Resident Evil 6: Screw the hate, this game was fun... with the proviso that it be played co-op at night with the lights turned off. And that by "game" I mean "Leon & Helena chapters" so the fun part of the game is shortish. It's not survival horror, but that's okay by me, survival horror is too stressful; it's a co-op action shooter where you get all your health back if you die, so less carefully keeping track of typewriter ribbons and heals, more shooting a giant zombie shark chasing you down a water pipe connected to the cathedral catacombs which are also an evil zombie lab where all the scientists / guards have once more turned into zombies, as per usual. (I can only imagine how much salaries & life insurance are in the field of zombieology, considering the survival rate.) The co-op is well done: a good mix of standard combat where you can support each other normally, forced split-up sections where you're expected to "help" your partner in some way, and forced split-up sections where both characters have their own independent objective that you run off to complete.
Allegedly the Chris chapters are horrible, and the Sherry/Jake chapters were certainly weaker from what we played of 'em (C1-C2, wherin we racked up more deaths snowmobiling through an avalanche than the L/H campaign combined, and it includes some just plain slow encounters, like with the giant monsters that Chris also fights. Fighting giant monsters should not be boring.)... but yeah, whatever, I just won't play the Chris chapters ever, I'll take a short & good game over a longer game with horrible sections. Hey, the chapters are all skippable for a reason, I figure.
Anyway, to talk too much about RE plot is to court madness, especially when I haven't played all the chapters, but as a few random comments:
* Does every vehicle Leon touches explode? I think maybe 1 makes it to its destination vaguely safely, while the other 14 don't.
* On the same note, I think 97% of all random civilians you see are there strictly so that they can be slaughtered or turned to zombies and attack you. Tsk, I think the right proportion is more like 80%, surprise us sometimes by occasionally letting them live. Weird, I know.
* I commend the town of Tall Oaks on either its fine evacuation procedures or its love of mass transit. Apparently only 70,000 people get zombified in the downtown, yet an entire NYC-ripoff subway system exists! Either this is a small town of <200K that nevertheless appreciates the importance of subways, or else they actually managed to save most of the people. Well done!
* Although, on that note, I have no idea why they decided to chop the game up temporally and make it multiple incidents. Isn't zombifying a major American city enough fodder for the plot of, like, multiple games? Why do we need to visit more places that also get zombie outbreaks? Kinda makes it less special.
* Kudos to RE6 plot at using an airborne zombie virus to explain the situation, as it actually makes way more sense to explain a sudden zombie outbreak situation than basically any other explanation, especially the "biting zombie horde" scenario. I have no freaking idea why Leon & Helena weren't infected though, despite being near the stuff constantly, yet apparently are vulnerable in the China arc rather than simply decreeing they're immune, Sherry / Jake style.
* L&H's villain, Simmons, is totally ludicrous and freaking Umbrella might possibly make more sense than his motives, and he totally should have been betrayed by anybody who knew anything at any point in the plot, but whatever, zombie T-Rex. But next time, guys, skip the government conspiracy that makes no sense and just stick to "insane dude thinks zombies are awesome, releases zombie juice and gives self zombie ultimate power injection, gogogogo."
* Of the new characters, I actually rather liked Helena. She got to do more of the parkour crazy jumps that were just barely plausible if you were in tip-top shape and had not been fighting zombies recently but hey it's awesome anyway. Jake, uh, they were obviously trying a tad TOO hard to make him "cool." Maybe they deflate him a tad more in his later chapters. Anyway, I'm sure Capcom would have had to deal with fanboy rage if they'd romantically paired Leon & Helena up, alas, so everything will stay the same and safe.
Tales of Xillia
Okay, this is more "What Games Are You Buying." Got the last copy at 20 bucks at GameStop's Black Friday event.
Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies:
APOLLO: This folding screen holds the secret of the Forbidden Chamber - I'm sure of it! Let me just examine it more closely...
APOLLO: (Hmm, maybe I should check the transcript, too.)
ATHENA: Apollo? You okay there? Apollo? Apolloooooooooooooo!
G A M E O V E R
Defeated in the freaking investigation section of PW, sigh, forcing a reload to the beginning of the day. At least you can apparently B-cancel through text that the game thinks you've never read. Weird, too, since DD is actually very good about letting you skip to any section of the case you want in its start-up options - but not finely sliced enough for getting around the ol' stylus the transcript icon to randomly crash the game trap. Oh, well.
