Animations

The animations are excellent with the characters facial animations in cut-scenes looking great. The combat actions, melee actions and more are all suitably impressive and the animation engine delivers and then some. Every monster, character, vehicle are suitably animated and a lot of detail has been lavished on the character's personality in terms of movement and in-game presence.

Physics

With lots of explosive effects, physical reactions and characters feeling as though they belong in the environment and aren't just floating upon it, Resident Evil 6 has a lot going on in the physics department. The animations are tied into the physics engine and the zombies/monsters often require a few more shots to take them down, each seeming to have a weak point that can be exploited for massive damage. Zombies need to be shot a couple of times in the head to begin with and it is entirely possible to blow their neck away so the head just drops off.

AI

Resident Evil 5 was criticised for Sheva's terrible partner AI (we never really had too many problems), 6 seems to have fixed that issue in single player and the game's partner AI is usually pretty damn useful in combat. They can also aid in rescuing you from zombie grapples, bosses, and more, they can even navigate sections of the environment when the game pulls a Gears of War and separates you from your coop partner.

Enemy AI is varied and employs some nasty tricks depending on the type. It isn't a case of just shoot the bad guy anymore, there are some that will use cover, charge you, ambush you and more...it'll keep you on your toes as you battle the mutations of the deadly virus.

Sound

Sound design in the game is great, with a lot of detail lavished on the oral portions of the game so that they add to the atmosphere.

Music

The soundtrack to the game is excellent with some superb music throughout. There's a mix of off key (disturbing) sections and some big budget Hollywood movie style action pieces that get the blood pumping during the game's more dramatic scenes.

Dialogue

Resident Evil 6 is well written and the script doesn't sound too cheesy at all, perhaps that might fly in the face of the old: Take this Jill, it's a lockpick, vibe of the old RE games – we're fine with that though. There's a lot of story to tell and lots of threads to tie up, the writers did a good job we feel.

Voice

Welcome back to the old favourite Voice Actors of the series. It's great to hear the dulcet tones of Leon again, the growling voice of Chris alongside some new and old characters. The voice work for the game is superb and the second disk has full voice localisation for quite a few languages.

Multiplayer

Split screen, system link, Xbox Live are all viable options when you want to play with a friend across the 3 main campaigns – each allowing 2 characters to experience the campaign together. Then there's the Crossover mechanic which allows 4 characters to team up in several of the game's sections where the stories cross.

Co-op is massive fun and whilst the partner AI is solid, having a friend at your back is even better.

Mercenaries can be played the same way...and...then there's...

Agent Hunt!

Have you ever wanted to invade someone's game like Dark/Demon Souls...becoming a monster in their online cooperative/single experience. Now you can, you can leap into the body of one of the many bad guys and attempt to kill the player...if you die, you can respawn, if they die, well, they die like they would in the single player game.

It is a great new way to interact online with people you've never met and basically add a human element to their games. It also beats the heck out of constant adversarial matches – it takes a leaf from the aforementioned games and Left4Dead.

It works really well and is tons of fun.

When it comes to setting up a single player, you can choose the settings you want, if you want to be available to Agent Hunt mode or not. So it's not like you can just jump into every game and there are a lot of options in regards to setting up your own sessions.

Things change Leon, they always have...

So yeah, that's Resident Evil 6 in a nutshell. We're impressed and perhaps you might think we're a little shallow for liking the new elements and the big action feel. The game entertains us, it has a 4th unlockable campaign and a massive amount of content across the 3 other campaigns, with tons of unlockable skill perks for your characters to play with.

There are other hidden secrets and content to unlock, so the game is pretty much superb value for money compared to a 6 hour shooter.

Resident Evil had to change, there's no way it could remain the same and compete with Dead Space in the same market ... but you might not feel that way, you might think it's the worst game ever made – you'll be missing out in that respect because regardless of the focus change in terms of action, the game is a solid and fun experience, it entertains and can get downright creepy.

There are moments in Leon's campaign when we outright jumped and moments where we thought we'd seen it all, until the scene outdid our expectations. We cannot say what that scene was for us, but it was amazing.

So we are going to stick to our guns in terms of the game and say: we like it a lot.