Me and my friend went into this game with a very hesitant feeling just based off of peoples opinions and word of the game. Seeing as how we had played through Resident Evil 5 and found it to be an okay game we picked this one up for $5. I have to say we were both surprised, not only because we found it undeserving of all the hate, but just that it was really a fairly good game.
Controls
I felt like the controls were pretty well done, although there was a bit of problems I had. Firstly I found the cover system to be pretty terrible, we both had troubles with accidentally putting ourselves in cover when we didn't mean to or sticking to a wall when we just wanted to look around a corner but it wasn't so bad that it ruined the game. Other than that I feel like everything was pretty good. I enjoyed the dodge mechanics with either the rolls, slide, counter attack or being able to jump onto your back and attack from the ground. The small "communication" controls were a little silly and not necessary but I guess if you're like us, you just don't use them other than for spamming the thumbs up at your partners face.
Gameplay
Seeing as how there is 4 different campaigns and this is a 20+ hour game, this section will probably be fairly long. Firstly it was a little annoying that the prologue was single player just as Hunted was but it seemed fairly short so it wasn't that big of a deal. What did confuse me though was that you start the game off as Leon, but the recommended playing order is to play Chris' first 2 chapters first. Although the prologue may set the story up, it was just a little odd. That also ties into maybe my biggest problem, the fact that the story jumps between characters all over the place and there is really no way to know what is a proper order. We ended up looking up the recommended playthrough online and I can't really see how people would enjoy playing through a single campaign and then going back to a new person. It would just make the story feel very disconnected but at the same time, it would save players from having to repeat certain boss battles or segments in which 2 campaigns cross over each other and you end up playing them back to back.
Of course the big gripe about this game is that it doesn't feel like a resident evil game and I will admit that had me a little annoyed in the beginning. The series has developed into what it is and although it's frustrating, I feel like I understand. Seeing as how they try so hard to keep a story being told and developed throughout the series, it kind of makes sense as to how the gameplay is only going to evolve and that all they can do is make bigger and meaner enemies while giving you bigger and stronger guns. I feel like this is going to be the direction the main series goes, where as they can give the spinoff titles more opportunities to stay to the roots by having the game placed in a different universe or time and not have to worry about connecting the games together.
Leon's campaign I suppose holds the most similarities to the older games, it focuses more on the zombie enemies and seems to have the most puzzles and standard guns. Overall I did enjoy Leon's campaign but I wasn't really caring much for his partner and basically her story at all. The game also got a little silly in the end and started to drift really far into the "Chris" style of playing.
Jake's campaign I can't 100% comment on because throughout the game I was the 2nd player so I didn't get to experience his melee stance mechanics. To me this was probably the weakest campaign, maybe slightly better than Ada's but it just didn't seem focused. There is times where they would want you to focus on being melee or sometimes being more stealthy which I'm fine with, but it was also filled with a lot of gun play and it didn't really set it self aside and ended up playing pretty similar to Chris' campaign did. Also I just could not stand how they ended this campaign.
Chris' campaign was just 1 step up from Resident Evil 5. Very shooter friendly, sniper rifles and machine-guns all over the place and because of the enemies you faced, felt more like an alien shooter game. There was also a major lack in puzzle that I can remember but it probably had the best story tied to it. If you can get past how far from a Resident Evil game this campaign feels like then you can probably enjoy it as well, but not everyone is going to be able to do that.
Ada's campaign started off really well. Even though I was player 2 and Agent was added in as a later patch just to make the campaign co-op, I still enjoyed it; At first. It started off with puzzles, stealth but a mixture of gun play and a little more tension throughout. Sadly after the 1st or 2nd, I don't recall, this is all basically gone. Ada's campaign is there basically just to fill in the blanks and it ended up being almost entirely that. I really wished there was more to this campaign and it just felt like it's own in a sense other than an answer to some stray questions.
I wasn't sure at first if I even wanted to try out the mercenaries mode, we played it a bit in Resident Evil 5 but didn't get into to it at all and so I was hesitant for this version. It was surprising how much I ended up enjoying it. Even though again, it felt far from a Resident Evil game, it was enjoyable to be able to just try and kill as much as possible. We ended up unlocking all that we could and although we only played for maybe an hour or 2, I wouldn't mind playing more. That being said I can see it getting old pretty fast.
On the other end though we tried out agent hunt. We tried this mode on our first gaming session so we were still getting to know the game but even then it was just ugly. The controls just feel sluggish as hell, camera all over the place and even when you get it on the other player, you seem to do no damage at all. I think we tried like 3 matches before giving up. From the receiving end it was a little different. We played the game on professional, the 2nd hardest difficulty only because No Hope actually took away the option of skill points (Big pet peeve of mine when it comes to games difficulty removing aspects of gameplay to make it harder) so it did invoke some fear in us knowing there was someone else hunting us down but most of the time we just ended up running through the area and not feeling accomplished. After a few chapters we just turned the mode off to be able to enjoy the game more.
Design and Music
I felt like this was an area that the game was pretty lacking in. At least in comparison to Resident Evil 5, I didn't really care much for any of the stages and it honestly seemed like the game just looked worse than the previous one. Very few of the enemies impressed me and some of the level design was actually annoying.
Story
Seeing as how there was 4 campaigns this should be something that was really focused on. Overall I felt like it was... alright. Leon's story just didn't really grab me and seemed pretty obvious what was going to happen the majority of the time. Jake's was probably the worst, especially with that ended. Ugh.. Chris' had the most confusing story in that you weren't always sure what was happening or what was what so you wanted to know more and it kept you going, the ending was also pretty good. Ada did her job at filling in the blanks and answering the big question you had throughout the game most likely. It wasn't very difficult to figure out what the secret was but it didn't quite give you the confidence to feel like you knew exactly what was going on.
Overall
The game was good. Better than I really expected but not great. There was flaws and the big annoyance of feeling like you're playing a different series but in the end it was pretty enjoyable. Being able to find a 20+ hour couch co-op game is also a big plus seeing as how most seem to be half that length. Even though Resident Evil 5 seemed to look better and have more of a fear factor to it (this really had basically none), this game really was more enjoyable to me with the variety the campaigns offered and the good length of a couch co-op game.
6.5/10
8/10 - My Co-op partner's rating
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