Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City…Was it Really That Bad?

I was so excited for this game! I have been a fan of Resident Evil for years. Ever since the first game came out, I watched my brother play it from beginning to end. Then I finally figured out how to play the game, and then my love for the series began. Resident Evil 1,2,3,4, Code Veronica, are all amazing games! Then the spin-offs began...and RE: Operation Raccoon City came around, with some really mixed reviews, some good...most bad.

When this game was coming out, I watched the trailers and got really excited at the fact that I will get to see Raccoon City in a new light! Ever since the re-make of the first Resident Evil, I have been WANTING a re-make of Resident Evil 2 (My favorite in the series). Sadly, that dream is pretty much non-existent, but I can always hope. Anyway, then this game was about to come around and it sounded like the next best thing to a re-make of Resident Evil 2. Going through Raccoon as Umbrella Ops, taking out potential witnesses, assisting the coverup, all with 4-Player co-op, activating Mr. X, filling plot holes?!?! How could this go wrong?

Let's start with the good. The graphics do look great, and the zombies are as usual, pretty intense. Revisiting some of the familiar places from Resident Evil 2 and 3 were very nostalgic. Running through the Umbrella facility and activating Mr. X was awesome and challenging. Once that thing woke up, it was a race to the exit! You could hear his footsteps and really gave you sense of urgency...YOU HAD TO RUN! Content wise, the game was full of Resident Evil fandom. Was this enough to save it though?

Now for the bad....the freakin' control and playability. This game 'drove like a tank'! It was extremely hard to play this game. After playing 3rd person games (like Gears of War, that has stellar control), you would expect them to learn from that and perfect the controls...but they didn't. Trying to duck and cover is pretty much impossible! I end up getting shot and killed more times just trying to duck and cover. Plus there is this move where you try to dive behind cover, and it fails miserably each time. What's next, oh yea...AMMO! I know they were trying to give the 'survival' aspect in this game a good run, but you ran out of ammo WAY too much. Sometimes, you were left with your knife....oh don't even get me started on that damn knife. USELESS! You run up to a zombie or Spec Op and once your start slashing, it pretty much always misses them and you die. Guess what? Spec Ops have knives too, and they have more understanding how to use it. Once their knife touches you....YOU....ARE...EFFIN'....DEAD! That will piss you off multiple times. The thing is about broken controls, is that it will ruin a game in a matter of minutes. Just imagine Batman: Arkham City with broken controls....it would drive you nuts.

Here is that last thing...glitches. Sad, I know! I managed to get through the entire game (Cause something is wrong with me), and made it to the end. In a rather hilarious shootout sequence, where I just ran through the line of fire and reached Leon. I let the idiot live for some reason (I should have killed him out of frustration), and then....the game went silent. The game was still going, I could see mouths moving. So I checked the volume on my TV, it was all the way up! The games audio GLITCHED OUT! WTF?!?!?!?! I played this stupid game for 5 or so hours and I don't even get to enjoy the ending? I'M DONE WITH THIS CRAP!

I rarely trade my games in, but after I beat this trash heap of a game, I went to the local game store and traded it in for something better.

In the end, was Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City that bad? 1 trillion times....YES! This game sucked the big one. If you are looking for a nice nostalgic trip through Raccoon City, do yourself a favor, buy a PSX and Resident Evil 2 or 3...and play it that way. It's the only good you will feel walking the infested streets of Raccoon City again.