Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (abbreviated ORC in this review), is a third-person, tactical, squad, multiplayer shooter developed by the former SOCOM developer team of Slant Six. Also, it marks the first Resident Evil game developed outside Capcom, and more specifically, in Canada. Capcom wanted to reach a broader audience with this game, and introduce it to the Resident Evil franchise. With Resident Evil: Revelations' release earlier this year, Capcom also wanted to bring together old fans of the series, to unite them with the new ORC audience, and prepare them all for the upcoming October 2nd release of Resident Evil 6.
Enough with the trivia. Let's get on with the game itself. The familiar third-person, over-the-shoulder view of the majority of this generation's third-person shooters is how you will view the world in ORC. You control one soldier, out of possible six, and in each mission, you may choose up to 4 (yourself included) to deploy in battle. Each soldier represents a class, and has the corresponding abilities, which are broken down in 2 passive and 3 active abilities, with only 1 active ability available per mission. Between missions, you may upgrade those abilities, and change your active one so that it better suits your needs. The available soldier/classes are: Soldier, Recon, Demolition, Medic, Field Scientist, Surveillance. Although they share no common abilities between them, Slant Six thought they'd give some flexibility to them, so there's absolutely no restriction to what type of guns each class can carry, but the type of grenades you spawn with are restricted. For example, the Recon class spawns with 2 frags and 2 stun grenades, whereas the Demolition class spawns with 2 frags and 2 incendiaries. As it is partly a cover shooter, as well, there's a Cover System implemented in the game - a rather controversial one, too. Controversial, because it automatically sticks the player to the piece of cover should they touch it; that is partially true. After all the player rage or simple dissatisfaction I encountered since the game's release, I've worked on finding some workarounds that might help people. For this, I found that you will only ever stick if you push the analog stick firmly towards the wall. If you push it at "walk speed", you will never, ever stick to it. The system is by no means perfect, nor is it horrible, it just takes some time to get used to, and it helps if you keep this little trick in mind.
Each class also has the ability to use a knife in CQC, and also has 2 special moves with it. When an enemy has sustained enough damage, they will be able to be killed instantly, with a flashy, gory finishing move. One of those two moves is shared between all the classes, and depends on the environment. For example, if executed almost touching a wall, your character will grab the enemy by the head and smash it onto said wall. This move is executed by meleeing your enemy, and pressing the Action button when their health is low enough; and it only works on humanoid enemies. The other move they have, is exclusive to each character, and is executed in the same way, but instead of Action, players must press the Ability button.
Earlier, I mentioned upgrades, and guns. The game features purchasable guns, split into categories, and features a handful of guns for each one. There are the Assault Rifles, the SMGs, the LMGs, the Shotguns, and the Sniper Rifles. These make up your potential arsenal choices for your primary weapon, but that's not all, since the players also have a handgun as a secondary weapon. Signature Resident Evil weapons like the Samurai Edge and the Lightning Hawk are able to be purchased and used by the players, and they pack quite a punch. All these guns, along with Ability upgrades, are acquired through the spending of XP acquired during missions, or online play. Those guns come with no unlimited ammo, though. Ammunition is spread across the game, either in tin ammo boxes, big, military ammo chests, or random, small ammounts of ammo from enemies. Same goes for grenades; they're either in the world, or appear as random drop from enemies you've killed.
Enough with the trivia. Let's get on with the game itself. The familiar third-person, over-the-shoulder view of the majority of this generation's third-person shooters is how you will view the world in ORC. You control one soldier, out of possible six, and in each mission, you may choose up to 4 (yourself included) to deploy in battle. Each soldier represents a class, and has the corresponding abilities, which are broken down in 2 passive and 3 active abilities, with only 1 active ability available per mission. Between missions, you may upgrade those abilities, and change your active one so that it better suits your needs. The available soldier/classes are: Soldier, Recon, Demolition, Medic, Field Scientist, Surveillance. Although they share no common abilities between them, Slant Six thought they'd give some flexibility to them, so there's absolutely no restriction to what type of guns each class can carry, but the type of grenades you spawn with are restricted. For example, the Recon class spawns with 2 frags and 2 stun grenades, whereas the Demolition class spawns with 2 frags and 2 incendiaries. As it is partly a cover shooter, as well, there's a Cover System implemented in the game - a rather controversial one, too. Controversial, because it automatically sticks the player to the piece of cover should they touch it; that is partially true. After all the player rage or simple dissatisfaction I encountered since the game's release, I've worked on finding some workarounds that might help people. For this, I found that you will only ever stick if you push the analog stick firmly towards the wall. If you push it at "walk speed", you will never, ever stick to it. The system is by no means perfect, nor is it horrible, it just takes some time to get used to, and it helps if you keep this little trick in mind.
Each class also has the ability to use a knife in CQC, and also has 2 special moves with it. When an enemy has sustained enough damage, they will be able to be killed instantly, with a flashy, gory finishing move. One of those two moves is shared between all the classes, and depends on the environment. For example, if executed almost touching a wall, your character will grab the enemy by the head and smash it onto said wall. This move is executed by meleeing your enemy, and pressing the Action button when their health is low enough; and it only works on humanoid enemies. The other move they have, is exclusive to each character, and is executed in the same way, but instead of Action, players must press the Ability button.
Earlier, I mentioned upgrades, and guns. The game features purchasable guns, split into categories, and features a handful of guns for each one. There are the Assault Rifles, the SMGs, the LMGs, the Shotguns, and the Sniper Rifles. These make up your potential arsenal choices for your primary weapon, but that's not all, since the players also have a handgun as a secondary weapon. Signature Resident Evil weapons like the Samurai Edge and the Lightning Hawk are able to be purchased and used by the players, and they pack quite a punch. All these guns, along with Ability upgrades, are acquired through the spending of XP acquired during missions, or online play. Those guns come with no unlimited ammo, though. Ammunition is spread across the game, either in tin ammo boxes, big, military ammo chests, or random, small ammounts of ammo from enemies. Same goes for grenades; they're either in the world, or appear as random drop from enemies you've killed.
Thank you tons!
Signature, name, avatar, PSN ID, it's pretty obvious I think 
