Vaccine Review By Mark Delaney, 24 Feb 2017 FollowtopicsVaccineRNCReviewID@XboxGame reviewSurvival HorrorMark Delaney The past half-decade or more has given gamers plenty of homages to the 8- and 16-bit era of video games. Partly due to budgetary restraints and partly due to an affection for the time period, it would be difficult to actually put an accurate number on how many of these games have released lately because they're just so abundant. Much rarer are games that act as odes to the generation that followed, the 3D worlds of the original PlayStation. Chiefly among the console's most revered titles was Resident Evil. Capcom's horror title, with its fixed camera angles, tank controls, and primitive combat system, worked because of the tension that arose from these crippling mechanics. Rainy Night Creations' Vaccine looks to pay respect to that seminal title, but ends up crossing over into ripoff territory. This should at least make it fun, but it gets that wrong too.Vaccine is a survival-horror that puts players in the role of one of two special agents struggling to get by amid a zombie-infested mansion. In this derivative environment full of deliberately grainy, mid-nineties era audio/visual design, you're tasked with finding a vaccine to rescue your partner before he or she (whomever you don't choose as your character) turns into a zombie. Everything from animations to the color palette and the character design is shamelessly taken from Resident Evil in a manner that borders on litigious. A timer at the top of the screen is constantly counting down to push you into a panic. The mansion is randomly generated with each playthrough, which adds some necessary replay value to a game like this. Thin on story and often unforgiving to the player, you'll spend a lot of time restarting from the beginning. Without this random generation of the setting, the game would quickly become more tedious than it already is. However, this randomization also alters the locations of items with each replay. Things like notes left behind, weapons, and health won't be found in the same place time after time.This would appear both mandatory and praiseworthy, but it can often result in poor item drops that don't make any sense. I once picked up six different handgun clips and one shotgun clip, but found neither of the guns. I'm guessing they were behind a door I never saw, but I opened very close to all the doors in that playthrough. It's always smart to avoid combat as much as possible, so some playthroughs were much more tolerable if you lucked out on design. Others are nearly impossible, though, and there's nothing worse than drawing that short straw late in the arcade-like run of replays.Even with the randomized mansion layout, corridors are intended to be repeated — much like the game.Such inconvenient item drops should be acceptable in a game that really puts the 'survival' in survival horror, but in reality this technique can lead to immense frustration. If you do manage to bring back the vaccine for your partner, congratulations, you get to do it all over again up to nine times before you've truly beaten the game. Nine new mansions, nine item drop layouts, nine increasingly monotonous takes on the same thing over and over. "Despite all your efforts, your friend got sick again". This message will soon haunt you because whether you die in round one or everything falls apart late in the game, you'll be reading it again and again. Even when you succeed the first eight times, you'll read it. Eventually it becomes quite taunting. With each successful run wherein you retrieve and deliver the vaccine, the timer removes a few minutes from the countdown making each subsequent run that much more panicked. But don't confuse panic with fear. Vaccine is never close to scary. Maybe the games it so blatantly emulates were scary twenty years ago, but it's no longer easy to instill fright with these visuals, with no care for the characters, and in a game where you have no motivation to really do anything. None of it is interesting, except for perhaps the most ardent fans of early survival horror. Even if you are such a fan, you can't just be thankful for its trailblazing, you have to want to play that sort of game again. I don't know anyone who was hoping tank controls would make a comeback besides apparently the people who made Vaccine.Although minimal by design, character upgrades do provide one standout aspect of the game, at least. Everything you do earns XP and in the pause menu you can choose which of your many skills to upgrade, each of them as enticing as the rest, which makes it really hard to choose. Both of the two characters start with basic stats that differ in slight but important ways, so you'll likely have a preferred character of the two even though they offer no personality whatsoever. Inventory management seems to be an intention, but ther was always enough room for everything that was needed and I'm not sure anyone would need more.Character upgrades, though minimal, provide one of the lone bright spots for Vaccine.The achievement list is short and if you're good at this game it won't be too difficult. Most everyone will have the opportunity to unlock their first achievement within minutes. After that, unlocks only come by reaching specific ranks in the game's rinse-and-repeat formula. At time of writing, not 90 people have started the game on TA, but four have finished it already. It's not close to impossible, but it will be hard for anyone who isn't invested and well-versed in this genre.SummaryMinimal story, frustrating design, and a revival of all the bad things of which survival horror washed its hands years ago — these all crop up in Vaccine and combine to have the game miss its mark. Instead of a love letter to bygone scares, what we get is a tiresome endeavor for anyone but the most diehard fans for old school horror. What's worse, even such fans might be turned away by Vaccine's blatant ripping off of Capcom's renowned franchise.4 / 10Positives The absolute biggest fans of old school horror may enjoy this revival Negatives Lacking in story, scares, and purpose Who asked for tank controls to come back? Deliberately repetitive EthicsThe reviewer spent five hours in the randomly generated, bullet-heavy, firearm-light mansion, most of which featured his shoulders being eaten by the residents. Just one of 10 achievements was unlocked. A download code was provided by ID@Xbox.More Vaccine stories: TA Podcast: For Honor, ReCore, ID@Xbox Games Round-up and Win a Game Code Vaccine - First Hour of Gameplay ID@Xbox Releases: Week Beginning February 20th, 2017 Our Live Achievement Runs On Beam Now Include Our Own Custom Tracking Overlay Vaccine Achievement List Revealed ReviewXbox OneID@Xbox Written by Mark DelaneyMark is a Boston native now living in Portland, Oregon. He has written for GameSkinny, Gamesradar and the Official Xbox Magazine. He runs the family-oriented gaming site Game Together.
The reviewer spent five hours in the randomly generated, bullet-heavy, firearm-light mansion, most of which featured his shoulders being eaten by the residents. Just one of 10 achievements was unlocked. A download code was provided by ID@Xbox.