I have played a great number of bad games in my time. Probably more than the average person certainly. But generally speaking; I either play ten minutes and can’t play anymore or just muddle through and deal with it. Strangely neither of these games fell into either of these categories. What makes me more upset about both of these games than the average bad game; is that they both should really have been better.
First, Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City. A wonderful concept, a group of black ops Umbrella operatives that go into Raccoon City to try and clean up all trace of their involvement in the incident with the T-Virus. The implementation is much less wonderful. While leveling your particular party member up is pretty easy. The actual leveling doesn’t do too much for you. It doesn’t make your bullets more powerful or give you more health. Which are really the only things that WOULD help in this game. The goal of the game is simply survival. Get from one checkpoint to the next, as quickly as possible without dying. That’s it.
The game plays like something out of the PS2 era. Where the developers didn’t have enough memory to have descent A.I., environments, or boss battles. I don’t really mind things like enemy bullet sponges, challenging shooter sequences, or even a really good survival horror game with limited ammo. But what I don’t like are unfinished games. Which is really what Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City is. Or the game isn’t anywhere near ambitious enough. Either way, the game is terrible. Even being able to play the online modes or coop doesn’t help. Because the problems in the game are so universal; fixing one thing isn’t going to help the game. There are invisible walls, ally characters that wander around rather than shoot at anything or heal anyone, there is a serious lack of direction on the game’s part as to what you must ACTUALLY do to proceed.
This is definitely a case of too little story, too few cutscenes, and implementation so lackluster that it borders on technological ignorance. I don’t know why Slant Six Games made the choices they did; but I can say this: This is the worst game I’ve played this generation since Warhammer Battle March back in 2008. I certainly didn’t see half the potential in that game that there is here. I wish they would have taken more time, money, and perhaps hired some good QA because no one would have signed off on this mess.
Next, we have Ninja Gaiden 3. Only slightly better than Operation Raccoon City.
The latest episode in Ryu Hyabusa’s saga comes from a Team Ninja that is without the creator of the modern series. While it has been insisted to everyone that this will change nothing. This certainly hasn’t been the case. The unfortunate thing about this game is not that they have tried to bring the game to a broader audience but that they took quite a few steps back from the last Ninja Gaiden to do it. There are lots of quicktime events; which isn’t a big deal. But the fact that there is only one weapon and few combos with that weapon are. The typical Ninja Gaiden has you finding weapons , buying weapons, ninja magic, etc… It’s usually part RPG and part Action game. Each weapon has different attacks and combos associated with it. The games are somewhat complicated in this area but usually nothing unusual.
Similarly to the other games, you are put in an arena of enemies and Ryu is tasked to eliminate them all. The difference is that in this game, all the enemies hit you with cheap attacks that are locked in animations rather than counter-able attacks. Ryu himself has a bad tendency to get locked into animations like aiming his bow or doing a jumping attack combo. But unlike the enemies he can be knocked out of these. Which is inconsistent to say the least. For some reason shoulder mounted rockets are also involved a bit too much. I’m not entirely sure that if I was trying to kill some one I would shoot them with an RPG. Especially when all my comrades are standing around them. What would the over/under be on hitting him versus one of my colleagues.
The whole killing innocents thing is kind of ridiculous considering these are the same guys who were shooting you two seconds ago. All of the cutscenes seem badly placed and while the game obviously wants it to be about the story; the story is so jumbled and unimportant to what is going on. Which is basically just killing an arena of guys or an odd boss that the lack of anything to mix things up or diversify the experience makes the game quickly unplayable and pointless. There doesn’t seem to be any thought to how many guys to throw in. Or how many parts to the boss battle there needs to be. The thinking is that there just be as many as possible. Perhaps the memory dictated this or some other under the hood process.
I’m a big fan of the Ninja Gaiden Franchise and I’m still a big fan of Tomonobu Itagaki who’s touch in this game is sorely lacking considering he quit Team Ninja. I’m not saying that such a things as Team Ninja games without him are doomed to fail or bad out of hand. But what I will say is that if this game is a representation of their work without him, I’m not interested in Dead or Alive 5.
Let me conclude by saying that the previous were not reviews of Operation Raccoon City or Ninja Gaiden 3; because combined I only have around 8 hours invested. And I couldn’t stomach finishing either game. Both games could have been great. But for whatever reason they aren’t even really playable.
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