A desire to play Outbreak on my laptop while at my girlfriend's place was thwarted by my forgetting to bring a controller, so I settled for playing Survivor using a keyboard, which was acceptable.
The first Resident Evil spin-off, and the first inarguably-a-spin-off title I've played (the Revelations games are contested), I had a great experience with this thing. Not because it was good, it certainly wasn't, but it was just so fucking weird. Seeing these creature models from games I legitimately adore placed in these jank-ass low-detail environments was surreal. Equally surreal were other series staples that felt so out of place here. Sometimes doors need keys, but they're always just a room or two away so there's no puzzle or anything, yet still they felt a need to include a "check" option which never tells you anything useful. One time you need to wind a clock to open a door, but after that it's all regular old keys and keycards.
There are survival-horror pretentions here, so we have slow movement, the herb system, reloading only happens in the inventory or when a clip is empty, you get unlimited handgun bullets... wait a minute. Yeah, so while other weapons have limited ammo which can be found exploring, the hanguns have unlimited. And as there's no active reload, often the quickest way to reload is to just empty the remainder of your clip into a wall. Kinda kills the surival-horror vibe when that's happening. And then the game has to gall to rank you based on shot accuracy? I'm sorry the fastest way to reload in your game is to shoot at nothing, but that's the game you made, don't blame me!
I know I sound negative, and this stuff is bad, but I honestly loved it all. Such a charming shitty mess. The voice acting and story are exactly of the calibre you'd expect, and all the more enjoyable for it. On a genuinely positive note, Survivor takes some cues from the Nemesis playbook, featuring randomisation and a few minor alternate paths, which would have been great for replayability if the game had managed to get the play bit right.
Survivor is a weird relic of the ridiculously productive and experimental first era of Resident Evil games, gesturing at the series' aesthetic and gameplay conventions without much consideration as to why it would do such a thing in a light-gun game, and I love it for that.
The first Resident Evil spin-off, and the first inarguably-a-spin-off title I've played (the Revelations games are contested), I had a great experience with this thing. Not because it was good, it certainly wasn't, but it was just so fucking weird. Seeing these creature models from games I legitimately adore placed in these jank-ass low-detail environments was surreal. Equally surreal were other series staples that felt so out of place here. Sometimes doors need keys, but they're always just a room or two away so there's no puzzle or anything, yet still they felt a need to include a "check" option which never tells you anything useful. One time you need to wind a clock to open a door, but after that it's all regular old keys and keycards.
There are survival-horror pretentions here, so we have slow movement, the herb system, reloading only happens in the inventory or when a clip is empty, you get unlimited handgun bullets... wait a minute. Yeah, so while other weapons have limited ammo which can be found exploring, the hanguns have unlimited. And as there's no active reload, often the quickest way to reload is to just empty the remainder of your clip into a wall. Kinda kills the surival-horror vibe when that's happening. And then the game has to gall to rank you based on shot accuracy? I'm sorry the fastest way to reload in your game is to shoot at nothing, but that's the game you made, don't blame me!
I know I sound negative, and this stuff is bad, but I honestly loved it all. Such a charming shitty mess. The voice acting and story are exactly of the calibre you'd expect, and all the more enjoyable for it. On a genuinely positive note, Survivor takes some cues from the Nemesis playbook, featuring randomisation and a few minor alternate paths, which would have been great for replayability if the game had managed to get the play bit right.
Survivor is a weird relic of the ridiculously productive and experimental first era of Resident Evil games, gesturing at the series' aesthetic and gameplay conventions without much consideration as to why it would do such a thing in a light-gun game, and I love it for that.