What I Think of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.

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Who wouldn't want to play this game! I know after watching this trailer one day on Steam I sure did.

So what is RE: Operation Raccoon City? It's a third person action game that begins prior to the events of Resident Evil 2. You play as one of four members of a U.S.S., or Umbrella Security Service Delta Team sent to Raccoon City to retrieve the G-Virus. Of course things go terribly wrong because if not the game would be even shorter than it already is, and you find yourself going to various locations fighting infected and Spec Ops soldiers in the hopes of being extracted from the city.

ORC was built to be a four-player co-op game. Yes you can play a private campaign by yourself with three AI squad mates, but ORC's gameplay is balanced around having four human players. If you take a restrictive FOV, a cover system that requires you to stick to walls which for the most part is broken and useless, a complete lack of a dodge mechanic, enemies that are bullet sponges, and mix that together with a game that likes to throw as many enemies as possible at you in small areas, what you get is a rage induced coronary from a game that is way harder than is should be even on casual difficulty. It's ok to make a game challenging, but ORC falls within the realm of cheap rather than difficult.

That's not to say everything is bad in ORC. The audio and visuals are quite good and the story is serviceable and doesn't get in the way. My favorite aspect of ORC, and the only reason why I played so much, is the gunplay. If you've played a modern military shooter within the past say five years then you know what to expect with ORC. There are a number of weapons to unlock and pick up in the game, each with its own characteristics such as accuracy, damage and ammo capacity. Standing still gives you the best accuracy but at the risk of being hit by enemies. Move around and you suffer in accuracy as you increase a weapon's bullet spread while eating through precious ammo. The gunplay is not revolutionary, but I found it to be very enjoyable.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is a competent, but generic third person shooter. It breaks tradition by forgoing the puzzle aspect which is a halmark of the franchise and instead focuses on the action. While I found enjoyment in the gunplay, I find ORC's focus on co-op with a difficulty exacerbated by bad gameplay decisions such as a lack of a dodge mechanic, bad FOV, a broken cover system and bullet sponge enemies to be less enjoyable.