Resident Lost Evil Planet.
I was worried from first glance that Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City might play too similarly to something like Left4Dead, and after playing it, I was proven pretty much right. Except I'm not as worried anymore. ORC is a third-person shooter with zombies in it, driven by checkpoints and blasts of zombie and monster-swarming goodness, and awesome If you're into that sort of thing.
The world looks great, with fine details on everything from character models to the piles of rubble dotting the urban landscape. It might be the darkness and the not-quite-finished feeling the demo had, but the look isn't extraordinary or terribly unique. Polished, yes, but it doesn't stand out as anything that hasn't been seen before. Of course, this is Raccoon Ctiy and we've been here before. Hopefully, the finished story will make the difference as very little was explained in the demo, apart from Umbrella Corp's attempt to cover up what happened in the city during the zombie invasion.
It becomes clear from the gameplay that it's much faster and more pick-up-and-play than the other Resident Evil titles. You can quickly execute brutal kills on zombies, use green herbs off the ground for immediate health, and fire off rifle rounds in fast succession. Mowing down the infected is a simple task, but getting surrounded is never good, especially if you're facing a combination of zombies and police officers. Going into the red also means that the infected will catch your scent faster. So it's usually better to run to your next objective.
Multiple characters with different strengths are available for play, like the medic Bertha and the explosives expert Beltway, or you can do what I did and go into the zombie world guns-a-blazing. Some will grab you, some will just smack you around, one will take you with his tongue (*cough*Left4Dead*cough*). Though the limited demo felt like something we've all played before, the potential of four-player cooperative play and the yet unrevealed story will likely make the game stand out from the rest of the pack.
Look for Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City on March 20, , and we'll see just how evil Raccoon City can be. Watch your ammo, soldier!
