Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

as a Resident Evil fan who could never get the classic "tank" controls, I had high hopes for Operation Raccoon City. Unfortunately, it's a giant mess.

1) AI partners are brain dead morons. They will run into walls, run into your gunfire, run into fire, and die a lot. They also rarely heal themselves or you.

2) even on casual, enemies feel like cheap overpowered bullet sponges

3) AI cannot revive you, so if you aren't playing multiplayer be prepared to see "You Are Dead" on screen constantly.

4) glitches aplenty

5) pressing the A button while sprinting will make your character dive awkwardly to the ground, which gets real irritating real fast when you want to grab a green herb to heal

6) just feels unpolished

7) unable to upgrade mid-level

Slant 6's unique take on RE plants you in the shoes of the enemies you normally kill. You're gonna want to rent/buy RE:ORC for the 4P co-op campaign and 4-8P online MP modes...simple as that. There are 6 unique characters for you to develop, and here's a brief description of each classe abilities:

The ASSAULT class gives you damage boosts & body armor and give improved power and aim. SURVEILLENCE allows you to see enemies, secrets, and zombies on a radar along with spotting thru walls. RECON is about stealth, camoflauge, quietness and moving fast. MEDIC can carry more sprays and resists, spawns with health, etc. SCIENTIST can poison others, resist poison, see enemy weakspots. DEMOLITION is ammune to explosives and can plant trip mines & wires, etc.

These deep and customizable classes all carry over XP through every single mode. So you really have 6 guys to completely level up and experiment with new strategies. BUT....if you don't have human allies to play with during co-op, the campaign takes a dive. Some boss battles are brutal.

Good thing the multiplayer is good, and that was my favorite part. Each mode like team attack (TDM), bio-hazard (Capture flag), etc. have maps filled with zombies also... So you have to avoid/kill zombies, but also kill the other team's members. So the strategy of when to shoot, when to kill or run from a zombie, etc. are awesome.

The addition of the team attack mode alone made this game worth it's weight. Do you shoot a swarm of zombies to give away your spot on the radar, or try to run away? Do you sprint (which gives away your position) or do you creep like a zombie to blend in? You can also choose from like 50 guns also, so you can run'n gun or snipe or shotgun in camoflauge.

Slant 6 more than delivered a solid third-person shooter, but RE fanboys will cry no doubt at the significant changes here and lack of any RE plot. Just wait for RE6 already in dev. to get that.

Milt Drucker
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