Resident Evil Resistance is frustrating more than anything else. The odds are completely unfair and the game mechanics are so unbalanced it can be rage inducing. So I am finding myself asking this question! Why did I keep playing it for 16 hours, and why do I want more of it?
Resident Evil Resistance is a weird game. I like the concept and the execution is moderate but I have a feeling this game is as good as Fallout 76 is.
Playing as a member of a group of four, trying desperately to survive in the resident evil universe with the fifth player being the evil mastermind of course, is quite satisfying on paper! In reality, it is a ton of fun IF you are playing it with friends! Having your mates on Discord and absolutely creasing about everything as the adrenaline builds in every fiber of your muscle, not seeing the screen because of a tear of joy you got in your eye, after your mate relentlessly screamed into the microphone on the other end when “Bob” playing as the manipulator set the perfect trap that completely whooped your team mate. Those moments are absolutely amazing!
HOWEVER
These moments rely on too many variables… Firstly, you need 5 mates you know well at any given time. Secondly, you will need a stable internet connection to play without any lag or any other game braking issues that may occur due to slow and sloppy internet. Thirdly, the game needs to not crash mid-game which it has three times last night! These are just the main criteria you will need to enjoy the game! Playing the game with strangers is frustrating as hell and that’s putting it lightly! The game itself is frustrating like hell also if I think about it! The only good thing about it is you get to play with your mates and laugh at stupid things… Now you understand the Fallout 76 reference.
I have been playing resident evil resistance for about 16 hours now, and I have realised the game has major flaws! Not bugs per se, but literal game mechanics and features embedded in the game that one might even consider someone hacked it if they didn’t know any better!
The survivors here are naturally at a major disadvantage! There is no doubt about that! Ammo is scarce, the mastermind is way too OP in almost every aspect, and survival is absolutely stressful if you fail to find the humour in it. Zombies are everywhere, dogs attack from all angles, there are other Resident Evil 3 Monsters, and all of them are just as durable as in the main game, but there is just way more of them! On top of all that there is a very harsh time limit the group of protagonists will need to face, and not only that, but everything bad or negative that happens to you or your team mate, you get a time penalty of -5, -10 even -30 seconds! Now let me just remind the dear reader, that this is a Resident Evil game we are talking about! You will be constantly chewed up on by zombies and dogs and all sorts of creatures, and you know this very well if you played any of the games, or saw any gameplay footage! Each zombie takes minimum 3 shots to the head, and there’s loads of them everywhere, top that with dogs, and with the plant monsters, and the other bio-weapons present placed by the evil mastermind, all the odds are against you and the punishment is just way too harsh making the whole experience, unfair, cheap and hair pulling frustrating!
Now imagine all this I just said, while not playing with your friends! You’re playing with random people, who all do their own things… You’ll want to throw your keyboard across the room! So yeah… Play with your friends, mate! It will save you money, as you won’t have to replace any furniture in your room!
This also brings the broken feeling of the game, that you can’t turn it around! If you’re having a bad start no matter how skilled you are it can only get worse as all the odds are already stacked against you! There is no epic moment where the team comes out victorious after suffering a beat down a few minutes ago! If you get grabbed and bitten and you lose that crucial 30 seconds the whole team is done for! Even if you’re just about to balance back, the mastermind will spawn a bio weapon right near you and everything will turn into a hell on earth situation for the surviving team!
Each survivor have their own skill sets! Some act as the “Tank” who basically are better with any firearms than all the others. Then we have a “Medic” who can drop healing items for other players to use. Then there’s the “Techie” the person who can hack the cameras, so that the mastermind can’t sneak a peek at the survivors (also did I mention the mastermind can shoot at the survivors using the camera, just because screw all the survivors at this point, the games’ words not mine). Each game is divided into three smaller maps, and the aim of it all is for the survivors to get to the exit essentially escaping the mastermind’s playground! All three maps come with seriously restrictive and annoying time limits. Each exit on these maps are locked. The survivors are required to perform tasks such as collecting items of interest, or finding a unique zombie who tends to be more heavily armoured. The surviving team will have to kill it and grab a security key card off of it to open the gate on that specific area. Do you understand now why I’m going on about the time limit?
Now let’s get onto playing the Evil mastermind… That is if you can get on it! Literally, get on a game playing as the mastermind! 9 times out of 10 you absolutely cannot, unless you play with your friends privately and take turns of course! Again we circle back to the ‘do not play without your friends otherwise the game is rubbish’ point I made earlier. I have waited in a public lobby for 43 minutes and 29 seconds until I finally closed the game because that’s how desperate people are not to play as the survivor! May I remind you all, this game came out 2 days ago! It is completely deserted already, and it’s most likely due to the frustration factor! It really is a great shame as graphically just like the single player RE Resistance does look gorgeous, and would have potential.
Resident Evil Resistance feels like an over rushed, tacked on multiplayer, that was not well thought out, just ideas mashed together that sounded good on paper, but weren’t properly game tested and released as a mess. With this being a major selling point for the game and an excuse as to why RE3 Nemesis was so short and so cut with content compared to the original, this multiplayer mode that should have been something cool and unique turned out to be just a promotion tactic. It is quite clear that no love and care was given to this as the Single Player Campaign did receive!
My final verdict for this game is an average slightly below average 5/10
-AnotherGamingJournalist
Another Gaming Journalist 