RE:ORC > RE5 (so far)

Okay, so graphically Slant Six isn't all that great. They're a bit of a noob company with not too many titles under their belt. Their ability no uglify human hair and render it like wet dog isn't very becoming, but that said, GUESS WHO AIN'T PUNCHIN' ROCKS IN A "RESIDENT EVIL" GAME?

Taking heavy influences from the design of Resident Evil 2, the absolute bestestest Resident Evil ever created, ORC takes you immediately back into the days of zombies...awful awful zombies. And that Hunk guy, he's just downright dreamy. (Albeit they changed his mask and he now has big-head mode enabled)

So your team of 4 (of 3 guys and gals you can mix and match and have different skills) start off in the midst of pre-Resident Evil 2, first objective being to take back the G-Virus sample from Birken. As we all know, that doesn't go down too well. On top of that, your operation is a bit clandestine, to the point that Umbrellas own UBCS merc squad doesn't even know you exist. USS vs UBCS, take one. Few cutscenes and a bossfight later, game doesn't seem relatively 'difficult', albeit nailing the dark and gloomy and cold n' sometimes wet look of the Umbrella facilities, with plenty of red wall lights to add to the ambience. In short, looks good, albeit the lack of detail on some textures can make some areas look cheap, like a PSN download game as opposed to a full on 65$ PS3 game. (Slant Six, again, noobs, can't expect too much there. They've made like what, 3 games?) The combat an enemy AI isn't very impressive, it's basic. Shoot stuff, a lot. Shooting anyone leaves a cartoony blood splatter that could have been toned down, but dismemberments and gore are back in. No PG13 rating here. (Looking at you RE5), and for the most part, shooting other gun toting humans doesn't cause them to stagger or really react. Headshots aren't instant kills unless you're within 10 feet of the target gun-totin' human, but the ease of aiming means you can fire off 3 headshots and kill a single target only slightly slower than a single shot. Ally AI often gets stuck on invisible walls or can't pathfind their way toward you and the next objective, which sometimes results in you having to 'push' their character free to get them moving.

Before I got too disappointed with easy to kill targets I ended up triggering a battle with a swarm of lickers. That fight was good. Lots of enemies that had no issues crawling up walls and attacking you from blind spots, as well as assaulting my buddies to the point they succumbed to the G-Virus assault (licker stabs and swipes) and I had to put them down - which of course lets you resurrect them yourself and somehow turn them normal again (they dont want you playing with less than a full party of 4).

Sound effects aren't too great. Lot of gun sounds use generic effects that leave something to be desired, but the guns handle similarly to Slant Six's other PS3 title, Socom: Confrontation (the online-only one).

As far as leveling up and customization goes, you are given XP for completed missions and grabbing bonus intel or clearing secondary (hidden) objectives, like blowing up any security cameras or finding those classic typewriters. Exp is then used to purchase a few weapons or special character abilities. Characters like Lupo for example (female/assault) can unlock a special mode that enabled incendiary rounds for a few seconds (has a cooldown), while other characters like Vector can enable a cloaking device for stealth kills or grabbing a human/zombie shield. (Yes, you can feed people to zombies, lol)

Only briefly tried the vs modes, which sadly lacks a 'horde' type survival mode. They really need to add that in there. Something that trumps RE5s merc mode and doesn't involve punching 'clocks' to extend the time. Why they would include clock punching and break immersion we'll never know...

Also too many of the voice over actors try to sound all grunty and 'super badass', to the point that 3 characters (4 including Hunk) all sound the same.

One mechanic i'm liking is that the switch weapons button (primary and pistol are your options) and holding the button down changes gameplay and gives you a cinematic camera angle. Your character will autoaim with their pistol at enemies in the direction you hold and can slowly strafe in any direction with the right stick. This will let you fire shots at center mass of a target until you let go of the switch button, which very quickly changes back to your main weapon. It's not really needed, since enemies are so easy to dodge, but it could come in handy in vs mode/PVP, or in situations I just haven't encountered yet, or if you just make poor tactical decisions and don't generally watch your friggin' spacing.

That's about it so far. My biggest complaint is that it doesn't seem that challenging on normal mode. Can't recall if there was a difficulty setting, but I may have to amp it up some. Oh, I also don't like the AI's poor pathfinding. Too often do they move in the wrong directions that it causes them to get up close with zombies. You'll end up seeing 3 buddies all knifing the same target to death when they have perfectly good shotguns, assault rifles and smgs ... and no AI command system to force them to stay at range and no way to tell them to grab a green herb and heal themselves.

I've only seen bits of Left 4 Dead, but this game does seem to take a few queues from that setup. It's like a cross between L4D and RE Outbreak + Socom: Confrontation. Don't think i'll regret buying it, but do hope a demo is released so people can get a feel for if they'll like it or not. There's actually some people out there that preferred RE5/RE4s straying from what was good..... and rock punching. :\


Eh, as much as i'd like to clean up this post, the ps3 browser is absolute shit and lags like crazy just typing this. The cursor took fifty seconds to catch up to me just typing this sentence.

Sup dood!

Yeah, played a few more missions after that and it does get a bit better. Does have a more meaty campaign than some would expect, though i'm not sure if any of it would be considered canon at all. Otherwise at least parts of the story would fill in why the Raccoon City incident was so isolated and why no phone calls went out to draw attention to the events as they happened.

Allies are still dumb as bricks, but they do much to draw aggro away from you if you're not playing with actual people.

Few more stages in and the street environments lay on the heavy blue atmosphere look that James Cameron saturated Terminator 2 with. Mixes with the visuals nicely, and so long as you aren't playing with people that just plow straight through to objectives. There are data collectibles hidden around the mission areas that lead to more exp if searched for. (So if you end up playing with people that just run and gun everything with no regard for teamwork and covering each others backs, just kick them or start a new or private match)

Game also has a few pop-scares here and there that work. Music also shifts when encounters when enemies kick in which helps drive home the panic and shoot anything that moves mentality. Staying cool under fire means finding choke points and exploiting the environment to corral enemies into the loving warmth of an incindiary grenade. Likewise it could mean sprinting to the edge of the room, turning your back to the wall, and picking off targets as they close in, then dodge and weave past them to the opposite side of the room and repeat. Except for uh... bigger enemies. That won't work. Allies will need to concentrate fire and be prepared to revive fallen buddies.

Far as weapons go, I do not recommend spending exp to open up any other weapons first, but instead go for skill abilities as they will be infinitely more useful when playing with live people online. Otherwise, there's plenty of guns and ammo boxes around the maps to not have to worry about what gun you are using. You'll always have access to ammo.

Definitely not a blockbuster hit... but fun enough that I don't regret my purchase.

Just remember guys.. lol Slant 6 made it. Not capcom..

Something that bugged me when people on youtube and other places fumed saying it was a sh** game and then they blamed capcom and said they would never buy re again, I think it was their first re game they tried too.. lame.

quote Agent Mo

Good read, i'll be getting this when it gets cheaper, but i really have no expectations for this game and i'm pretty much only getting it because it's RE One question, what's the balance between human and undead enemies?

A lot more Zombies then humans, just so you know. I couple moments had about 30 plus zombies on me screen coming at me, hehe heavy machine gun = tons of fun :-)

You encounter pockets of USS but for the most part it is zombies or lurkers, a few hunters, 2 tyrants so far and these weird almost alien things that get on the heads of zombies.

In a few parts my screen was flooded with zombies, one mission has you turning on this computers but if you take too long the zombies keep coming, I had over 400 kills in one level becuase I let them come, I would throw a faramone nade so they would all hundle then lob a reg nade and boooooom, it just felt so right!!!!!

Anyone else think the player movement is clunky? I also wish you could give your dumb AI commands, it gets pretty annoying when you're on the run from a Tyrant and all your AI bots just try to kill every zombie and fight against the Tyrant only to die. I would play with a team of four humans, it would be a lot more fun as long as they are all cooperative.

Wish their was a larger variety of BOW's too. What's the best gun to use though? I like using the advanced SMG the most so far.

quote Deception

Holy crap, this game is horrible. Well, its fun as hell, but the AI are bad. So bad its unplayable.IVe had to restart a mission 5 times now because my team refuses to move.

I find that you can actually push them, if they get stuck or are running into a door in the opposite direction (yea pretty funny to watch) you can just run into them and they usually correct themselves.

Yes if at all possible play with human players.

So far I love the game I love being able to pick my team instead of getting stuck with someone for a whole game but one major negative was the fact that you never really got to know any of the characters like in res 5 you learn a lot about Chris and sheva an even Jill now I understand that an entire backstory on 6 members is just wishful thinking but I would deffinetly like to expand these character like where they came from why they joined everything like that and I hate melee attacks in Orc at least in res 5 you got some badass moves and one thing I hate about Orc is that you can't hold items like I can't pick a herb up and use it on my dieing teammate I just have to run past it while my teammate is practically dead but oh we'll I guess it's something I'll just have to get use to I'm only half way through the game and as of right now Res5>Orc but who knows maybe the story will get better and I'll change my mind