Resident Evil is one of the most successful franchises developed by Capcom. Heck, I think it's THE most successful Capcom franchise. The series pretty much defined "survival horror" back in the day, though modern games in the series focus more on action now. And Resident Evil 6 is no exception. Y'know, I have to say; this game seems pretty dang ambitious. I mean, you have arguably the two most popular RE characters, Chris Redfield and Leon Scott Kennedy, in the same game. That alone will have copies flying off shelves. There's also the mysterious (fan-favorite, I might add) Ada Wong, who is as sexy and smooth as always. And let's not forget Sherry Birkin, the 12 year old girl from Resident Evil 2, who is now a 27 year old D.S.O. Agent and a playable character alongside the brand new character known as Jake Muller, who carries a deadly secret that even he is unaware of.

Now, I'm pleasantly surprised with the graphics. They're pretty dang good. The framerate is smooth and the cutscenes are just beautiful. I'll give Capcom credit for that. The zombies look great, the new C-Virus created J'avo monsters are awesome, and the people (at least, in the cutscenes) look really realistic. Y'know, for a game all about zombies and other spectacular beasts. Now, you wanna ask me about sound? Well, the sound effects, like the moaning of zombies, the J'avo roars, the screams of dying innocents, the fires in the background, and the voice acting in particular are all great. I wish I could say the same for the music though. I literally don't remember a single song from that game. It's almost as if there's no soundtrack! Almost. The only song I remember is the cheesy song that plays at the end of Jake's campaign, but I won't say anything about that.

Now, normal people would play multiplayer or something after they're done with this game. There's co-op campaign, and then there's some online modes, like The Mercenaries. That's cool, but I'm just not a multiplayer kind of guy. I really am the kind of person who just plays a game and doesn't play it anymore. Only in rare occasions do I play a multiplayer, like Assassin's Creed III or Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, but even then, I only play for a few matches, and then the games just sit on my shelves, waiting to be played again.

But I think the most important aspect in modern retail games is the story. And well...the story is okay, I guess. I mean, it may sound impressive when you hear that the game's around 20 hours or so, but just do the math. Alright, the game has four campaigns. Each campaign has five chapters. Each chapter is about an hour long. So when you do the math...yeah. It's not that special. Even though it is pretty neat to see how each campaign intertwines with the other, there's nothing that deep about it. To me, it sincerely feels like Capcom put more work in the predecessor, Resident Evil 5, than this game, though I'm probably just being an irrational jerk right now. Though I'm not going to spoil anything, I'm just going to say that the story's not as impressive as it seems when you really look at it. From what you're supposed to know, a mysterious organization called Neo-Umbrella (how it's related to the Umbrella Corporation from previous games is part of the mystery), and how it develops the C-Virus, and our heroes, Leon Scott Kennedy, Helena Harper, Chris Redfield, Piers Nivans, Jake Muller, Sherry Birkin, and Ada Wong, all have to stop the bad guys and stuff like that.

Now, despite what I said about the campaigns being pretty short, I'm actually a bit impressed by what they have to offer though. I mean, the Leon campaign focuses more on horror (though it's still not scary or even suspenseful), with classic zombies wanting to eat your guts, and the silent darkness everywhere. The Chris campaign focuses on action, as the J'avo enemies have guns, so it's almost like a war game. Almost. The Jake campaign has a nice blend of stealth, puzzles, a tad bit of hand-to-hand combat stuff. The Ada campaign is extremely similar to the Jake campaign, except here, Ada's all by herself, so you don't have a partner to drag along, and no unique hand-to-hand combat. Heck, while Leon and Chris have their knife and Jake has his fists, Ada actually doesn't have anything to defend herself with if she runs out of ammo, last I checked.

Now, on Normal mode, the game's pretty hard. It's like in the original games; barely any ammo, powerful foes, and other situations. However, on Amateur mode, the game's a breeze. I have to admit, I'm pleased with Capcom's decision to make their RE games challenging again, assuming they're going to stick with this. I mean, Resident Evil 5 (I don't actually remember if that game had a difficulty setting) was pretty dang easy. But RE6 is actually genuinely challenging. Reminds me of how their older games were pretty hard too. I mean, not even the older Resident Evil games, but also Capcom's older games in general, like Devil May Cry 3, the Ace Attorney series, the entire Mega Man franchise, and more, though now I'm rambling now, aren't I?

Overall, the game's not bad by any means, but it's certainly not the best game of 2012. The game doesn't really know what it wants to be, so it tries to provide more, but in the end, the campaigns weren't long enough to be anything worthwhile. If you want a mindless shooter, play something like Call of Duty: Black Ops II or Halo 4. If you want bang for your buck, play Assassin's Creed III, Sleeping Dogs, or Mass Effect 3. I really only recommend this to Resident Evil fans to be honest, since it seems this game is directed at that sort of audience. In the end, I just hope that they do a better job with Resident Evil 7. There was promise for the new characters, but it seems we'll have to wait for future titles to see...