Friday, February 15, 2019

Jack Red reviews The Ghost Survivors (RE2 Remake)

Hi everyone I'm Jack Red, today Capcom delivers such a nice addition to Resident Evil 2 Remake. I been knowing about this mode for a few months. I was getting more excited over the leak recently. I am not going to lie this review will have spoilers for anyone. Who don't have the game or didn't finish any of their stories yet.


I will start with a huge spoiler right off the bat. There's actually four characters you play as in this mode. Each one will be a different experience in their own way. In No Time to Mourn, you play as a gun store owner named Robert Kendo. His what if story starts around the time of his suicide. Instead of committing suicide, he listens to the radio.

He decides to head towards the excavation point. In Runaway you play as the mayor's daughter Katherine. She chose to fight back ending up killing Chief Irons instead of being murdered by him. In The Forgotten Soldier, you play as Ghost a member of Hunk's unit trying to escape from the lab. The final what if story is called No Way Out where you play as the sheriff.

Three of these stories have exclusive enemies. In Kendo's case he has to fight off poisonous zombies. Katherine has to deal with regenerative zombies similar to newer mold enemies from Not A Hero dlc. Ghost has to take on zombies wearing body armor that makes them heavily resistant to firearms. But the sheriff deals with all three of them.

Three of them are simply get from point A to point B style mini games. No Way Out acts more like zombies in Call of Duty series as well as Nightmare from RE7. You are struck inside a grocery store fighting off waves of enemies. Unlike The 4th Survivor/The Tofu Survivor mini games, you can get more stuff you'll need.

Thus you don't have to go in stuck with what you got for most of it. There's additional stuff you can put on characters. I thought this was a nice touch. There is new challenges added to the game. Sadly only two new achievements got added just like Not A Hero. I do like how you can get the stuff you need.

Either kill zombies wearing backpacks or go to a vending machine. If you got to one of those machines you are only allowed to select one. This mode will not make any exceptions. Honestly it reminds me of Dead Rising series to a degree. Chances are BioShock series is more likely where that idea came from.

This mode will appear below the other mini games under Extra section. I do want to point out before I go any further. No I haven't tried out their retro costumes yet. But I really want to very soon. Honestly this mode is way better than I thought it was going to be. Not only tests you in ways you already have before but also forces you to adapt to new obstacles.

Well oh okay Not A Hero did start a new theme with enemies that can mostly be killed with particular ammo. At least by now you get the point. The Ghost Survivors is a series of what if stories. I felt all four characters were given a great campaign. I also love it since I do love exploring Raccoon City in general.

Trust me there's two difficulties for each one. For now I only was able to complete them on training. I can only hope I can complete them the way the developers intended. I can safety tell you I played three of them on their real difficulty. Yes the previous mini games has nothing on these I'm not kidding.

Even the easiest among them Runaway will be a challenge to a lot of people. Oh yeah I do need to explain something else. From Runaway to No Way Out, each one goes up one star. Basically they kept pushing you to do better no matter what's thrown your way. I got to say I'm very impressed by the hard work of this mode.

First I reviewed the game then two of it's mini games. Now I'm adding this making this essentially a three part review. I honestly do believe Resident Evil 2 Remake is good enough to get that kind of treatment. This mode may not have Marvin sorry guys but there is always hope. Obviously I am excited for them to even consider remaking RE3 like this.

I may as well spoil a few more surprises. But first if you really don't wanna know any of this. I highly suggest move away from even reading this blog entry. Ada cameos during the ending of The Forgotten Soldier. Prior to that, Mr. X appears when you at least expect it. Ben does appear in Runaway ending as well as Leon in No Way Out's ending.

All four of them escape very differently from each other. USS Soldier uses the cable car from the lab. Kendo gets to the helicopter. I already said more than once Katherine meets up with Ben. She doesn't actually escape I know weird. Finally the sheriff drives away in Leon's police car outside after killing a lot of monsters.

For those wondering yes the sheriff was in the campaign but it's briefly in their 1st runs. I should mention the big difference with the two difficulties. On training you get more ammo as well as inventory slots. In the case of No Way Out you have to deal with seventy enemies instead of one hundred of them.

I will say regardless how you chose to play any of these what if stories. I highly recommend this mode to those wondering to play it. This is exactly what this game needed. There's a lot of great stuff to be found here. The best part is you don't have to push yourself hard right out of the gate like some people do.

Monday, February 11, 2019

Jack Red reviews Resident Evil spin off games

Hi everyone I'm Jack Red, I played a couple of spin off games from Resident Evil series. I got to say most of these are great games I do recommend. Sadly not everyone will agree on some of the things I will be saying. Just remember this is strictly my opinion only. Although I will try not to skip out on the details.

1. Umbrella Corps (2016)

I couldn't include Operation Raccoon City since it refused to work properly on Steam. Which caused me to refund it for Batman: Arkham Origins. Well Umbrella Corps takes a lot of key parts from that to be more of a multiplayer focus game. Let's be brutally honest this really isn't an Resident Evil game at all.

There's virtually no real horror elements anywhere in the game. Yes there is technically a single player campaign. However it doesn't offer any story what so ever making even doing it entirely pointless. They took monsters from a few RE games. Some of them were even done better in Operation Raccoon City yes I know a bit of a stretch.

No matter how I went about fixing the game on my computer without modding. This game is virtually unplayable. The controls are so unresponsively bad. Even trying to do simple things is difficult. You know you're playing a horrible game when that happens. As stated before this is heavily a multiplayer game.

The dlcs themselves are mostly for customizing your character. At the same time it doesn't add enough variety quickly getting bored of it very quick. I know a lot of you are probably wondering how is this an Resident Evil game without Resident Evil in the title? It turns out they had a surprise issue with their original title forcing them to stick with Umbrella Corps.

They even attempted to bring RE4 into the mix. You know desperation is bad enough when they chose to rely on something as great as RE4. The enemies themselves are also limited in variety too. I had more fun playing both Left 4 Dead games. Which also has coop done way better than this game's multiplayer.

2. Resident Evil Survivor (2000)

Resident Evil Survivor is easily the worst RE game on PS1. Interesting the first person view was almost going to happen in the original Resident Evil. It took Capcom a long time from this game to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard to get it right. Actually I recently heard Survivor 2 which is a Japan exclusive being worse than this.

Maybe one day I get to play it for myself. Back to Survivor 1, until RE0, some fans wondered if the game was canon. The voice acting is very bad there's no better way of describing it. RE1 didn't put as much effort in localizing it believing the game wasn't going to be success. Thus they left in some terrible lines.

Which brought sorta the B movie theme into it. Basically it's so bad it's good while Survivor's is very bad. I would say even with terrible voice acting, The House of the Dead 2 was way better than this. All handguns have infinite ammo that easily breaks the game. There is only one unlockable you get simply by beating the game.

The infinite rocket launcher makes a very easy RE game ridiculously easy. I do like their choose of enemies. There is also going different paths does affect the story in some way. Chances are you will be turned off enough to not even finish one run. Resident Evil Survivor is a precursor to them doing FPS that not only shows it also has major problems.

For starters, it's trickier to avoid enemies. It's almost like you're playing as Tofu except that was clearly done better. The worst looking zombies in the entire franchise. This game has so little to offer that it's perfectly okay to skip it entirely. Trust me you really aren't missing anything major. Not even the audio can save this game.

3. Resident Evil: Dead Aim (2003)

The final game in the Gun Survivor series. Three of them being Resident Evil games & one Dino Crisis game called Dino Stalker. Resident Evil: Dead Aim actually allows to switch between first or third person view during game play. Predating such classics as Fallout 3. This is more of an action game than a horror one making it more clear RE4 was going to change genre category.

It does take some time getting use to the controls. If I heard correctly you could play this with an light gun. This is the second RE game to take place on a boat following Resident Evil Gaiden. Eventually the main series does that with Resident Evil: Revelations. I should mention what I personally consider to be single worst RE virus there is so happens to be in this game.

The t+G Virus in a desperation attempt improve both viruses. Oddly enough C-Virus by Neo Umbrella nailed what they attempted to do. There's a good variety of enemies with most only being in this game. This is also canon to the story despite being away from most of the main games. Fong Ling is this game's Ada Wong that you can also play as.

A friend of mine ended up enjoying this game more than me. Maybe one day I get another chance to see if I like it or not. Right now I can safely say it's a good spin off but not a great one. I am really not trying to piss off fans. I sorta feel the same way about RE3. This game is a classic some fans need to experience.

4. Resident Evil Outbreak (2004)

Resident Evil Outbreak was the first RE game to allow online play. There's a lot of people wanting remasters of both Outbreak games. Believe it or not, both of them are part of the story line. They both occurred in the Raccoon City incident aka RE2 & RE3. More recently, RE7 referenced one of the playable characters.

They did a great job using classic RE monsters while adding new ones. There's also an infection system that can kill you. Only in the last scenario you have a difficult decision to make. You could use Daylight you must create on yourself or one of your team mates to remove it or kill the final boss with it.

There's a lot of bonus characters you can play as. Despite the fact, they act more like alternate skins to the eight playable characters with notable differences. There's a lot of content to unlock in this game. This game has a lot of endings you can go for in every scenario. Even the G-Virus makes an appearance.

Sadly William only appears in the intro scene that's still one of my favorites to this day. I am not going to lie it can be frustrating to figure out what to do at times. The communication system itself is terribly done. Thank god games like Left 4 Dead series had a more direct solution to the problem. There's a couple of bosses too with Thanatos being the toughest by far.

Nicholai from RE3 appears during the final scenario. Some enemies can stalk you which was directly taken from RE1 Remake. Thanatos is easily the worst at stalking because he's too tough to bring down causing you to lose too much ammo. He is also very on top of what you're doing too. Honestly this is a great game for what it brings to the table.

5. Resident Evil Outbreak: File #2 (2005)

Originally Resident Evil Outbreak was going to have more levels it ended up giving us. Let's be honest despite the title this is technically the other half of the game. Although a handful of levels were never officially released in any form. Considering having a save of the previous Outbreak game does spice up the game.

It almost recreates Sonic 3 & Knuckles but not quite. The communications to me weren't much better. They turned the previous Outbreak's first level into the intro level. Honestly that's fine but they sure went a little over board this game. They added some extra modes to challenge your skills. Some of these are boss rushes with the last adding one boss not found anywhere else in the game.

The rest of them are done very similar to the more recent RE1 Remake Randomizer mods. I am not kidding because you go through one door to be teleported in a different area entirely with not a clear pattern. These also come off like the Battle mini games. There's more bonus characters to play as. They actually left some unfinished characters including Hunk in the coding.

Unfortunately only a cheat device can allow you to play as those characters. Personally I quickly loss interest in this game. To me it comes off more of the same as the previous Outbreak game. I know a lot of Outbreak fans will greatly disagree with me. Honestly I did try the game but I just didn't care enough to play much of it.

6. Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (2007)

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles has retellings of RE0, RE1, two levels on RE2 and RE3. This also has the Russia event that was introduced with more story added. At best this is a semi canon game meaning parts of it are canon while other parts are not. Thankfully they do make what is canon crystal clear.

A lot of people love calling this and it's sequel a The House of the Dead clone rip off. Trust me this offers more than most of those games. There's a very great enemy variety, weapons and bosses to keep you busy.  There's also a hidden mini game meant to test how quick are you. I do like how some cut scenes are retold while others not so much.

I also like destroying things can give you items, weapons or files. Yes you can collect files in a rail shooter game. Just like RE4, there are quick time events. Just in case you haven't figured why the title it's because these particular games led to the end of Umbrella. You get to see Umbrella's dirty work in all retellings.

I also like Wesker with a few characters gets to narrate in several levels. This has a great cast of playable characters. I would say they are getting close to what eventually becomes RE7. The soundtrack is amazing too. If you are able to finish the game on hard you can go for exclusive highest levels on most weapons.

This game has over twenty levels that does help tie up some loose ends. Sure a different team made this but they still supervised them. This is screaming Resident Evil at it's very core. I do like how it shows how Wesker played an hand in ending Umbrella Corporation. This is a love letter to most RE fans.

7. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (2009)
Following this particular review I have officially reviewed all five Wii RE games. Can you believe I had all five of them at one point? Anyway Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles came two years after the previous Chronicles game. However they had to change part of their concept. The development of this game started before the actual making of Resident Evil: Degeneration movie.

The director decided to not include that or RE5. Leon is retelling the events of RE2 & Code: Veronica X. The new event takes place in South America. Every boss in both retelling portions is done just right for this game. Just like The Umbrella Chronicles, this is also semi canon. Which makes two particular cut scenes from both games involving Ada a plot hole.

This does have a great variety of enemies. I will say upgrading your weapons is done better here. Especially your handgun since it can fire & reload much faster in this game. Of course the darkside in the title actually comes from some characters having dark goals. They made Alexia Ashford more twisted than she originally was.

Yes some parts can a little frustrating when you're trying to aim while the camera is moving. Which also makes nailing head shots more difficult because of it. The secret mode is a tribute to Tofu. I guess since they done Hunk in the last one, they should do Tofu this time. You play as Claire with no upgrades playing the first RE2 level in reverse fighting off tofus.

I guess in a way they left a big enough impact for five of them in RE2 Remake lol. There's also hidden levels like in the previous game. I do got to be honest here, I felt those in The Umbrella Chronicles fits in perfectly. Why do we need to replay the last two levels only as Krauser listening to more of his dialogue with overall tougher enemies?

I know I get they wanted us to get more of an idea why he chose to fake his own death to seek out Wesker. At the same time, they simply could've added a commentary instead. They easily could've added a little more. Some bosses like Alexia can be very frustrating to take down. You only get to play as Chris Redfield in one level.

In the previous game you can play as him in two portions of the game that covered a few more levels. Also he had several outfits during the course of the game. I will say they made Steve more into an actual boss fight. Originally you only could run away with a high chance of taking a hit or two. Just one hit can take away most of your health.

I should mention one particular cut scene has three different versions. One of them actually shows Wesker. But how could they given him the wrong eye colors. It wasn't clear what his natural eye colors were prior to his mutation. After he got revived his eyes became red. Yet here they're blue for some reason.

I will be honest despite Wesker Mode in RE0 does break the canon in many ways. I will at least say it feels great to play as him in the campaign. Oh wait you also play as him in some levels of the previous game too. Personally this is a solid game that's more recently seen as mixed. I actually do prefer this over The Umbrella Chronicles but I highly recommend both of those games.

Monday, February 4, 2019

Jack Red reviews The 4th Survivor & The Tofu Survivor

Hi everyone I'm Jack Red, some of you notice I didn't really talk about The 4th Survivor & The Tofu Survivor in my review. The reason is very simple I was still trying to beat em. I just unlocked two tofu characters. This is technically a quick follow up review to Resident Evil 2 Remake blogs. Honestly even talking about the differences in both mini games will take awhile.

1. The 4th Survivor

The 4th Survivor was actually the fifth scenario of RE2. There's little to no story although it is very clear what's going on. Hunk survived an assault from G-Stage William. His mission is to make it to the front gate of the police station with a sample of the G-Virus. There's several critical differences in all three versions.

Yes I said three versions because Hunk did have a hidden level in The Umbrella Chronicles. The Tyrant appears in both the original & remake versions. All of them do start from the sewers with two ending at the helipad. But in The Umbrella Chronicles, Hunk has to kill a lot of lickers & hunters. All three version plays very differently from each other.

The classic version plays like a more difficult, strict smaller RE2 game. The enemy placements made it challenging no matter which strategy you used. In The Umbrella Chronicles, it plays more like a rail shooter. In the remake version it plays more like how fast can you finish it. In two versions you can't pick up anything at all.

They do share a similar intro done at different angles. I felt some areas in the original mini game were tricky to get by. For example there's a particular spot with giant spiders directly on the ground in your path. The one that usually screws me over is the stairs with two plant-43s. I felt I get the most help in The Umbrella Chronicles version since I can pick stuff up as well as continue.

In two versions you only have one chance. But you can still attempt finishing it since they're not long at all. I felt you get the most in your inventory in the remake version. Obviously you are the most limited with the classic version. You have to get use to moving through tight areas with enemies a lot. Thankfully there isn't a lot of those in the remake version.

You are being ranked by your completion time. This took place during the events of the main game likely before both Leon & Claire made it to the sewers. I would say Hunk in the remake version looks the best overall. In the classic version you had to be prepare to run fast as well as knifing enemies. In The Umbrella Chronicles you get just enough ammo to get you through.

I should mention The Tyrant in the remake version will stalk you a notable distance in this mini game. Originally he appears in two tight spaces areas that trying to get past him was difficult. Sometimes you had to take a hit especially near the end. But in the remake version, The Tyrant has a few possible attacks with the charge being your best friend essentially.

I would say The Umbrella Chronicles is hands down the longest version being around close to half an hour long. All of their endings is done differently but I would say the classic version is the best. Hunk also got his own save marker in the classic RE2 being in black letters. Overall I would have to say sure they're all challenging in their own right.

I would say two versions being The Umbrella Chronicles & RE2 Remake are a lot of fun to play. I would only suggest trying the classic version if you want a challenge. Regardless Hunk stands out in all three versions. Honestly I had the most fun attempting to complete the newest version. You could run past a lot of enemies while getting your powerful weapons ready for several portions.

I believe the route is a little longer in the remake due to how you have to get the front gate. How you complete all three versions is done differently. In the classic version you open the door leading to the helipad to trigger the ending. In The Umbrella Chronicles, you must defeat a lot of monsters around twenty of them.

In the remake version you have to open the police station's gate. Some enemies like cerberus dogs as well as lickers are more aggressive in this version. You also can't kill The Tyrant in this version. Thankfully there's a few ways of getting around him. Two particular doors, zombies will force open giving you a brief period to get through with the later I plan on using my knife defensively.

2. The Tofu Survivor

Oh boy The Tofu Survivor is still one of the most challenging RE mini games in history. I will talk briefly about the secret mode in The Darkside Chronicles since it was only meant as a tribute to the character. You play the first RE2 level in reverse fighting tofus as Claire. Otherwise it has little to nothing doing in my blog.

To me the original appearance of Tofu looked like a giant bar of soap. Oddly this got a lot of people interested in learning what is it. Regardless they made The Tofu Survivor to test the game's collision. It also stands as a harder, parody version of Hunk's scenario. I would say I notice more direct differences here than in The 4th Survivor.

Tofu in the remake version was actually created by scanning real tofu. In fact, Capcom hosted an event where their guest was given tofu. Thus he actually looks like real tofu wiggling often as he moves. Obviously both versions has a very different cover. Personally I do prefer the classic version. In the classic mini game, Tofu only has hands.

The hat from that cover is present on the remake version. It is interesting Tofu had an alternate way of telling the player of his condition by simply changing colors. But in the remake version, he loses pieces the more damages he takes. At a certain point with caution or danger you will notice less of Tofu's body.

Tofu had a picture in the inventory that's mostly all white. Obviously there is no picture in the remake version. As stated above, they changed the destination where it ends. I should mention he only gets one knife in the original mini game. But in the remake version, Tofu has a lot more knives. This makes doing the run strategy a lot easier.

This version also has mode exclusive pictures. The biggest difference is you can now play five different tofu characters. Yes folks I am really not kidding about this. As of right now I can't judge the rest of them at the moment. If enough people were interested I would consider doing a follow up blog on that.

I have to be honest I didn't care much about the original mini game at all. I do like a challenge in an RE game but this is really pushing it for me. I felt the newer version is more balanced out overall. Sure I died in many attempts before I finally finished it. At the same time I just had more fun playing it.

There is one more weird difference. Originally during the intro or when he gets attacked. Tofu will speak in Japanese. In the remake version, he says several lines in Japanese early on. Honestly I felt how they originally went about that made it more rememberable to me. I will say Tofu is one of my favorite joke characters of all time now lol.