Umbrella Corps

 They didn't even have enough faith in this to put Resident Evil in the title. What have I gotten myself into...?

I played this on my PC, through Steam.

I suppose I should preface this by saying I only played the single player campaign, "The Experiment." I know this is primarily a multiplayer shooter but, for the purposes of this here blog, I'm essentially only interested in the solo experience. As a single-person experience, it's quite bad.

I generally try to look on the bright side and attempt to find something to like about most stuff I play or watch, but this was.just... bad. Still, to do my due diligence, the gunplay isn't quite as awful as it looks. Guns feel relatively powerful against the standard zombies and there's a satisfying pop to headshots. Revisiting familiar locations is still enjoyable, even if it's the umpteenth time this series has fallen back on that. 

Despite the awkward camera angle, shooting feels alright.
I'll start with that last point, the reused locations. This game's single player is comprised of a number of environments that all either evoke or straight-up repeat locations from prior entries in the series. There's an Umbrella lab, the village from the start of Resident Evil 4, a (location reminiscent of a?) place from Resident Evil 5, a street from Raccoon City, the interior of the RPD station, and the Antarctic base from Resident Evil: Code Veronica. None of them are exact recreations, but they're all close enough to get the vibe of their respective locations right.

Now, how can a game set in 2013 possibly take place in Raccoon City, you might ask? Contrary to what you might believe, the premise of this game is that some organization seemingly run by ex-Umbrella people (and not Umbrella itself) has been running experiments in recreations of notable places (and, maybe, also just running experiments in those places, when possible). You play as a test subject being run through the gauntlet of experiments and through which your impossible survival has your superiors upset. That brief is about all there is to it, there's no voice acting and, essentially, no real characters to speak of. I get that this was a multiplayer game but I still expected more from its singleplayer mode.

Some of the mission briefings are fun, at least.

Outside of the baffling premise, "Why is this game so bad?", you might wonder. To put it bluntly, the levels just aren't any fun to play. When you're going up against standard run-of-the-mill zombies it's actually alright, for the most part. Your weapons seem well-suited to handling them and if you're playing sensibly you can usually keep yourself from getting overwhelmed. When the game starts adding in birds, and dogs, and special infected, though, the difficulty ramps up considerably to the point of it no longer being fun. These enemies will rush you and can often damage you before you even have a chance to stop them, leading to you starting any given fight on your back foot. When two hits can (sometimes) kill you, getting ambushed by multiple enemies can spell certain death in an instant. 

The difficulty just isn't tuned well. You will routinely get killed in two hits from enemies who spawned behind you without making any sound, or will die despite seemingly having okay health (your only health indicator is the Modern Warfare on-screen jelly) or will get rushed by a special infected after pumping multiple magazines into it. Very few of my deaths felt like the result of my mistakes. The game simply wants you to die.

I saw this screen a LOT.
According to Steam I spent about nine hours in this game and that sounds about right. There isn't an end-of-game completion screen, so I'll leave you with this screenshot of me at the end of the mission list. I completed this story mode (I've even got the Steam achievement to prove it!) so please believe me when I say you shouldn't buy this game.

This description is your reward for beating the game.

 It's been a while since I've played some of the other games in this series, so maybe one of the Survivor games could maybe compete, but this sure seems like the worst Resident Evil game I've come across. I'm sure it's better in multiplayer, but I still can't imagine it'd be great. In short, this game stinks.

To the friend who convinced me to play this game despite my mountain of excuses as to why I should skip it, I have this to say: I hope you're proud of yourself. Look what you made me do.

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