I had a good time playing through RE6 cooperatively with a friend, but sometimes we had fun for the wrong reasons. Leon's campaign was solid enough, but things started to break down during Chris's campaign and especially during Jake's.
I don't hold the plot responsible. Capcom = bad story, so what can you expect? And I liked the action in all the campaigns. But more often than not unrealistic things would happen just so something cool could take place. Especially in Jake's campaign things would happen or arrange themselves with no regard for any kind of spatial reasoning. A small but recurring example are enemies swarming you in areas they had no reason to be in or any knowledge that you would be there. But it's most glaring with Jake and Sherry's constant run-ins with the Ustanak. In one area he is seemingly in several places at once. In a couple others he magically has new weapons to attack you with after being off-screen for no longer than a couple of seconds. And the plot contrives at least two (to my memory) moments where the creature and the protagonists are forced together with no regard for reality. Admittedly, I liked all of the run-ins with Ustanak, but often times his 'timely' appearance was implausible.
Not to mention the game's inordinate amount of inconsistencies in the environment and the gameplay. RE6 has some very awesome bits to it, but sloppy programming holds it back. Here are some general examples:
-- Enemies getting cheap shots during cutscenes because they can move and you can't see.
-- Awkward camera shifts during chase sequences.
-- Player 1 HAS to be on the left for 'B' doors while Player 2 HAS to be on the right.
-- The camera needlessly focusing on things when you're trying to explore, even when there is literally only one path you could possibly take. Sometimes the camera focuses on things when you need to be able to fight.
-- Reused environments right down to the exact same placement of things like boxes, scattered papers, etc.
-- Arbitrary gameplay like needing to find a key for a fence that characters could vault with no effort.
And more specifically .. there is a puzzle in Ada's campaign that forces you to unlearn what RE6 has taught you about the enemies involved and how to deal with them, which is compounded by a bit of false teaching. And before that, there is one red canister you can't shoot to cause an explosion. This canister is located in a room with many other red canisters that you can shoot to cause explosions. .. You have to wait for a cutscene, whereupon the canister is shot to CAUSE AN EXPLOSION! There is literally nothing to show that this canister is any different from the others. I have little patience for lazy design like that.
There are a lot more examples of the terrible design. I wish I could remember more.
I like RE6. I can say that with a straight face. The action is solid and the QTEs are (mostly) implemented well. The game is a good length and has fun extras (Mercenaries especially). But it's a bad game. It's riddled with poor, inconsistent, and sometimes nonsensical game design. I don't care about whether or not you can call any RE game survival horror. Honestly, how long could RE keep the mystery? Once you realize what you're dealing with (in this case bio-terrorism), what else is there to do but go in with guns blazing? After six games and many side entries, there is no longer any mystery to frighten you. What I do care about is whether or not the game any developer intends to make was made well. And RE6 has some of the worst design I've encountered in a long time.
Also just to nitpick, Super Mario and Super Mario Galaxy are still basically the same genre of platforming. Both games are extremely identical. You run, jump, and collect things. Galaxy simply has a larger scope and is in 3D. RE1 and RE6 elicit very different types of emotions while playing. And the early RE games were indeed survival horror games. At least for your first time through. Again, once the mystery is gone .. what's left to be scared of?
Whew. I didn't mean for this to be so long. But I needed an outlet for this rant.
TLDR; RE6 is fun, but it's badly designed and not at all the best zombie game ever.
I don't hold the plot responsible. Capcom = bad story, so what can you expect? And I liked the action in all the campaigns. But more often than not unrealistic things would happen just so something cool could take place. Especially in Jake's campaign things would happen or arrange themselves with no regard for any kind of spatial reasoning. A small but recurring example are enemies swarming you in areas they had no reason to be in or any knowledge that you would be there. But it's most glaring with Jake and Sherry's constant run-ins with the Ustanak. In one area he is seemingly in several places at once. In a couple others he magically has new weapons to attack you with after being off-screen for no longer than a couple of seconds. And the plot contrives at least two (to my memory) moments where the creature and the protagonists are forced together with no regard for reality. Admittedly, I liked all of the run-ins with Ustanak, but often times his 'timely' appearance was implausible.
Not to mention the game's inordinate amount of inconsistencies in the environment and the gameplay. RE6 has some very awesome bits to it, but sloppy programming holds it back. Here are some general examples:
-- Enemies getting cheap shots during cutscenes because they can move and you can't see.
-- Awkward camera shifts during chase sequences.
-- Player 1 HAS to be on the left for 'B' doors while Player 2 HAS to be on the right.
-- The camera needlessly focusing on things when you're trying to explore, even when there is literally only one path you could possibly take. Sometimes the camera focuses on things when you need to be able to fight.
-- Reused environments right down to the exact same placement of things like boxes, scattered papers, etc.
-- Arbitrary gameplay like needing to find a key for a fence that characters could vault with no effort.
And more specifically .. there is a puzzle in Ada's campaign that forces you to unlearn what RE6 has taught you about the enemies involved and how to deal with them, which is compounded by a bit of false teaching. And before that, there is one red canister you can't shoot to cause an explosion. This canister is located in a room with many other red canisters that you can shoot to cause explosions. .. You have to wait for a cutscene, whereupon the canister is shot to CAUSE AN EXPLOSION! There is literally nothing to show that this canister is any different from the others. I have little patience for lazy design like that.
There are a lot more examples of the terrible design. I wish I could remember more.
I like RE6. I can say that with a straight face. The action is solid and the QTEs are (mostly) implemented well. The game is a good length and has fun extras (Mercenaries especially). But it's a bad game. It's riddled with poor, inconsistent, and sometimes nonsensical game design. I don't care about whether or not you can call any RE game survival horror. Honestly, how long could RE keep the mystery? Once you realize what you're dealing with (in this case bio-terrorism), what else is there to do but go in with guns blazing? After six games and many side entries, there is no longer any mystery to frighten you. What I do care about is whether or not the game any developer intends to make was made well. And RE6 has some of the worst design I've encountered in a long time.
Also just to nitpick, Super Mario and Super Mario Galaxy are still basically the same genre of platforming. Both games are extremely identical. You run, jump, and collect things. Galaxy simply has a larger scope and is in 3D. RE1 and RE6 elicit very different types of emotions while playing. And the early RE games were indeed survival horror games. At least for your first time through. Again, once the mystery is gone .. what's left to be scared of?
Whew. I didn't mean for this to be so long. But I needed an outlet for this rant.
TLDR; RE6 is fun, but it's badly designed and not at all the best zombie game ever.
