Launch Station: Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City

First Resident Evil Revelations for the 3DS, now Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City for the consoles and in a exactly 8 months from today, Resident Evil 6.  Resident Evil fans must be on Cloud 9 because three big Resident Evil games in one year was unheard of until now.  Now let us get right down to the preview of the Resident Evil series' return to iconic Racoon City.

Made by Slant Six Games, the developers behind the PSP SOCOM games and online only SOCOM Confrontation, Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City is set around the same time as Resident Evil 2 and 3. It is a non-canonical "what-if" scenario that has no bearing on the series overall story, which means you can kill off pivotal characters in the series such as Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield or even Jill Valentine without worry about causing a time paradox.  You play as either as one of the agents from the Umbrella Security Service (USS) set to clean up the T-Virus breakout in Racoon City or a member of Echo Six, a team from the U.S. government's special operations field unit sent to expose Umbrella's illegal operations.  You can play up to six operatives on each side each with their different skills and attributes.  You can play the main campaign either solo or cooperatively with up to three friends.  After playing through the campaign there are some multiplayer modes to dig into.  You can play Racoon Mode, which pits the USS against the US Special Ops against the zombie threat in a three-way battle royale.  There is also Heroes Mode, which allows you to play as the hero characters such as Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine, Ada Wong or HUNK to take down waves upon waves of zombies.

Ever since it was first announced close to a year ago, I had disdain for Operation Racoon City.  The last time Capcom tried to revisit Racoon City in the Outbreak spin-off series, did not go over well.  Instead of focusing on yet another spin-off of the Resident Evil series, they should put all their efforts in making Resident Evil 6 the best game it can be.  Also Resident Evil is a survival horror game at it's core, making a squad-based shooter much in the vein of SOCOM just makes it feel like every other shooter rather than a Resident Evil game.  While some might be super excited that Resident Evil has finally embraced aspects in many other shooters, being able to run and shoot in a Resident Evil game is not good enough selling point.  I am one of the few people that still think the stop-and-shoot mechanic made Resident Evil games tense affairs of just surviving by the skin of your teeth rather than a fault of the game.  Unless you are the most hardcore Resident Evil fan, which will pick this game up no matter what, really look into Operation Racoon City and figure out if it is a game you will enjoy before buying.