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Resident Evil 6 – An old kind of evil

New gameplay and interesting diverse campaigns with great, connected storyline.

Resident Evil games have been the most longest third person game running across the survival horror platform.

Capturing attention from gamers around the world with sales over a bucketload, Resident Evil franchise can be labeled as a legend among the survival horror fans.

Interesting gameplay, Resident Evil 6(RE 6) is the latest installment from the great franchise. For the first time ever, RE 6 provides several new gameplay and tricks apart from that interesting storyline the game offers.

RE 6 is different from its predecessors; Starting from RE 5, the game has gone too far from its roots, transforming to an action-horror game instead of its famous survival horror gameplay and RE6 still follows the pace. However, there are diverse campaigns to fit the taste of old fans and newcomers.

The game runs smoothly on XBOX 360 and Sony Playstation 3 (PS 3) and currently in development for PC version. The Pc version is predicted to be released in 2013 through Steam.

The price of RE 6 for PS3 is quite average which is only RM159 while its famous action-horror predecessor cost RM70-99. It's not that much as we can see RE 6 has more campaigns, each divided into five 60 minutes long chapters.

RE6 maybe the best installment so far with a bunch of new gameplay and tactics and most importantly more ferocious villains and zombies! Let's see what the gameplay provides.

Ada Wong as the main protagonist in the fourth a.k.a special campaign.

Gameplay

The gameplay is improving; instead of having only one campaign for a great game, RE 6 provides three (3) diverse campaigns each with unique storyline and characters. Each character is controlled by a player and will be accompanied and supported by an ally character which is controlled by other human or Active Intelligence (AI).

Hundreds of collectibles to gather, bunch of cool upgrades for your equips and shooting and kicking viscous zombies. Thousands of skill points to harvest for a greater journey and cool gameplay.

The storyline is packed carefully, each with own distinct interface, own flavor and each digging into Resident Evil's past.

Your health bar is divided into squares and you're knocked to the ground each time a section is emptied, where you can slide around and shooting upwards to your attacker. When you're low on health, you either have to wait for your mate to revive you or retire beneath a desk hoping there were no zombies looking for you for 30 seconds for your health bar to repair.

The camera hovers over your shoulder. Aim down enemies and tight zoom affords accuracy at the cost of encircling vision. To those who noticed the camera are twitchy and cocky, have worries no more as the laser aim is introduced in RE6.

Resident Evil's herb system in which plants can be collected and combined to create restorative pills, has been streamlined and upkeep; you can swallow pills with taps of a button during play. Looking back to Resident Evil 5, RE 6's herb system is much more complex.

You now can shoot while moving and duck, roll over while the enemies aiming you. The new trick includes the ability to kick and smackdown an enemy at the cost of stamina and each action will require a bar of stamina. Be careful as the stamina slowly regenerates while you're not attacking which is bad if you're surrounded by a horde of zombies.

There is a new type of zombie called J'avo. Unlike zombies, J'avo are able to interact with each other to plan an attack, use weapons and ability to heal themselves. Certain enemies drop skill points when killed, which can be picked up to spend on upgrades to increase weapon effectiveness and increase the amount of specific ammunition drops.

There are set piece events that require different approaches, such as shooting at zombies, prying through a door and attempting to locate keys in a vehicle. The game also offers Mercenaries mode which exist in RE5, where players fight hordes of enemies, and the Agent Hunt mode which allows players to take control of random enemies in other player's games.

The special campaign or the fourth scenario will only be unlocked when the player completed all the initial three campaigns. The fourth campaign features the main character from past Re’s, Ada Wong (without a partner) and is one of the hardest campaign to complete in Resident Evil 6.

Leon's campaign is by far the most strongest one due to it's horror and scary atmosphere. Old fans will probably love the campaign aside from others. The zombies may not be mutated and got the evolve look but the main idea is to keep the campaign stick to its roots; the horror survival where the atmosphere is dark, the scarcity of ammo and the zombies are scary, yes scary.

While Chris's campaigns have gone beyond the game original idea, it fits well for the newcomers who loves action packed gameplay. The zombies are mutated and sometimes wear guns and rifles. The campaign itself lacks the cohorence vision for an original concept but it still viable for one who hungers for actions and guns.

Jounters that outstay their welcome and kind of short-hop journeys to resemble the dramas.

Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin running away from Uthanak's grasp.

Player Opinions

Hazrul Mdnor, 19, a hardcore gamer said “Resident Evil 6 has been the most long waited survival horror game for all gamers and I think it is perfectly done.

“I love the gameplay where the characters have the ability to punch and kick zombies instead of just shoot them like in other survival horror games.

“I admit the game itself has gone too far from its roots, however the main idea of this game is to attract newcomers and new fans. Like Jake Muller's campaign, I can see the environment is more like Call of Duty than the original RE horror environment.” he ended.

Muhd Haziq, 18, a loyal Resident Evil fan said “As an old fan of RE games, I have to admit Resident Evil 6 is by far the most anticipated and packed with great gameplay aside from becoming an action-horror game.

“However, the appearance of new type of zombies such as J'avo really surprised me. I truly enjoy the moment against them. It is really fun to be alert all the time when playing this game.

“What I love the most is the collaboration of main protagonists with other interesting characters. Besides that, all of the campaigns are unique and connected to each other and I think it is a great addition to this game.” he ended.

The main protagonists collaborate together in order to defeat mighty Ustanak.

Conclusion

Resident Evil 6 improved in so many aspects. Many gamers love the new gameplay and the ability to play with friends to embark the dangerous journey together.

The main protagonist is one of the reason why this game gets a lot of attention from the serious gamers out there. Their cool appearance, great personality and astounding design is ridiculously amazing and unpredictable.

While it's gone too far from it's roots, the undoubted RE 6 is the best survival-horror game ever exist. Despite of all that, it still offers the best gameplay which gamers crave for.