How far did you get: Finished all 4 campaigns
Few games are more frustrating than those that have potential, and Resident Evil 6 is one of those games. This game is almost good. It isn't good, but thanks to some broken camera controls, character controls, and some really batty design choices, this game doesn't quite reach the level of it's predecessors, or a good game for that matter.
Let's start with the presentation. The first thing you're going to want to do when starting up Resident Evil 6 is completely ignore it's recommendations regarding lighting. If you decide to follow the games directions instead of turning them all the way up, you're going to spend a good portion of 2 of the campaigns running around in a world you can't see. Not only will you die a lot by enemies you didn't even know were there, you won't be able to admire the fact that the visuals in this game are actually top notch. Resident Evil 6 is incredibly nice to look at, and easily one of the best looking games of 2012, or even this console generation.
While cranking up the lighting helps, it doesn't fix all of the visual issues. In one campaign, you'll spend your time running around in a blizzard. For seconds at a time, the snow will start blowing really badly and you can't see anything. When this happens, you're not supposed to be able to see, and I get that. However, when it's not happening, you still can't see. I spent a couple of hours in this area trying to figure out where to go, and it was not fun.
Things get shaken up a bit when it comes to gameplay, as each campaign in slightly different, so I'll talk about each one separately.
Leon's campaign is best described as the classic Resident Evil campaign. The majority of the enemies you'll fight are run of the mill zombies, and variations of those zombies. The problem with Leon's campaign is that most of it takes place in underground passages and water areas. It's dark everywhere, and due to their not being much room to move around, the poor camera controls pretty much ruin the entire experience. If something gets behind you, prepare to spend about 10 seconds getting turned around and getting your gun aimed in the right place. Several of the more useful abilities your character has require you to do some finger yoga with your controller. With the exception of several instant death quick time events, Leon's campaign was painfully easy despite it's broken mechanics, and overall was absolutely zero fun to play.
Chris' campaign made a little more sense regarding the controls. The game itself plays like a broken 3rd person shooter, and Chris' campaign at least feels more like a 3rd person shooter. You'll fight an enemy type called the J'Avo in this campaign. They're gun toting infected people who have much smarter AI than what you were dealing with in Leon's campaign. Unfortunately, much like Leon's campaign, you don't really go anywhere terribly interesting and controls still suck the fun right out of the experience.
The third campaign, starring Jake Muller, is actually much more interesting in terms of locations. You get a real variety here, and Jake is much more well rounded than Leon or Chris are. You'll likely never have any ammo issues with Jake, as you can use his fists as an actual weapon. Other characters can use melee attacks as well, but Jake can do it without using your stamina bar. He also has a decent collection of guns to grab. As with the other campaigns, control issues run rampant. The camera becomes your worst enemy with this melee bruiser, as it tends to jump all over the place while your trying to beat down your enemies. It takes an otherwise interesting campaign and makes you wonder why you're still playing this complete lack of fun.
Fortunately, the fourth campaign not only manages to be the best of them all, but may have actually made for a pretty good overall experience had it been the only campaign. Here you play as Ada Wong, a person you'll be familiar with if you've played the other 3 campaigns, or other Resident Evil games. Her story trumps the other campaigns by a pretty large margin. Ada's campaign is more of a personal nature than the others, and it makes you feel a bit more for your character. In addition, it manages to turn these broken mechanics into something that actually works. She uses a hook shot type gun to fly all over the map, and strangely I still never felt lost. She occasionally even uses it in battle, and it actually adds to the experience. It's a blast when an infected chainsaw wielding creature comes at you, only for you to hook onto a nearby building and end up on the other side of him. It's kind of a "ha ha, you can't catch me" kind of moment.
Probably the biggest highlight of Resident Evil 6 is the boss fights. Every one of them is extraordinarily epic. It was a bit disappointing that Ada ends up fighting alongside Leon to attack the same final boss you fight in Leon's campaign, but it was still nice to get a different perspective on the fight. Each fight has particular game mechanics you need to take advantage of, and if you don't figure them out fast enough, you're dead. I took these as learning experiences and didn't find it to take away from fights. Autosave spots are very frequent in this game, so you never have to play through too much of the game multiple times due to unfair deaths.
Overall, I'd only recommend this to hardcore fans of the series. For the most part, it's a broken 3rd person shooter that isn't even sure it wants to be one. It's far too long for a game that is rarely fun, and no amount of gorgeous visuals and epic set pieces is going to change that.
Rating: 41/100
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