Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City review: A disaster worth covering up

Imagine, if you will, a cream-filled doughnut. It’s fresh from the oven so the dough is gooey and moist with a rich, sweet center. Sounds pretty good, right? Now, imagine replacing that warm dough with bland, tasteless tofu. Still want to eat that doughnut? Consider that because it’s basically what you should ask yourself before playing Slant Six Games’ latest, “Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.”

Allow me to elaborate on that rather odd culinary creation in the paragraph above. In this analogy, the “Resident Evil” series, its characters and lore, is the cream filling and the gameplay, mechanics and story of “Operation Raccoon City,” built around that “Resident Evil” lore, is the boring tofu. Sure, with every bite you get a little, maybe even a lot of, the rich, tasty “RE” series but for the most part, you’re chewing through the boring, tasteless mechanics of “ORC.”

"RE: ORC” is a third person shooter developed by Slant Six Games. I was initially drawn to the title because of its inventive story – taking place during the event of “Resident Evil 2,” a team of Umbrella operatives, codenamed The Wolfpack (commence “Hangover” jokes), is sent into the Raccoon City disaster to clean up the mess. Well not so much “clean up” as “destroy any evidence of Umbrella’s involvement.” Being that “RE2” is one of my all-time favorite Playstation games, and one of the better “RE” titles, I was thrilled to learn that a game was in the works that would show the conflict from a side we rarely get to see in video games – the villain’s point of view. What kind of new information would we learn about Umbrella or about the way its operatives work? What else would we discover about the incident itself? What kind of people would work for Umbrella’ security services? These are just a few of the dozens of questions that could be asked given the situation.

Wolfpack member Bertha gets up close and personal with a Hunter

Unfortunately one of the biggest problems with this game is how Slant Six took such an interesting, creative setting for a game and proceeded to do absolutely nothing interesting or creative with it. Little in the way of plot or narrative is presented to the player. When I say that, I mean little of the plot itself is explained. Next to nothing is ever brought up about the events surrounding the disaster, leaving old fans to rely on their previous knowledge of the series to set the stage and leaving new players completely in the dark.

The Wolfpack is sent to Raccoon City to cover up Umbrella’s involvement in the viral outbreak, which is literally all you’ll be doing in the single player campaign. Destroying evidence and facilities, silencing witnesses and tracking down key “RE” characters like Leon Kennedy and Ada Wong are about the extent of the Wolfpack’s adventures. On top of that, the narrative is so shoddily presented that each mission feels almost unrelated to the previous one, connected only by the characters and setting.

I was extremely discouraged at these revelations. I had very high hopes for this title, that the story it presented would be on par with “RE2,” “RE4” or “RE5,” but the lack of Capcom’s involvement in its development is obvious. Outside of the “Wolfpack covering Umbrella’s tracks” story, little to no thought went into creating an original story. The Wolfpack members themselves are never developed, giving the player no reason to care about any of them, and antagonistic characters disappear as quickly as they are introduced. After a certain amount of time with the game, it became clear that Slant Six developed “RE: ORC” with a focus on fine-tuning the multiplayer aspect of the title, rather than creating an engaging narrative.

The multiplayer portion of “RE: ORC” features four different modes – Team Attack, Biohazard, Heroes and Survivor. Also, the story portion of “ORC” can be play cooperatively with up to three friends, but only online. I know you want to sell more games, Slant Six/Capcom, but many gamers out there still appreciate being offered split-screen play as an option. Team Attack is the standard, four-on-four, team deathmatch mode of “ORC,” while Biohazard tasks teams with collecting and scoring T-Virus samples, Heroes lets you take up the mantle of an iconic character from the series (like Leon Kennedy or Hunk) and Survivor sees both teams battling for a spot on the last rescue chopper out of Raccoon City.

Using zombies as a meat shield is an effective tactic (when it feels like working)

I appreciated the attempts at offering creative modes besides just deathmatch but honestly, Team Attack is the mode I found myself returning to most often. Biohazard can drag a bit and it’s easy for an uncoordinated team to get dominated. I found the concept of Heroes to be pretty ingenious, even though it is essentially Team Attack with recognizable characters. Also, Survivor is a cool concept, though executed poorly (the rescue chopper appears at random spots on the map and there’s only four spots on the chopper - you expect me to just believe that members of the Wolfpack and US Spec Ops will just peacefully ride out of Raccoon City together?)

I also wanted to point out that the XP earned in the story and multiplayer modes of “RE: ORC” is persistent over both modes and can be used to buy new weapons and abilities for the six playable characters. I found it interesting that, though the multiplayer clearly is the focus of this game, playing the story nets you a considerably larger amount of XP – another telling sign about which mode received more attention and which mode they’re basically bribing you to play.

Finally, I must address the countless issues I had with the design and mechanics of “RE: ORC.” At nearly every turn, I managed to encounter a design flaw or an odd gameplay mechanic that either infuriated me, confused me, or some terrible combination of the two. My biggest complaint is with the cover system. In most third person shooters that utilize cover, getting into and out of said cover is generally handled by pressing a button (as evidenced by such great third person shooters as “Mass Effect 3” and “Gears of War.”). In “RE: ORC,” players walk their character up against a wall (or box or other piece of the environment) and hope that they stick to it – that’s it. Also, since there’s no button to handle cover, there’s also no conveniently placed dive roll move either. I say “conveniently placed” because there is a diving slide, but you need to hold sprint (clicking the left stick), hold a direction on that stick, then hit A. So even if you want to dive backward you still need to hold sprint. But wait – there’s more. The cover system is so shoddy that moving your character to the edge of a piece of cover often leaves you visible to the enemy – your character doesn’t just “stop” at an edge but rather will continue moving until he’s completely out of cover. There’s no fancy moves like “leaning,” “corner turns” or “moving quickly from cover to cover” just lazy “mash your guy against that box and hope he ducks.”

And if strange design issues aren’t enough to give you a fit, the mechanics just might. Each character’s movement, whether it’s the larger explosives expert Beltway or the lithe soldier Lupo, feels plodding and heavy. Aiming movement is equally slow, no matter how much you bump up the look sensitivity. Not only that, but the aiming system (both focused and from the hip) is jerky and inaccurate. “RE: ORC” also features melee combat, though it’s very shallow. Mashing B repeatedly is the only form of melee attack there is, though you can perform execution moves on staggered enemies by pressing A or Y – about one of the only really cool parts of the combat.

As if zombies weren't enough, "Resident Evil 2" protagonist Leon Kennedy must contend

with the Wolfpack in "Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City"

So many other oddities about this game irk me. You need to hit A to pick up ammo piles on the ground as well as to pick up ammo from randomly placed boxes. Why? Just give me the ammo, game. It’s completely redundant for me to walk over to an ammo box then have to hit a button to get said ammo – me walking to that box is me saying “I WANT AMMO” so why do I need to hit a button to pick some up? Could there possibly be a situation in a third person shooter where I wouldn’t want to pick up ammo? I’m pretty sure the answer to that question is “no.” When you die, any weapons and items you picked up along the way are gone. That’s just manufacturing difficulty, Slant Six. Why would my gear and guns be gone if I’m essentially restarting at the last checkpoint where I had that stuff? Also, there’s a strange “quick draw” feature that can be used by either tapping the left bumper (which also switches weapons – remember this, it’ll be important) and then flicking the right stick. You can also hold down the LB to pull out your pistol and go into a weird, locked-camera, auto-aim stance. I tend not to use either as the quick turn is imprecise (at best) and the auto-aim thing is just strange (especially since pistols are worthless unless you’re head-shotting zombies). What happens more often than not is, when you’re in the heat of battle, moving/looking around frantically, you’ll try to switch your gun but the quick turn moves your view to wherever you were pressing the right stick (remember, you’re being chased by zombies, lickers, hunters and Spec Ops soldiers) instead of pulling out your other weapon. It’s annoying, it’s dumb and it’s nearly killed me more than a few times. And these are just some of the complaints I had about the mechanics.

Because as bad as the player mechanics are, friendly and enemy AI are almost worse. When playing solo, the computer will fill the roles of three other Wolfpack members (which you can select before missions) and I’m convinced they exist almost entirely to get in your way. Besides the fact that, more often than not, enemies will ignore computer players to attack you (one time I watched as Ada Wong didn't shoot any computer members of my team, even though they were standing directly in her line of sight, but hit me the instant I was in view). But I’ve had teammates stand behind/in front of me (blocking my line of sight), walk single file after each other through fire to follow me, and even take healing items as I’m about to pick them up.

Enemy AI is equally terrible. More than a few times I’ve watched enemies take cover on sides of objects completely visible to me or as they stand straight up behind cover, rather than ducking behind the object. They don’t even seem to register threats correctly. In one instance, I happened upon three Spec Ops soldiers while making my way through a graveyard. Before alerting them, I chucked an incendiary grenade in the middle of the group. None of them moved. One of the soldiers even yelled, “GRENADE! GET AWAY FROM IT!” and proceeded to stand still, not even moving after the grenade went off and engulfed them all in flames. The most I can figure is that, because they didn’t see me, they didn’t realize that they should actively be engaged in combat and therefore didn’t react even though there was a grenade at their feet.

“RE: ORC” reminds me of last year’s “Brink” in a few ways. They’re both terrible to play solo, only marginally better online and both wound up being unbelievable wastes of potential. I’m still going to pop “RE: ORC” in every once in a while because, even with its flaws, the multiplayer can be a ton of fun and can creates some truly hectic and chaotic moments on the fly. By adding computer controlled zombies and bio-weapon monstrosities to the standard competitive deathmatch modes, “RE: ORC” multiplayer shakes up the generic “player-vs.-player” third person shooter genre. Unfortunately, that’s about all that “RE: ORC” does right. “RE” fans may be able to see past the flaws and find enjoyment in this game, but they’re probably the only ones who will. With more competent third person shooters on the market (like “Mass Effect 3,” “Gears of War 3,” or “Warhammer 40k: Space Marine”) you’d do well to avoid “RE: ORC” unless you can get it for the right price.