Day two: Operation Raccoon City

Raccoon City has gone to the... well... Raccoons

I know, I was surprised too.

So. It's a raccoon.

I found this while playing the first mission. I did not know I was looking for it. The whole game has that 'figure it out for yourself' vibe. Except for where to go next. The game hits you over the head early and often with that information.

"Go this way."

"But I want to look around."

"Go this way."

"what's in this room?"

"Go this way."

"Am I supposed to be searching for things?"

"Go this way."

I am not about to recommend the purchase of Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City to anyone just yet. Except for three of you and you know who you are. The rest of you can probably figure it out.

I looked around for reviews of Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City to get some idea of how to approach this write up. I discovered that other people didn't really know how to take this game either. I saw review scores as high as 9 out of 10. Quite a few high review scores. I also saw review scores as low as 2 out of 10. Quite a few low review scores.

I don't really remember any previous game with such disparate review scores.

Metacritic has an aggregate of 54%. They have a 10. And they have a 1. Go figure.

Gamerankings has an aggregate of 51%. On their top ten I saw a 3 and a 7.5.

I will just state my observations in the three I mean one mission that I played.

It's dark. Not in a gritty, noir kind of way. In a "I can't see fracking ****" kind of way. I guess it's supposed to be atmosphere but I am not used to atmosphere hurting my eyes so much. Yes, it hurt after I while. You can adjust gamma if you want, I just adjusted my monitor but it did wash out some of the images.

There are collectibles. It tells you this once you find one of them. In the middle of the second level (which I may or may not have played) I shot something on the wall. I had found one of the Umbrella Corp's security cameras. The game tells me to destroy all of them (20) as you progress. Wait. Was that the first one I could shoot? Or the second? Or the third? Do I have to go back?

Ditto with collecting Data and Raccoon Mascots. Until you find your first one, you don't even know you were supposed to be looking.

Now let's talk about the peripatetic, Mexican jumping bean AI characters. Just stand still damn it! Okay, not so bad for me as I am used to playing with you guys which as far as I can tell is pretty close to artificial intelligence but I can see why others may have issues with them. I also shot them more than I shot the bad guys because my team kept jumping into my line of fire. See, just like you guys. And I never knew where they were – the resemblance to certain Clan members was just uncanny.

Did I mention that the game likes to keep information to itself? The only way you know that an AI needs reviving is a small tag on their corpse. A very small, floating icon type tag. I won't mention how I had to retreat back through half of the second level to revive someone. Or how in the 'theoretical' third mission I had all three AI go down and did not notice until I left the room. Annoying.

But oddly, there is a constant icon telling you where to go next. Really Constant. You never have to wander around if you don't want to. It's always telling you the next direction. Always. But you should ignore this and look around. There's stuff everywhere.

This one looked dangerous so I had my team surround it

Before I fill this article with all negative stuff: there are some positives.

I do want to keep playing.

I kind of enjoy the Resident Evil atmosphere even though I am a late comer to the series.

I can see this game being similar to Army of Two where it wasn't very good single player but became a significantly better game when playing in coop. The entire game interface is setup as playing cooperative. When you launch the campaign you have to set it as public or private. Each time by the way, cause it refuses to remember...

I am going to stop here. I wouldn't rush out to buy this unless you are a serious Resident Evil fan or zombie killing fan. Although judging from the reviews, some RE fans think it's the greatest thing ever and some RE fans are bitterly disappointed. I originally thought the range in review scores was based on the reviewer's Resident Evil fan level but that does not seem to be the case. The reviews are all over the place all on their own.

Which I thought was just weird until I played the game...