Top 5 things Resident Evil 6 needs

Hungry for Horror

Capcom is moving forward with Resident Evil in a number of different ways. One thing we know that they promised for the sixth game in the chronological series of games is that it will head back to its roots when it comes to giving gamers horror and suspense over straight-through action. That’s all fine and dandy, but there’s a few things that also need to stay from the fifth game when Capcom decides to release the sixth game. This list of top 5 things Resident Evil 6 needs breaks down all the important elements that will not only make RE6 a great horror game but a great action game as well.

No. 5: Moving while Firing

It wasn’t until Resident Evil: The Mercenaries for the Nintendo 3DS did strafe-firing become a possibility. Before, the Resident Evil series made it a staple in horror gaming to keep the camera’s in fixed “cinematic” positions while limiting gamers to stand-still shoot-outs. This stand-and-shoot mechanic gave most players the impression that the game was more horror-themed than what it really was. It worked well for the series in the earlier iterations, with plenty of single-wave zombies coming at you or some big boss slowly trotting your way, but as the series evolved into more of a third-person shooter the stand-and-shoot mechanic really became a dated burden.

For Resident Evil 6 it would be fantastic if, instead of just moving the series back to its horror roots, Capcom also kept many of the evolutionary features for the series such as those introduced in Residnet Evil 5 and The Mercenaries. Strafing and firing will do more than just enhance the playability; it will also give gamers (especially in co-op) a nice move-and-cover ability while they try to retreat to another area or lure a boss into a more viable position. Let’s not forget that it would be pretty awesome running into a crowd of zombies with a decked-out AK mowing them down like grass under a mower.

No. 4: More Struggling and Melee

In Resident Evil 5 gamers were continually tossed into close-quarter combat, and the only thing available for effective defense was a stun rod. The standard melee slash was also there, but it was about as useful as a politician on the beach of Normandy on D-Day. Utterly useless.

Hopefully, Capcom will include more quick-time events for melee combat since the standard melee attack was so short on range and required players to stand-still like sitting ducks.

Melee will always be a big part of the Resident Evil series, but it definitely needs to be handled better. Keeping the stun-plus-melee combo is great, but improving the struggle mechanic where players can launch a counter-offensive attack (sort of like during the final boss fight in Resident Evil 5 against Wsker) would greatly increase the thrills and tension of being bombarded by zombies.

No. 3: Dismemberment

Following on the heels of No. 4, this especially needs to return to the series. In the earlier iterations of Resident Evil, it was possible to completely dismember the zombie by blowing off arms, legs and heads. This created an awesome feeling of accomplishment and progress when facing off against some of the foes in previous Resident Evil games.

Much like Dead Space, Resident Evil 6 needs to make it a staple of the gameplay to wear down, cut off and dismember enemies. Couple this feature in with co-op and the entertainment and horror values goes up drastically, especially when you add-in the possibility of cutting off vital parts of a boss’s body in order to finally deliver that massive death blow, similar to how players had to cooperatively take down bosses in Lost Planet 2.

Let’s also not forget that one of the main reasons the shotgun become so popular in zombie culture is because of its dismembering qualities, something that the weapon lacked greatly in Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5

No. 2: Enemies That Take Damage But Don’t Die

I think this is one of the reasons a lot of people feel the Resident Evil series has veered off from being a horror title and more of an action title: everyone dies too fast. I understand lesser zombies shouldn’t require your entire ammo cache to dispatch them, but remember how in Resident Evil 2 you had to blast a zombie a couple of times or completely obliterate their noggin in order to keep them down for good? That’s what they need to bring back.

This feature also needs to be coupled in with dismemberment, so that when fighting bosses or sub-bosses, it actually feels like a challenge taking down these hard-to-beat monsters using a lot of teamwork, skill and tactics. If Capcom can find a way to toss in the Euphoria engine amongst the mix, then that would just be icing on the cake, causing enemies to unpredictibly react in ways never before seen in a Resident Evil title.

Personally, I would feel as if the series is taking an evolutionary design step by including a feature like this, especially considering that difficulty is an added reason of why some gamers felt Resident Evil 5 was a bit of a step backward from Resident Evil 4, given how easy it was by comparison.

No. 1: Zombies

Seriously, there’s nothing I’d love more than to go back to fighting zombies. Including enemies that use guns and take cover is a great alternative to add some suspense and skill change-ups for players, but good gosh, where all the zombies in the newer Resident Evil games? Let’s not forget that the original Resident Evil is what spawned zombies as cool pop-cultural bad guys in video games back in the mid-90s.

During recent Resident Evil games, the enemies have been altered into less brain-dead foes and more like rabid humans that are a cross between 28 Days Later and The Crazies.

There’s nothing wrong with the “Las Plagas” bad guys, but I would prefer if majority of the mobs in Resident Evil 6 were real zombies, where shooting them anywhere other than dead-square in the head only slowed them down. And let’s face it, how awesome would be it blasting down zombies that just keep getting back up while you race down a hallway to get to safety? That would be amazing.

Special Mention: Multi-Pathway Environments

I know this would technically make this list a “Top 6”, but that would break the internet rule of “Using Top 5 Lists To Milk Hits”. We can’t have that now, can we? Anyway, if Resident Evil 6 gave gamers multiple paths to explore or multiple routes to get to a single destination, then it could really help increase the horror factor, especially if players have to block off a certain path while they make a daring escape to get to another segment in one piece.

This feature could also create all kinds of tension, given a boss capable of freely roaming around in a area, hunting down and sniffing out players. Players would also have to stay on guard because back-tracking or taking a different route could spell instant doom. Now that’s horror.

Feel free to post comments on what you think Resident Evil 6 needs or what you’re looking forward to the most from the series below. For more info be sure to visit the Official Resident Evil Website.

References

• Resident Evil 6 Adds More Horror - Gaming Blend

  Images are from Resident Evil 5