Raccoon City Reunion
Of zombie gang bangs and group aerosol spray-downs...
Published: February 10, 2012
Ok, I'm going to level with you. I kinda sorta hate multiplayer shooters. Third person, first person...it doesn't matter. This is, more likely than anything else, due to my astounding lack of skill in them, but I have my other reasons too. My main gripe is that, at the highest levels, it's simply feels like a joust to me. Two groups of people gallop down their side of a mostly symmetrical map and once they spot each other, whoever places the reticle and presses "fire" first wins. The winner trots on as the loser resets for another go around. Repeat. Snore.
However, not all multiplayer shooters can be so easily pigeonholed into such a description. I think Team Fortress 2 showed how fun and engaging a multiplayer shooter can be when it's designed to compel players to do something other than snipe me from across the map while yelling "BOOM HEADSHOT!!!" into their mic. It accomplishes this by asking players to choose one of several distinct classes, each of which is both extremely limited in some ways, while being overwhelmingly good in others. While it works very well, it's only one of many methods for a developer to toy with.
That's why I was excited to get the opportunity to go hands-on with Capcom and Slant Six's Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City this past week. I'll admit that I groaned loudly when I heard about the project for the first time. I mean, c'mon right? Who turns a slow paced, atmospheric, single player survival horror game into a squad based multiplayer third-person shooter? I was all ready to write it off as another case of the military shooter craze leading a developer to inject multiplayer into things it has no business being injected into.
That was, until I heard more about the game's mechanics. See, when you play multi in Raccoon City you aren't simply fighting the opposing team, you're also fighting a ravenous horde of zombies. The thing about zombies is, they really haven't got a single spare fuck to give about what team you're on because your brains taste the same regardless. Throw in ideas like the risk of being infected, the possibility of a Hunter or Tyrant crashing the party, and all the usual class based shenanigans of a modern shooter, and suddenly it starts sounding like a game I'd like to play. I showed up to my hands on appointment eager to dig in.
I got to sample all four multiplayer modes, starting with team attack, which is essentially just a straight team deathmatch that goes until one team reaches the kill quota. While in the pre-game lobby I was given the chance to select a character and a load out to take into combat. Each character has 2 passive abilities and 3 active ones to chose from, but you can only bring one of the 3 active abilities into a given match. In keeping with genre conventions, you also get to select primary and secondary firearms. All this should be familiar to anyone who's played a multiplayer shooter in the last few years. I love playing support style classes so I chose the medic for my first time out.
My team and I spawned inside a building and started to get our bearings. As we explored we would run into the odd zombie and instinctively open fire. I mean, years of conditioning has taught us that you're supposed to do that, right? But once I got outside of the building and into the courtyard, I realized the problem with that.
There are more zombies than I have bullets.
There's just no feasible way to kill every zombie you see in a match. Even if you could, don't worry, there are little elf zombies in a nearby workshop making more. Don't bother. I learned this the hard way when I sprayed and prayed myself a swathe right through the center of the zombie horde on the way to the opposing team's building. By the time there was a human opponent in my sights, I had fewer bullets left in my clip than fingers on my hands. Lets just say that firefight didn't go well.
However, not all multiplayer shooters can be so easily pigeonholed into such a description. I think Team Fortress 2 showed how fun and engaging a multiplayer shooter can be when it's designed to compel players to do something other than snipe me from across the map while yelling "BOOM HEADSHOT!!!" into their mic. It accomplishes this by asking players to choose one of several distinct classes, each of which is both extremely limited in some ways, while being overwhelmingly good in others. While it works very well, it's only one of many methods for a developer to toy with.
That's why I was excited to get the opportunity to go hands-on with Capcom and Slant Six's Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City this past week. I'll admit that I groaned loudly when I heard about the project for the first time. I mean, c'mon right? Who turns a slow paced, atmospheric, single player survival horror game into a squad based multiplayer third-person shooter? I was all ready to write it off as another case of the military shooter craze leading a developer to inject multiplayer into things it has no business being injected into.
That was, until I heard more about the game's mechanics. See, when you play multi in Raccoon City you aren't simply fighting the opposing team, you're also fighting a ravenous horde of zombies. The thing about zombies is, they really haven't got a single spare fuck to give about what team you're on because your brains taste the same regardless. Throw in ideas like the risk of being infected, the possibility of a Hunter or Tyrant crashing the party, and all the usual class based shenanigans of a modern shooter, and suddenly it starts sounding like a game I'd like to play. I showed up to my hands on appointment eager to dig in.
I got to sample all four multiplayer modes, starting with team attack, which is essentially just a straight team deathmatch that goes until one team reaches the kill quota. While in the pre-game lobby I was given the chance to select a character and a load out to take into combat. Each character has 2 passive abilities and 3 active ones to chose from, but you can only bring one of the 3 active abilities into a given match. In keeping with genre conventions, you also get to select primary and secondary firearms. All this should be familiar to anyone who's played a multiplayer shooter in the last few years. I love playing support style classes so I chose the medic for my first time out.
My team and I spawned inside a building and started to get our bearings. As we explored we would run into the odd zombie and instinctively open fire. I mean, years of conditioning has taught us that you're supposed to do that, right? But once I got outside of the building and into the courtyard, I realized the problem with that.
There are more zombies than I have bullets.
There's just no feasible way to kill every zombie you see in a match. Even if you could, don't worry, there are little elf zombies in a nearby workshop making more. Don't bother. I learned this the hard way when I sprayed and prayed myself a swathe right through the center of the zombie horde on the way to the opposing team's building. By the time there was a human opponent in my sights, I had fewer bullets left in my clip than fingers on my hands. Lets just say that firefight didn't go well.
