Resident Evil 5 Review

The first big game that I was looking forward to in 2009 has been released. Resident Evil 5 and man was I disappointed. After the huge success of Resident Evil 4 on the Nintendo GameCube I have been waiting for a sequel and now that it’s here, I feel as Capcom has let me down. Although the game does look really amazing, they added features in it that should not belong in the series, mainly being co-op play. Capcom is following the direction of other games such as Gears Of War 2 by having a friend play through the entire game from start to finish with you.

Story
If you are worried about playing Resident Evil 5 because you have never played any of the previous games and don’t know the story, don’t worry, you are not going to miss much. This game does not require you to know too much of the back story. The story is basic, you are an agent working for an agency to tries to stop the use of biohazard weapons from getting in the hands of terrorists. You arrive in Africa to investigate reports of zombie like creatures, you end up meeting your partner and you set forth. There are characters from previous Resident Evil games but you don’t need to know the complete storyline to enjoy it. The story itself is very boring and feels like it’s only a summer blockbuster action movie. Notice how I said action movie and not horror movie, that is because this game is not scary at all. Resident Evil created the “survival horror” genre, and this game completely brakes away from that format.  There is not any moment in this game where I got scared, worried, or at the edge of my seat. No dogs jumping though windows, or any spooky moments this time, it was nothing but a go around and shoot zombie like creatures which the designs of were not even that scary either. Even the big boss fights you encounter are not even that scary, most of them all look like giant blobs of black goo. Resident Evil 4 departed ways with the normal zombies, and this game continues that trend, I really hope they bring back the mindless dumb, dead zombies in RE6 cause I am sick of this new type of zombie that seem to be fully alive and aware of what they are doing. They are faster, they come at you in groups, and they even know how to work rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers and how to throw grenades. Much different from the zombies that only stumble at you and only attack is trying to bite you.

Controls
The controls in Resident Evil 5 feel broken and out of date. They work basically the same as they have in all previous RE games, press and hold left trigger which brings out you weapon, point and aim and then press right trigger to shoot. Most of all you cannot run and shoot at the same time. This control type worked the older Resident Evil games, even worked ok in Resident Evil 4, but in this game it is just annoying and can kill you if you are not careful. Like I previously mentioned, the “zombies” in this game are smart, too smart. They come at you in groups and at times they run at you in groups, they carry weapons ranging from axes, chainsaws, to military weapons. When there is a group of say 8 zombies running at you with weapons in hand, you need to try to run away at a safe distance quickly turn around, pull out your gun, try to aim at them and shoot at them. Each zombie takes about 5 bullets to kill from your handgun, and since you can only carry 10 bullets at a time after you kill 2 you have to reload which takes a few seconds by this time the remaining 6 zombies are right on top of you attacking you and draining your health, it’s at this point you then have to put your gun away, run to another far distance and turn around and repeat. What makes this worse is when your shooting the zombies that are in front of you, you are completely unaware of the heard of zombies that are coming at you from behind, and if one of them has a rocket launcher and shoots you, its game over and you didn’t even have a chance to duck or dodge the attack. It is because of this the developers should have let you be able to shoot and move at the same time. I mean you play as a special agent working to stop terrorist and you can’t even shoot your gun and move. Every game now a day’s uses a move and shoot control type either being “First Person Shooter” like Halo or even a 3rd person view like Gears Of War 2, they all use a move and shoot control type. The control type they use in Resident Evil worked in the older games because it was only a few zombies after you, but they didn’t run (unless you count the dogs and the later creatures) and they didn’t have guns so you were able to stand in one spot in shoot. Please fix this for future games. Resident Evil 5 also features something that a lot of games these days have that I cannot stand, “Quicktime Events” where you are watching a cut scene, most of the time it’s an action cut scene where the characters might be running and there is a hole in front of them, a button command appears on the screen and you must press it fast as you can to have that character jump otherwise you get damaged or even get a game over. Cut scenes in games are meant to be a break from the action and watch an nice CG movie of action or story line, not to have your controller tight in your hand waiting for it to say “press X” or “tap X as fast as you can”. This game has a lot of these moments, and although most of them are simple (but annoying) one event is broken. The final boss fight, a command appears on screen telling you to “Hold A”. Every time I did this part of the boss fight I always died, I could not understand it. What the screen should say is “Tap A as fast as you can”. Capcom still have not fixed this error, but really wish they had before I spent an hour trying to kill the final boss before realizing they screwed up.

Inventory
When I first started playing Resident Evil 5 I was disappointed by the inventory system. I thought there wasn’t enough space for your weapons and ammo. Since then I have gotten more used to it, but figured out what the main problem is. You always have to make sure your partner has enough guns and ammo, and if you are playing with the computer, your partner will waste through ammo big time, so you always have to restock her while losing your own stash of ammo. I see this game messing up friendships if you play with someone online. Your friend may be completely out of ammo and yelling at you saying he needs ammo and to give him some and if you don’t it will cause feuding. Before each chapter or after you die and continue you have the option to visit a store to sell items, buy weapons and upgrade weapons. It’s a nice feature to have except you cannot buy ammo for your guns which means you’re stuck looking around on every level trying to stock as much ammo as possible and make sure your partner has enough so she can fend for herself as well. 

Overall
Resident Evil 5 was not the game I was hoping for. It was not scary as previous titles and doesn’t have a good story. The controls are outdated for a game that plays like this. The graphics do look good, but it feels more like Resident Evil 4 just with co-op. I don’t think the Resident Evil series deserves co-op features. It should stay as a single player experience which makes you feel more isolated and leave you with a sense that you are alone with no one to help you or cover your back. In conclusion, I did enjoy playing the game, I would recommend the game, but it did not live up to the hype that it received over the past two years. If I had to give it a grade, I would give it a B-