I picked it up early... yeah, between Downpour and ORC, I've got a hankering for technically woeful games this month (though I traded in a few things so I wasn't hit badly).

I picked up the PS3 verison and right off the bat, there was a 159MB patch required. I'm sad to say that the technical issues noted in the previews are intact, ranging from tearing (accompanied with some judder when the frame rate drops), camera issues with closeups. That said, the control responsiveness is surprisingly adequate despite that. So far, I haven't encountered many glitches aside from one with the AI partners not gathering as at the checkout as required so I had to literally *push* them there. SFX are still iffy too, but the music creates... there's that word again, "adequate" ambiance.

All that aside, the core gameplay isn't bad but could've been better and the game does a great job establishing atmosphere so fans will appreciate it on that angle alone. The environments may not be very detailed but everything is clean and consistent luckily. Definitely 720p with possibly 2X MSAA (could be no AA but the dark colour palette hides aliasing well).

In conclusion, I can honestly say I've played worse RE offshoots. Outbreak fans will appreciate the squad based setup for sure.

In line to get my copy now.

Sent from my Droid

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT IN THIS GENERATION SUX!!

Hey, at least it's an actual patch unlike SF X Tekken.

After the news regarding the Spec Ops campaign, I'm interested to know if you actually encounter any characters other than Leon in the USS campaign. I know you see Claire in a cutscene, but do you actually get to interact with her any?

I'll post more impressions. I'll try to pull an all nighter like the good ol day </senior moment> Curious myself given what I've seen so far..

The reason I ask is because the Trophies almost make it sound like Leon is the only character you actually get a chance to kill, and I'm betting you only encounter Jill in the Spec Ops campaign.

Aside from SG I saw Ikari playing so he obviously got out of the line in the end. I thought about buying it but think I will still rent this first.

Will rent this first too. Hopefully it's not a complete turd.

Do not buy this game if you're looking to play it for single player. If you plan to buy it for multiplayer as your main focus, go for it. But, do not expect anything worth anything out of single player.

Campaign is VERY short. I started playing the game around 5-5:30pm, somewhere in there. Had beaten the campaign by 11pm. That's like 6 hours of gamplay and that's about it. And that's only thanks to deaths and learning what to do etc.

Levels seem large when looking at the maps at times, but, they're extremely linear, really very little exploration involved and there really is absolutely 'nothing' to the game other than run and gun.

Storyline is absolutely atrocious. Do not even expect the game to even 'try' to tie itself to the existing canon. It's so far removed it's not even funny. The great majority of scenes are so out of place and the levels you visit are bland and boring. 80% of the game has you either on the random streets or in the Umbrella Laboratory. That's about it. The 5 seconds you're in the R.P.D. allows you to access Chief Irons Office, the hallway outside there, the rooftop and the main hall. That's literally it. You do not get to explore any of the R.P.D. beyond that, not even the front of the R.P.D. because once you head out the front door a cut scene plays and you're pushed beyond it.

Any of the classic characters you encounter (which include Hunk, Nicholai, Ada, Leon, Claire & Sherry only) are so shoe-horned in and forced it's not even funny. Again, the game makes zero attempt to try and make any of it fit with the games, it just is and that's all there is to it.

The story for U.S.S. themselves is extremely pitiful and boring, the boss battles are mundane and the ending(s) are so worthless and anti-climatic it almost makes you wonder why they even bothered. The game feels entirely like they made it as a multiplayer game and tacked on the single player campaign as an afterthought.

Also the whole 'Kill Leon' thing that they advertised so heavily? It's NOTHING like what you expect it to be.




There's no CG endings, no real finale, no nothing.

Gameplay isn't even that great. AI partners are 100% worthless and will do nothing the entire game save possibly shoot or melee an enemy off of you once in a blue moon. Outside of that, they will either stand around and do absolutely nothing, or shoot endlessly at nothing and never manage to kill anything for you or help whatsoever.

The game is also very glitchy in terms of hit detection and collision detection. You'll be firing at enemies and often not even dealing any damage for unknown reasons until you reposition yourself. Herbs or items may be right in front of you but you'll run up to them and not even get an option to use them until you run around in circles until the dialogue box decides to finally pop up. There were also a few herbs and ammo drops that refused to be picked up despite the fact I needed them.

As far as controls go, they're alright although nothing amazing. It's pretty standard fair for a TPS. If you've played Uncharted 3 you should know what to expect. None of it really feels very smooth though. Like in RE5 if i'm running forward and reach a spot to jump off of, I instantly get the prompt as I'm running and can transition from running to jumping instantly. Here it's like I have to run and 'stop' at the spot to get the prompt to jump down, thus leaving no transition whatsoever. It feels clunky that way.

I aim at zombies heads and shoot them dead on and often no shot even registers especially when using the handgun. Grenades seem almost pointless a lot of times because the detonation time between when you toss it and when it actually blows up is pretty long. So tossing it into a group of enemies ends up having the enemies or even zombies having LONG cleared out away from it by the time it finally explodes. About the only time a grenade works on a group is if the group is stationary and doesn't see you, which is rare.

Melee's aren't smooth either. It relies more on you mashing Circle in whatever direction and hoping it hits whatever. Yet, don't expect to get any kind of invincibility frames like usual. If you do a melee, enemies can still hit you. So if you decide to do a melee finisher, enjoy watching your health dwindle as you perform the animation.

Then there's the wonders of getting attacked so much that you can't even get up. I've had Hunters and Tyrants smack me and then stand over me and the second I get up, smack me down again, wash rinse repeat until I died with me being able to do NOTHING in the meantime.

Boss Battles are extremely worthless and dissapointing and rely on you simply emptying your clips into enemies and run over to the infinite ammo drop box in the corner when you run low and grab one of a dozen herbs littered throughout the area when you're low on health.

There is no strategy or depth to any of the fights. It's literally just you circling them to avoid attacks while unloading ammo into them until they die. About the only 'strategy' involved is that most of them won't take damage unless you hit them specifically in the head or the heart, that's about it.

There's also absolutely zero adlibs in the game. So unless you plan to voice chat with mics, don't expect to have ANY way to communicate with your partners when playing online with others.

Perhaps if the SPEC OPS campaign was included from the start, the single player might not be 'as' bad because at least that would give what? 10-12 hours of gameplay from two full campaigns? Then it might feel more worthwhile and content full. But, as it is, being all there is is an extremely short U.S.S. campaign for a single player mode, it's pretty much garbage.

Maybe if the single player mode didn't feel like worthless shit that leaves such a bad taste in your mouth when it's done, maybe I wouldn't be so dissapointed right now. Honestly, I knew the game wasn't gonna be anything amazing. I'm just so dissapointed at how lackluster the whole campaign is. It's just so pointless and shoe-horned in.

There's no sense of continuality either. Each mission just happens with no explanation of what the team was up to in between, and their whole storyline and plot are so poorly done. Cut scenes and dialogue are absolutely garbage. Every single thing is pretty much "Oh this is your mission! Oh ok now that we showed that char or B.O.W. forget about that mission, we don't care anymore." and that's that.

Tried to play Multiplayer but obviously not a single person is on it right now so I can't. Hopefully that will at least be fun because I'm so turned off by the single player. Single player is literally Left 4 Dead in third person to be honest. No better way to describe it. Though somehow Left 4 Dead managed to make more care more about the damn survivors which is sad.

I did play through the whole game in co-op online with my buddy though. There's no local co-op but online co-op was fine. Honestly, I think that's the only reason I even remotely had 'any' fun with the game was because I was playing with my friend. Again, the AI is so worthless and useless that playing solo would be such a chore and absolutely boring. Thankfully we used the vita's party chat to communicate throughout since there was no adlibs etc.

Honestly, the only real things I enjoyed in the game was hearing a remix (not even a great remix mind you, but a remix none the less) of Nemesis Final Metamorphasis during the Nemesis battle and hearing a remix of Tyrant's RE2 final battle theme during his fight. And also Moonlight sonata plays at one point (randomly on a piano with no one playing it. It's so shoe-horned in it's not even funny). That's it.

Anyway, that's the end of my rant for now. Really hoping I can try multiplayer soon to give me a better impression of the game.

Just really dissapointed with the game, which is really sad considering my expectations were incredibly low to begin with.