The shooter genre of video gaming was never, in 25 years, my cup of tea. However, with the release of the latest Resident Evil installment (Operation Raccoon City), all that seemed to change suddenly. As a fan of the franchise from the very beginning, of course I was going to pick it up upon its release date...

And I've become ADDICTED to it.
   
             
                         
Now whenever the subject turns to gaming, people ask me for my PsN handle and the first thing I ask is if they have ORC. Again and again I'm disappointed, as they either don't have the game, only have it for Xbox, or hate it altogether.

A friend of mine came by my apartment, and got a peek at the USS campaign. He practically freaked, stating, "This is like the worst-looking excuse for a shooter I've ever seen". Apparently in more streamlined and serious games of the nature, you can jump off of walls, see better varieties of enemies, and kill with more finesse.

              

It didn't seem to matter to him that ORC pretty much IS about a dozen steps ahead of anything Capcom's put out there for the series. In fact, the speculations I highlighted in an anticipatory gaming blog - http://www.ebaumsworld.com/blogs/view/82155707/ - were accurate. But I digress.

Just a few weeks ago, PsN put out downloadable extras that include not only the free Spec Ops prologue mission, but TWO Echo Six mission expansion packs!! Now it's literally an entirely new game from the government's side you can work on for trophies/achievements, rankings, and XP... Not that you'd need that anymore if you're as crazy about the game as I am.

    

So now that I'm currently engrossed in perfecting the Echo Six Expansion 1, I can't help but feel traitorous to my former self... for 25 years my choice and basically ONLY genres have been rpg's and survival horrors. Yes, ORC is part of the RE series and apparently less of a "real shooter". But on the other hand, anyone who's played RE would be hard pressed not to call it a shooter through and through. It's just not the old RE. Even 5 had a lot less shooting. And a lot of people complained 5 had not enough scares and too much shooting, o__O.

The worst thing is probably that I've been hearing shit from others on shooters they want to know if I own, since it's a very popular genre - for people with low attention spans, I always said. Except now I've been thinking of buying these other games!

Has Capcom blundered in releasing a title which only causes even the most staunch anti-shooter players to seek out more quality games of the genre?? It's like asking how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.