The Room if you’re not familiar with it, is a cult-classic, not because it is good, it’s far from it. it’s unintentionally comical in the same way watching American Idol tryouts used to be. A movie that has sex scenes that are only slightly less awkward than walking in on your grandparents nude, nude with your best friend. Now imagine trying to have a serious conversation with your grandmother after that, that’s The Room in a nutshell.
Criteria
Finding a bad video game is not hard, take a look at Steam, and you’ll find a truckload, but many bad games are just unplayable and\or broken. For this exercise, we need to find something that is at least playable, where the mechanics are sound, but the execution of said mechanics leave a bit to be desired. We also need to find a story that is not only bad but convoluted, ridiculous, overly-serious and a bit out of touch with its audience. Maybe it’s a game where the creators only have a superficial understanding of their core audience. A game where the modern military shooter meets survival horror, with every other popular genre, sprinkled in, except the survival or horror bits. Meet Resident Evil 6, the video game equivalent of The Room, minus the sex scenes, but just as awkward.
What Was Not the Problem
Resident Evil 6 was a huge misstep in the series and let’s be clear this is not an indictment of the series attempt to change direction, I’m a bigger fan of novelty and innovation than I am of nostalgia, for example, I don’t long for the days of blowing in a Nintendo cartridge. The series innovated with RE4 went downhill with RE5, then double down with RE6. Resident Evil has always been campy, let’s not act like this isn’t the same series with this line:
Or this one:
This Guy!
Though that’s more excusable in 1998 than it is in 2012. Resident Evil 6 is the game that has a “bonus” campaign where if you choose to play in co-op the second player plays a character named “Guy”. He has no dialog, cannot open doors, and teleports to certain locations because he only exists to add co-op to what was obviously only supposed to be a single-player campaign starring Ada Wong. You will literally open doors as Ada Wong, close them in the face of “Guy”, turn around, and he’ll be standing to stare at you like a combination of Jason Voorhees and your local neighborhood stalker seeing a naked girl for the very first time.
This is the game where the POTUS turns into a zombie, which alone is just ridiculous it’s obviously the game’s intent to create drama. It only gets worse (better?) when one of the main characters Leon Kennedy actually says “Don’t make me do this!” as Zombie POTUS rambles towards him. Now, people becoming sentimental when people that are close them turn, is not a new phenomenon in zombie fiction. Though you would think after being the main character in two other Resident Evil games, he would have a grasp on this by now, he doesn’t.
Zombie Obama!
The game wants you to care then it does this:
Zombies are called B.O.W’s (BioOrganic Weapons, seriously), they shoot back, and somehow when you blow off limbs they grow new insect-like parts. You DDT zombies like some dollar store Dwayne Johnson. The game is presented to you as the gamer dead seriously and I just laugh.
Don’t get me wrong, the game is a functional shooter, it’s not a broken game by any means. With a friend, some alcohol or you watch a Let’s Play, the game can actually be a good time. It’s just not a good game overall. As much as nerds like myself find Japanese culture very endearing, there seems to be a huge cultural divide when it comes to Japanese devs understanding their Western consumers. RE6 is the RE version of what a Japanese game dev thinks Western gamers want, mixed with the same dramatic delusion of a movie like The Room. Actually, maybe RE 6 is the video game equivalent of Iggy Azalea trying to rap like J. Cole? Food for thought?
I’m curious to see what games you guys think are so bad they’re good. Leave a comment.
If you like this article, please take a look at my commentary on Spec Ops: The Line
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STOPI have to agree with everything here, I liked it... But I never felt the "Resident Evil" vibe from it... not even once.. not even looking at Leon Kennedy awesomeness!....
I felt that somewhat in RE4 (never played RE5 but liked RE1 and RE2 which is my favorite and one of the few games I beat more than 3 times).
I didn't have a large collection of games growing up so I think I beat RE2 7-8 times lol.
Thanks for commenting!
@thetolkienblkguy
Have to agree that it doesn't feel like a typical Resident Evil. I do give it props as I play with my boyfriend, who is not very good with video games, and I don't get sucked in and mad when he messes up like I would with games I'm really into. It's easier to walk away.
Hi! Thanks for the comment.
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