It's hard to remember a time when a game that was so boring was this successful.
Leon's campaign is the closest stylistically to the earlier games in the series. Tentatively exploring a dark and eerily deserted university campus as a lightning storm rages outside echoes the Spencer Mansion from the first game, and this is initially very promising. There are some nice touches such as frightened rats scurrying for cover, and when the action moves to a cemetery and a cathedral, there's a real feeling of being back in the depths of inhumanity. Chris and Jake generally traverse urban environments in Eastern Europe and China, and battle J'avo, a new type of enemy that can shoot and use cover, and sprout mutated heads or arms or legs when shot, making them tougher enemies to kill.
Zombies can now wield weapons, although they're not as threatening as the gun-toting J'avo faced by Chris and Jake. Crimson Heads from the remake of the first Resident Evil game are the biggest threat, and can leap at you from considerable distances with no real chance of countering them, and this can become frustrating. In some situations the sheer number of zombies can get overwhelming and the best solution is to just run for it. The problem all of these encounters have in common is how loose and uneven it all feels: the chaos is almost constant and whilst this might be considered realistic, it makes the gameplay very uneven.
The abandonment of Survival Horror in favour of an action-driven game isn't without merit given the success of Resident Evil 4 and 5, but the transition to a cover-based shooter is a mistake. The combat camera is appalling, it shifts all over the place and lacks the sure feel of previous games, and the "option" to switch from a left shoulder to right shoulder viewpoint happens automatically when moving in cover, disorienting the player.
The control system to snap in and out of cover is hamstrung by the bad camera, which frequently offers neither the angles nor the perspective to attack enemies or take cover from their fire. As a result it isn't intuitive and feels very forced. The irony is that often, cover isn't even necessary to defeat a wave of enemies, which wouldn't be a bad thing if it weren't for the fact that it's how the game wants you to play!
Arguably, the most infuriating addition is the overuse of Quick-Time Events, which occur at some of the tensest moments in the game, and ironically remove all tension at the same time because they're just so frequent and exasperating. Control is taken away from the player so often that it removes all hope of an immersive experience, and at no point is there a killer hook to make you want to keep playing.
That said, it's hard to completely slate Resident Evil 6 for its shortcomings because it does do certain things very well. The partner AI is generally very good, they're able to look after themselves and provide you with effective support. The range of mutations is very diverse and original, and there is a genuinely new challenge posed by them to players of the previous games in the series. The high production values make it the best-looking Resident Evil game in the series, although some environments, such as the backstreets of China, do look a little drab and uninspiring.
Sadly, this isn't enough to elevate the game above its competitors. It copies many tropes of other successful games such as the fat zombie and screaming zombie from the Left 4 Dead games, and as a cover shooter, it's a pale imitation of Gears of War or even Mass Effect.
Plot has never been the series' strong point, but here it lets the game down more than ever. It's in a constant state of climax and never settles down to a point where it slowly builds up to another "wow" moment, because they're almost constantly happening – so they become repetitive and dull. Plot holes abound at some key moments in the game, and whilst suspending your disbelief is mandatory with the series, Resi 6 expects you to swallow some utterly ludicrous events. There are also many false endings, and after playing one campaign you know to expect the same kind of thing in the others, so it's no surprise when a boss returns for Round 17.
The huge set pieces lose most of their impact because they become so repetitive so early in the game that you don't even care they're happening at all. Worse, there are so many clichéd moments: everything that could possibly go wrong does, and this makes many battles or climactic events seem utterly redundant, because any sense of achievement is ruined when the disaster you were trying to prevent happens anyway.
In an attempt at variety, there are some vehicle scenes such as car chases and a jet fighter battle, but these feel cheap, lazy and poorly implemented: it's difficult to get out of the way of oncoming obstacles and it can take several attempts to clear a pretty basic and unenthusiastic scene.
Most telling is series creator Shinji Mikami's absence. Without a creative guiding force, Capcom have essentially regurgitated all of the most successful ideas used in modern action games in the last few years, and hoped the formula would work – it doesn't. Contrast this with Hideo Kojima, and his jealously guarded care and attention to the development of the Metal Gear Solid series, and the difference is like night and day.
It's also telling that although a team of over 600 people were working on the game, nobody at any point appears to have pointed out the numerous flaws in it. Capcom doesn't appear to have a working environment that fosters creativity, relying on a few big hits - Street Fighter, Mega Man, Resident Evil and so on – to bring them success, and then just keep repeating the trick with superficial additions until people get bored of it and stop buying the product.
The commercial success of Resident Evil 6 has damned it with faint praise. Here's hoping that Resident Evil 7 – and there will be one – learns from the innumerable mistakes of its predecessor.