Resident Evil Tank Control series comparison & rating.

[potato]

Hi, guys, just want to share with you guys that as of today i have finally completed all Resident Evil Tank Control series available on home consoles, and Code Veronica X was the final game in the series i have finally finished.

I played in sequence:
Outbreak 1, Outbreak 2, RE 0, RE Remake, RE 2 (GC), RE 3 (GC), RE CVX HD (PS3).

My favourite top to bottom:
No.1: RE Remake: Simply beautiful, best RE in the series with updated graphics, I played the original on PC but never finished as there was no internet to check for clues. Playing this game was one of my long time goal. It's also the scariest & one of the toughest game with Crimson Zombies & limited ammos. Man the forest (not the RPD Forest) part is so scary even in today's standard.

No.2: RE 0: I know it's actually rank lower to most players but due to the similarities in terms of graphics & controls & connections with my favourite Remake, it's my 2nd favourite in the tank series. I remember the easy part is you have a partner, the hard part is health items are hard to find & your partner keeps wasting ammo, few moments between life & death without any health items.

No.3 & 4: Outbreak 1 & 2 (tie): I know many of you guys probably twitching your eyebrow when i put Outbreak the lowest selling games of the series so high above. I only played offline, the reason i like them (and also hate them) is how easy it is for your buddies & yourself to die. It's the 1st game to introduce real time system, you cannot pause the game to manual reload your gun nor do you expect the enemies to halt while you use your 1st aid spray. The A.I. in the 1st game was so flawed it made the game much scary & tense. Ammo & Health items are so low & yet you have to share them with your 2 buddies. Item slots are much less unless you use Yoko (which i normally do). Also you don't really get powerful weapons. Most characters die quite easily. Graphic is next to Remake & Zero, cutscenes are nicely done. Re-releasing them on PSN & Xbox live for netplay is probably a good idea.

No.5: RE2 (GC): It ranks lower due to it's graphic and controls, but is the best among the older gen game. It's not as scary as the above. More of a run & gun. Lots of weapons, ammos, health. The thing is the lickers such a pain, Hunters, Nemesis aren't so hard to deal with. Little Crock's abit scary. It's the 1st game you can play as Hunk but it's so hard i never managed to clear it. BTW was it the 1st game to introduce dragging feet? Not much of a story, but not as bad as 3 & CVX...

No.6: RE3 Nemesis (GC): It's not as scary as RE2 apart from facing Nemesis, but much harder than RE2. The Nemesis is really a Menace. If you plan to defeat him, it's one of the hardest things to do in RE Franchise as you have to pump your best ammos on him. Especially the part where you have to fight him in tight spot next to the Mayor's statue. Still remember running towards his weak side? We have more outdoor this time & environment are pretty spooky, and best, we have Jill in sexy outfit, though not as sexy as the Remake costume.

No.7: RE CVX HD (PS3): Why I rank this game so low? 1st, the game is Frustrating & Scenario ridiculous. Lots of cheap deaths & game ruining moments if you played it 1st time without any guides. Hunters are tough, since it's difficult to shotgun them once they go airborne, and the fast combos & damage they deal not to say the poison they inflict, the toughest fight is the 2 red hunters in the open area after you exit the lift. It's impossible to get pass without getting a jump hit. Poison are annoying, esp the butterflies that lay eggs! Grenade rounds needs to be shot upclose (doesn't make sense), like you are shooting blobs. Shooting enemies that are not on same level is a pain. Most items doesn't make sense (door knob? Valve handles (with mismatched shape)?). The game made it so like you are playing the game over & over with similar rooms & puzzles. They gave you so much weapons & ammos yet you'll find yourself saving up ammo & health (like any other RE games) to find out you don't really have much chance to use them on other than normal zombies. No memorable boss fights. All I can remember is i simply unloaded my 2 slot weapons and down they go. The final fight was a b!tch though, with the worms, tentacles, acid & tight spot just plain cheap. Story is a mess & the Ashfords aren't anywhere a likable family. Few puzzles that's hard to figure (barcode, tiger statue), game ruining moments like "Tyrant On The Plane", Gas mask not accessible if you didn't pick up the valve handle before triggering gas leak scene. To play this game properly you'd need to know where to go, what to do, what ammo to unload on what enemy. Steve's fight & breaking the cannonball part was probably deathtrap for most of us. Cutscenes are decent, Claire is nicely drawn. The First Person part in battle mode is something new, but with infinite ammo it really lowers the difficulty to the ground, except for Wesker. Put it simply, CVX has nothing memorable other than frustration. I had to replay final Claire part so many times. Oh and did they tell you that Claire would take away weapons if she didn't leave it in the item box for Chris & you'd had to play through 90% of the game to get it back? Lucky this game gives lots of ammo & guns.

So conclusion of my ranking:

Graphics:
RE Remake > RE 0 > Outbreak 2 > Outbreak 1 > CVX HD > RE 3 > RE2

Scariness &Tension:
RE Remake > Outbreak 1 > Outbreak 2 > RE2 > RE 0 > RE 3 > CVX

Difficulty (For 1st timer without guides):
CVX > RE Remake > Outbreak 1 > Outbreak 2 > RE2 > RE3 (higher if fight Nemesis) > RE0

Favourite:
Remake > Zero > Outbreak 1 & 2 > RE2 > RE3 > CVX

But of course, the series wouldn't have made so far without the original PSOne release, which really gave me the most impact 1st time i played it.

 

[Loki]

Great reviews I agree with many of the points you made about the games but by favourites are a lot different.
In my opinion:
CVX > RE2 > REmake > RE0 > RE3 > Outbreak games.

I might br a bit biased as Claire is my favourite character

 

[Some Nights]

REmake > CVX > Outbreak > 2 > 1 (original) > 3 > 0

 

[Hel]

I like the games pretty much in the order they came out, with 1 and 2 sometimes changing positions, followed by 3, and CV as the "worst". I haven't played Outbreak so far. My thoughts:

RE1 - Even though the ridiculous script is probably the scariest part of it, and the graphics are horrible too (judging by today's standards), this game somehow manages to establish a creepy atmosphere right from the beginning. I've played through it hundreds of times, it seems, and it's still fun, especially because the various endings and other changeable aspects of the story offer a great deal of replay value. The Remake is even better with its improved script and Chris looking hotter than ever (which is, of course, the most important factor).

RE2 - Another classic, this game is RE1's most dangerous opponent when it comes to the competition for the highest rank on the list of my favourites. Graphics, sound and script have improved greatly, I like all the characters (even Leon at that point), the locations are beautifully designed and rich in variety, and the story is quite interesting too, if only because of the interactions and relationships between the characters which are more complicated than in its predecessor. For the first time, we get to know characters like Ada and Annette, who are neither good nor bad, and once again, there's a lot of replay value by introducing A and B scenarios for each character, unfortunately not as much as in the first game.

RE3 - The one that caught my attention by the time I had never heard of RE before, the one I was looking forward to the most before playing it, and the one that disappointed me the most. Not that it's a bad game, it's alright, but not quite what I had expected. The constant threat of Nemesis is a great addition, but the story is lame, the characters are forgettable, the gameplay suffers a lot from backtracking between Uptown and Downtown and Whatevertown all the time, and the live selection sequences are not as great as they sound. Almost no replay value here, unless you want to go through the trouble of unlocking every single epilogue file (or costume in the console versions). This game would have been better off as a spin-off, with Code Veronica taking its place as Resident Evil 3.

CV - Very memorable, in both ways. The story is one of the best so far, so is the music, and the cast consists mostly of my favourite characters, on the good as well as on the bad side. However, the graphics are very annoying with that ugly grey fog covering the otherwise beautiful scenery, and if you thought RE3's backtracking was bad, this game will really throw you into despair - only that this time it's much easier to get lost. I spent most of the time running from one foggy grey corridor into the next, roughly aware of what I was probably supposed to do, but unable to find the right place to do so. The game is also horribly difficult and, unlike the others, doesn't allow you to modify the difficulty setting (not my version, at least). Replay value is completely gone, the only thing to unlock is the Battle Game which you get after completing story mode for the first time. CV is the only game in the series I've only played once so far.