Resident Evil: ORC Review

The game has been out long enough to warrant a review. That and I had to pry myself away from it long enough to write about it. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is basically a trip to the past through the antagonist eyes. In the single campaign, you choose from 1 out of 6 different operatives to go through the various missions. As you would expect, each operative has a different set of abilities and skills to use. You have 2 Passive abilities and you have 3 active abilities, in which you can only choose 1 Active ability during the mission. Also, note that you can change abilities, but only after death.

To give you some insight on some of the abilities, You have Incendiary Rounds, which of course burn your foes for a set period of time. Another you have Active Camouflage, in which you go invisible (Like we always dreamed of in some of these team-orientated games), and also Painkiller, which allows you to soak up damage for a set period of time. There are more abilities and each have their own use in various situations. You won't use them all, but you might play around with 1 or 2 abilities to see what fits your preference.

Oh yea, back to the Campaign, it's...really short. If you were expecting a huge campaign, trust when I say you will be very disappointed. With only 7 missions, there's not much love in the single player department, but it does do a wonderful job of taking you back to the city we been up and down in previous Resident Evil games. You will be taking trips to the Raccoon City Police Department, The Hospital, Birkin's lab, Umbrella's underground facility just to name a few. To answer a few questions lingering through your heads, yes this is online co-op but no sign of any offline co-op. It's really odd because most of expected it to have some kind of offline co-op but that's how most of today's games run, simply online.

The controls of the game were, as expected, very smooth. They were very responsive and didn't feel like anything was forced...well except the dive. While the diving was a nice add, it still felt a bit.. restricted. Throughout the campaign when I was dodging gunfire or zombies, I would dive to escape them.. and it didn't really feel...right. I like the simple CQC system they placed in there, as it did add a layer of depth on how you went about approached enemies. You can use them as meat shields, do a Brutal kill, or simply knock them off balance. Also the nice edition of the shoulder tackle works wonders if your in a crowd of zombies. All and all, it was very smooth experience throughout.

Now.. where Resident Evil really shines is the multi-player. You have your classic Team-Deathmatch and Capture the flag-type modes (Or in this game's case, capture the G-Virus), but what really makes it amazing is how chaotic it can get with any game mode. Not only are you fighting with the opposing team, but you also have to fight the zombies and BOWs (Bio-Organic Weapons) that roam around the map. I was skeptic on how that was going to work out but it was brought together quite well. One thing however, team work is a must because lone wolfing it will only serve to get you and the rest of your teammates killed. This is not to say it cannot be done, but you will have very little success with it. I do have a few gripes with it however, and really is about weapons. Some of them have a bit of balancing issues, and still wonder why Capcom thinks it's cool to let players spawn with a Grenade Launcher right off the bat. Seriously, they would of been better off leave it as a power weapon like the flame thrower on the map.

People have been wondering left and right where the Nemesis Mode is for 360 users. Well, sorry to break it to you but capcom is pulling their "Take something out the full product and release it as DLC" trick again. Don't worry, it is a relatively small fee, but when people were reading the information on this game, it sounded like it was going to be included for free. But this is Capcom of today, we all should of known better. There's other types of DLC such as a few weapons and alternate costumes. The weapons make decent start-ups but you honestly don't need them. The best weapons in the game are still obtainable by normal means.

My Opinion on Resident Evil ORC:

I feel that the game was basically fan-service and something to tie us over till the release of Resident Evil 6. Now, that isn't a bad thing by any means, as there is enough replay value you constantly keep this game around. However, I was hoping for something a little...more. Capcom has a weird nack for taking things out of their games and turn right around and charge is via DLC for it. Is it worth the buy? I still believe so. While there are small glitches here and there, still it was a well made game that answered many of the things we yearned to have in a Resident Evil game. For fans of the genre, this is as close as we are going to get to a "Next-Gen RE: Outbreak".