Welcome to our third Guest post, todays post is all about the new Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City DLC which has recently just come out. Todays post is written by Nataniel Hohl who can be found on twitter @NateHohl . As well as over on raptr and can be found as NateHohl. Well enjoy!
As thrilled as I am that the concept of substantial DLC for AAA games being free is catching on (Bioware’s latest Mass Effect 3 DLC comes to mind), it begs mentioning that adding new pieces to a broken toy doesn’t change the fact that it’s still broken.
Now, I wouldn’t exactly call Slant Six Studios’ Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City “broken”, as far as tactical third-person shooters go it certainly has promise and I have no doubt it has its share of loyal fans, but a quick Google search for reviews of the game makes plain what a majority of the gaming community (myself included) thinks: Operation Raccoon City is a sloppy and poorly executed mess whose flaws far outshine the fun.
Despite their admittance that Operation Raccoon City was far from what they had hoped it would be and their further promise to “fix” the game (no details were given), Slant Six went ahead and released the first piece of free DLC for the game yesterday in which players get to slog through a bonus campaign mission as the rival Spec-Ops team who until this point were only playable in the game’s multiplayer.
Anyone hoping that this DLC would also address some of the game’s numerous pitfalls (terrible squad A.I., brutal difficulty, cheap deaths, annoying inventory management, etc.) will be in for some disappointment as the short bonus mission is all that’s included.
Slant Six tried to market the DLC by promising several new set-pieces including another fight with Nemesis and a cameo of former S.T.A.R.S. team-member Jill Valentine as well as the opportunity to play as an entirely new team of operatives. But let’s look at the ugly truth shall we?
First off, the new Spec-Ops team (as anyone who’s played the multiplayer knows) are just carbon copies of the original Wolf Pack, sporting the exact same classes, weapons, and abilities as their Umbrella-funded rivals. Jill Valentine shows up for maybe an entire minute and a half total, and the Nemesis fight is so painfully frustrating, even on casual difficulty, that I ended up quitting after my twenty-seventh attempt.
Now while I do give props to Slant Six for giving players such a hefty piece of DLC for free (lord knows some developers have charged money for a lot less), my praise means little when the overall experience is still the same awful and frustrating mess it was before.
By Nataniel Hohl @NateHohl
