RESIDENT EVIL: OPERATION RACCOON CITY
As Spiderman once never said, ‘with great franchises comes great responsibility’. Straying from its pant-wetting horror format, Resident Evil’s T-virus has mutated into a shooter strain, but are the scares still there? We strapped on our most absorbent underwear to find out. Mmm, roomy.
REVIEW: Jettisoning survival horror for gung-ho bullet spraying, you’re back in Raccoon City during the events of games 2 and 3 - only this time, you’re the bad guys. Clad in your preferred class of gimp mask, you and three companions – human or computer – run and gun your way through various familiar, poorly-lit locales.
Rather than simply gut their creation and strap on the firepower, Capcom have injected several nifty features to add a little nuance to your brainless genocide. If you shoot one of the game's living opponents, for instance, any undead in the area will swarm at the scent of blood, creating a neat diversion. Upgrades for the characters are varied and imaginative, while multiplayer shows similar signs of life, including the option to play alongside the series’ big bads.
"You’re entirely at the mercy of your squad mates' brain-dead ineptitude..."
On your own, however, your AI squad mates display the collective intelligence of a water melon. With no means of reining them in, you’re entirely at the mercy of their brain-dead ineptitude, as they alternately become far too intimate with your line of sight or gallop off suicidally into a hoard of zombies.
For a game that feeds almost entirely on nostalgia, there're little more than polite nods to its predecessors, and that classic Resident Evil flow - indeed, its lifeblood - has been ruthlessly watered down to lubricate the faster gameplay.
With no real stealth mode, the famous atmospherics are degraded into brutally unforgiving difficulty spikes and pitch black rooms where it’s impossible to see what you’re shooting at. Whereas Left 4 Dead could rely on its survival beats to generate scares, there’s very little tension to controlling a group of hard bastards armed to the teeth with explosive devices. Well, not quite to the teeth. Ammo is sparse but almost entirely flaccid, meaning most of it will slip harmlessly off your impervious enemies – even head shots take a few rounds to do the job. You can at least move and shoot at the same time, but with no direct evade button, self-preservation is nigh on impossible, and once you’re locked into an excruciatingly long injury animation, death becomes an inevitable but welcome relief. Still, at least load times are mercifully quick.
"The whole game is tragically infected by its diseased core..."
The potential was here for some novel reinvention, but the whole game is tragically infected by its diseased core. Every brilliant idea fed into the title is vomited straight back out again, leaving a mishmash of largely undigested concepts struggling to stay afloat in an otherwise unappetising mess. Devotees may find sporadic joy in its interweaving stories and throwback cameos – not least the chance to bump off some of the series’ lank-haired pretty boys – but die hards will be hit most by the change of genre. A middling shooter on its own terms, ultimately the game most closely resembles its famous zombie antagonist – a dim-witted, shambling shell of its former self.
4.5 / 10
RETROSPECTIVE FEATURE: BLUR
Playing like the illegitimate offspring of Burnout and Mario Kart, Blur is a smartly-dressed destructive arcade racer. It may not have Burnout’s satisfying collision physics, nor Mario’s charm or option to play as a humanoid vegetable, but Blur drives a nice line between the two, offering plenty of chunky crashes and explosive guffaws as you take out opposing drivers with a series of power ups. From mines and gunfire, to electrical fields and nitro boosts, realism is left in the garage, where some real-life cars are earned and beautifully rendered for your motoring joy. Graphically, it’s a slick affair, heavy on the neon and sexy colour filters. The courses are drawn from a generous pallet of styles and locations, with multiple event formats to mix things up. Straight-out races, time trials, destruction derbies – borrowing heavily from Burnout’s best hits is certainly no bad thing, despite falling short of its dizzying, fuel-injected heights. But one way in which this title towers over the recent Burnout Paradise is by incorporating local split screen co-op. This is where Blur really comes into focus, with sofa-based competition by far the best way to get the most out of its disparate gameplay elements. Perhaps not as strong as either Burnout or Mario in their individual arenas, this is nonetheless a very accomplished amalgamation, and one that’s a must for lovers of split-screen pandemonium.
8