a sense of vulnerability within the player: their every decision no longer affects countless units, they affect the player's own safety and survival. That, and the game's atmopshere constantly toys with the player's sense of well-being, making them question every noise in the distance, every shadow that their flashlight can't reach. It's a dark, cruel world that you've been thrust into. Will you survive? Will you make it out alive?
The game doesn't care.
and that's why I do.
The friendly folks over at Razer recently sent us their full size Kishi Ultra mobile gaming controller, and this thing didn't disappoint.
VGChartz's Mark Nielsen: "Upon finally finishing Devil May Cry 5 recently - after it spent several years on my “I’ll play that soon” list - I considered giving it a fittingly-named Late Look article. However, considering that this was indeed the final piece I was missing in the DMC puzzle, I decided to instead take this opportunity to take a look back at the entirety of this genre-defining series and rank the entries. What also made this a particularly tempting notion was that while most high-profile series have developed fairly evenly over time, with a few bumps on the road, the history of Devil May Cry has, at least in my eyes, been an absolute roller coaster, with everything from total disasters to action game gold."
Me leaving it out should be telling of my thoughts on it. Better than 2 as a DMC game.
Still a good game though.
3,1,4,5 to me, never played 2. 5 gameplay is amazing but level design was really disappointing to me, just a bunch of plain arenas, the story felt like a worse written rehash of the 3rd and the charater models looked weird ( specially the ladies ). Another problem with 5 was that there was not enough content for 3 charaters so I could never really familiarize with any of them
2.
Dmc.
4.
5.
1.
3.
God DMC2 was an awful game.
And in case this isn't obvious it goes worst to best
Order changes depending on your focus. I tend to focus on gameplay/fun factor, so...
5, 3, 1, 4, 2.
I really didn't like 4 but commend Dante's weapon diversity. The retreading of old ground was pretty unacceptable to me.
But even then... Still more enjoyable than 2 for me
TSA go hands on with the beta for Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, but how is the game transitioning to the post-stylus era?
Heres my take on it.
The survival aspect must come from a gameplay element which means you have something to lose. In the orginal RE games save points where few and far between, using them had a cost (typewriter ribbons), and ammo was scarce which punished your mistakes. As you metion modern games like Xcom and Demon/Dark Souls punish the player for making mistakes and this gives the games the tense atmosphere.
The horror aspect of fighting the unknown and being out of your depth just adds to the tension.
Unfortunately all the recent RE games massively fail to deliver either of these things. The survival aspect has gone due to frequent save points and an abundance of ammo, and the horror is non existant due to the overused zombies, massive slimy mutants, and pantomime villains. Having been a fan of the early RE games i’d be happy to see capcom kill the franchise off as its become a bit of a turd.
If only the Resident Evil developers looked at Dead Space 1 and 2.... They have proven it is possible to create a modern survival horror game. Sadly it doesn't sell much and that's the reason why Dead Space 3 will be more action-oriented..
BTW it reminded me of this article.. I laughed at this, they really don't have a clue what gamers want.
http://www.cinemablend.com/...
Good article and interesting that you mention Dark Souls as being almost a survival horror game. Thinking about it I would say that Dark Souls really is survival horror, some of the stages are really creepy and the fear element comes from the fear of dying and losing all your hard earned souls - especially on your first play through when you dont know what is coming around the next corner.
The only way for Survival Horror to come back to the RE series is to actually build it to be a Survival horror, RE6 looked to be more action than anything.
I think we're going to need new, up-and-coming, mid-sized, independent developers to make real survival horror. "Survival Horror" games that aren't DLC-friendly, zombie shoot em ups are considered "niche" by big, dumb corporate publishers these days.