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Review: Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

I love Resident Evil. Since grade school, I’ve played every single RE title that’s come out. Multiple times. I’ve purchased Resident Evil 4 four different times now, on GameCube, PS2, PC and Xbox 360 Games on Demand. I know the characters and the lore inside and out, and I’m fairly quick to jump on anything that has those two magic words in its title. Yes, even the Milla Jovovich movies.

Even Resident Evil: Survivor.

Anyways, Capcom’s taking a break from moving the Resident Evil narrative forward with titles like Revelations and the upcoming RE6 to revisit its beloved Raccoon City in Operation Raccoon City. Developed by Slant Six, of SOCOM fame (or treachery, depending on the gamer), ORC is set during Resident Evil 2 and 3 and puts you in the shoes of the evil Umbrella Corporation, specifically one of its Security Services teams. Aka, an elite squad of slightly evil, mostly S&M-loving badasses.

Slant Six has, depending on your point-of-view, either removed the isolation of RE2 or 3, or beefed up RE5‘s co-op play. The game is designed around online multiplayer functionality. You’ll constantly be a member of a team of four USS members, and while you can go it alone with AI assistance, you’re going to want to track down three friends, or game at a time where a public match will wield many convenient strangers to shoot and kill with. There is absolutely zero support for couch co-op, so if that’s a main selling point of a game, you’re probably going to want to pass right by Operation Raccoon City.

Playing with the AI is a recipe for frustration. I did go it alone (on the game’s easiest difficulty), and I had a hell of a time making it to the end of the campaign. Your squadmates don’t revive you when you fall. They don’t heal you when you’re low on health and green herbs. Frequently, my team saddled up right behind me while I was in cover, effectively destroying my camera angle and preventing me from seeing what I was trying to shoot at. In other sequences, the team stood looking at the corner of a room while I took on zombies, government Spec Ops members, and a certain grenade launcher-toting hero from the Resident Evil series. NOT FUN.

Of the six completely two-dimensional squad members that you can choose from, each comes with their own class-based powers. I tended to favour Vector, the recon character. By completing missions and earning XP, you can unlock a character’s special abilities and extra weapons. No one seemed to be as effective as Vector; once you unlock his cloak ability, you can use it in many situations to bypass a ton of enemies and proceed to the mission’s next checkpoint. Once you do that, all of the enemies behind you disappear, Call of Duty-style. It’s a great way to get past challenging chokepoints, especially when playing alone.

As far as combat mechanics go, there’s some interesting concepts that don’t pan out too well. You’re taking on Spec Ops, zombies and Umbrella B.O.Ws all at the same time, but you can take some pressure off the situation by getting a human enemy to bleed via careful bullet placement, or a melee or two (or three, or four) with your knife. If a human starts to bleed out, they attract the surrounding zombie population. It’s a great mechanic…if there was a sure-fire way to cause someone to bleed out. Half the time, I got the blood flowing when I wasn’t trying. Otherwise, after seven shots to the leg, or five knife swipes, my opponent was just fine. It’s frustrating.

Additionally, there’s no rhyme or reason to the amount of damage enemies can take; after several shots to the torso, one Spec Ops dude went down; his buddy ended up taking double the amount of shots to the same spot to achieve the same result. Boss fights are beyond ridiculous; Tyrants and the Nemesis are complete bullet sponges. At least the Tyrants are reasonably killable as they’re not walking around with a chaingun. You have fun with the Nemesis, now.

Multiplayer offers standard fare, with a bit of Resident Evil flair. Most gametypes involve killing other players (obviously), but each map is littered with combinations of zombies, Hunters, Lickers, and Tyrants that cause a ton of collateral damage. It’s a good twist on an aging mechanic. Unfortunately, there are already a ton of exploits in multiplayer that mean experienced players are going to mop the floor with newbies. If you get knocked over by someone, be prepared to be mercilessly hacked and slashed until you die. You’ll never be able to get back up. Again, NOT FUN.

Lastly, Slant Six has taken a ton of liberties with the story of Resident Evil 2 and 3, particularly with heroes Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield. The ending of Operation Raccoon City wantonly rewrites the ending of RE2, and frankly, that’s just not cool. Worse yet, if you’re not familiar with the plotlines of past Resident Evil games, you’re going to be playing ORC with little to no idea about what’s actually going on. You’re playing as Umbrella, but you’re killing people who work for Umbrella…and BAM! Now the government’s involved…and who’s that cop and why’s he so important? Now there’s a chick in a red dress? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you might want to hit up Wikipedia or something for general background exposition.

I can see how this game would be very enjoyable with friends over Xbox Live, and at the end of the day, it is Resident Evil. Consider buying this game if you’re a huge fan of the series, and if you can live with canonical discrepancies. ORC is a reasonably enjoyable romp through Raccoon City while you wait out the release of Resident Evil 6. That being said, this game is a step in the wrong direction for the franchise, especially after a return back to proper survival horror with the 3DS’ Resident Evil: Revelations. If you’re looking for a good squad-based game, there are plenty other amazing titles that do it much better; in that case, avoid Operation Raccoon City at all costs.


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About the author

Steve Wright

Steve's the owner of this very site and an active games journalist nearing twenty (TWENTY!?!) years. He's a Canadian-Australian gay gaming geek, ice hockey player and fan. Husband to Matt and cat dad to Wally and Quinn.