The Rube’s Review: Raccoon City vs Left 4 Dead 2 – Part 1

Sometimes life is full of disappointments, especially when all you want to do is relax on your day off and shoot zombies in the face but you just can’t ( fuck’n Capcom!). You know what, let me start at the beginning…

It all started with Capcom’s Resident Evil series. If you read my Resident Evil review, you know that The Rube is a big fan of the series. Running around a haunted house, searching for clues, and shooting zombies in the face… I can’t think of a better way to relax on a day off! The series only got better with the release of Resident Evil 2, which contained more zombies, puzzles, and new monsters. The RE story also became more involved in this sequel and, with the help of animated cut scenes, it felt like you were playing your own personal zombie movie.

Resident Evil 3 was a short game, but you got to run around Raccoon City and I really liked that you were given choices during the game which changed the way you play (adding more replay value to it). RE3 was followed by Resident Evil Code: Veronica (X), which is also one of my favorites in the series, and then Resident Evil 4. Not only did RE:4 have improved graphics but, at least for me, it brought back this Classic Universal Monster appeal as you fight your way through a haunting European countryside.*

The last RE game that I bought was Resident Evil 5 (Gold ED. Xbox 360). I just happened to see it on sale and wanted to try it out, but believe it or not, after just playing for an hour, I just can’t get over the fact that I’m shooting South Africans in the face. Zombified or not, it just never felt right to me and, once again, there really weren’t any zombies in the game. Once again I was left with zombieless disappointment…

Then I saw a cool commercial for Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. Hey, it’s (sexy) mercenaries battling on the streets of Raccoon City vs. the Undead! These weren’t crazed villagers or bug-like mutations… finally, a Resident Evil game that’s back to it’s roots with 100% true zombie action! Man, I couldn’t wait to get this game… and I did… and it sat there on my coffee table for 2 months.

This weekend, I finally had a chance to pop in the game and got ready to play. After waiting what seemed like forever, and struggling to figure out the game menu, I was able to pick out my team. “OK, LET’S START THIS FUCKER! I CAN’T WAIT TO KILL SOME ZOMBIES!” But before you can do that, you first have to travel with your team Gears of War-style through a confusing underground lab while shooting Umbrella members.

Uh, ok, this is kinda fun, but not what I was expecting (I WANT TO KILL ZOMBIES). After (poorly) figuring out how to run, shooting solders (which either takes 2 or 100 shots… WTF?) and picking up green, glowing potted plants, I finally made it to a T-Virus mutation/mini-boss. At this point I’m thinking to myself, “Finally, all I have to do is shoot this thing in it’s monster eye and I can continue to the next zombie filled section… right?” WRONG! I tried over and over and over again, running and shooting and you know what happens? I run out of all of my ammo then get pummeled to death by a freak of nature with a lead pipe while my useless computer teammates just stand there twiddling their thumbs. FUCK!

I don’t know what the fuck that I’m doing wrong but any first mini-boss shouldn’t be that hard to kill in any game, PERIOD! After countless (unsuccessful) attempts to pass this monstrosity, part of me just wanted to reset the game on the easiest setting. If you’re going to do that, though, you might as well just say screw it and stop this continuing lesson in futility. So I took the disc out, placed it back in it’s nice swanky metal case with it’s limited edition patches and placed it back on my coffee table, ready to be buried once again in monster magazines, bills, and comic books.

All I wanted to do was relax on my only day off with a simple zombie game… then I remembered my old standby game. A game that’s actually jam-packed with exploding, undead action that features simple controls I still know by memory: Left 4 Dead 2.

TO BE CONTINUED…

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*NOTE: Playing Resident Evil 4 on the Wii is a pain in the ass. I hated trying to play this game with two novelty controllers, poorly moving my David Bowie look-alike while trying to aim and shoot at the crazy townsfolk. Also WHERE THE FUCK ARE ALL THE ZOMBIES?!