Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City [Essentials] - Boxed - PS3

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is a third-person shooter and a spin-off of the long-running Resident Evil series. Unlike the series' main entries, it is less a survival horror game and more of an action-packed shooter, partly due to the involvement of Slant Six Games, known for their titles in the militaristic SOCOM series. The game is not part of the series' canon and depicts a hypothetical scenario set in September 1998, around the same time as Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. The player controls a member of USS, the Umbrella Corporation's Delta security team nicknamed Wolfpack. They are sent into the Umbrella facility in Raccoon City to neutralise Dr. William Birkin, who intends to sell the mutation-causing G-Virus to the American government. Their initial mission is to team up with HUNK, the alpha leader, to help with the infiltration and secure the virus.

At the start of each mission, the player assembles a team of four characters from a pool of six with different classes. These are Vector (Recon), Bertha (Medic), Four Eyes (Field Scientist), Beltway (Demolitions), Lupo (Assault) and Spectre (Surveillance). Alongside a primary and secondary weapon, they all have a different playstyle and both passive and active abilities tied to their class. Spectre, for example, has a threat scanner to scan nearby enemies, biothermal vision, sonar vision, item detection and proximity detection (large minimap). Not all of these abilities are available immediately; they are unlocked by collecting experience points. Weapons are also chosen from a large arsenal that is likewise unlocked over time. The game is played from a third-person perspective and combines shooting with cover mechanics. Enemies include infected humans, as the T-Virus has broken out across the entire city, as well as mercenaries of the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (UBCS), who protect Birkin and don't prove to be reliable partners. The player controls a single character while the other team members are controlled by the AI. It isn't possible to switch between team members, but the game can be played co-operatively with four human players, each controlling one team member.

Besides shooting, using abilities and various melee attacks, two further mechanics come into play. The first is the use of bio weapons, which cause members of the same team or the infected to fight each other. Second, if the player character is bitten, there is a risk of infection. Health points are deducted and the character is eventually transformed and attacks their teammates (while the player has no control) until an immunisation spray reverses this.

Multiplayer adds a second team of six United States Special Ops (USSO) characters with similar abilities: Willow, Dee-Ay, Tweed, Harley, Shona and Party Girl. In Heroes mode, famous characters from the series face off against each other. The first team consists of Leon S. Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliveira, the other of Ada Wong, HUNK, Nicholai Ginovaef and the new character Lone Wolf. Other game modes include Team Attack (Team Deathmatch), Biohazard (Capture the Flag), Survivors (survive with a team until the helicopter arrives), More