Kennedy New Media

Finally, the long-awaited, Resident Evil 5 Review! Please drop comments or email and let me know what you think!

So… I’m pretty much a big chicken when it comes to horror games, moves, etc. I struggled through Doom 3, and just about soiled myself when I encountered my first Big Daddy in Bioshock. So, hearing how good the Resident Evil games have been over the years in regards to scaring you, I stayed as far away as possible. Not because I was afraid of a good game, but because I was just afraid. I’m finding the fact that I’m writing about the newest installment of the RE series very odd as I know that I am not a horror fan in the purest sense of the word.

To give you some background on why I ever picked up the latest installment, I start with an anecdote. I met and spent the weekend with Ken Lally in March for All-Con. He is Wesker in RE5 in every aspect but the actual voice. Pretty amazing dude – super-passionate about his craft and glowing about the game. Then the fangirls started rolling in gushing about this game and I find myself thinking, “I’m going to pass up a game that this many people are crazy about because I’m chicken? No way!”

And that’s when I picked up RE5. There were some pretty intense parts, and some were even scary, but overall its gotten away from its intense horror roots, and for me, that’s a good thing.

Starting off in a small shanty-town in Africa, the story picks up as Chris Redfield pulls up and meets his counterpart and ambassador, Sheva Alomar. The visual counterparts that Chris and Sheva make are notable, but its hard to believe Chris is still so pretty after all these years fighting BOW’s. Playing through this game, I’m pretty sure he’d look more like Freddy Krueger than the buff chiseled-jaw hunk. But I digress.

Speaking of visuals, the game palette is amazing. This game gives creedence that video games are true visual art. So many games are hitting a wall in regards to realism and opting for a stylized look (Madworld, No More Heroes) that does a decent job of telling the story its easy to forget what a studio like Capcom can achieve with their big-budget games like Resident Evil. The options you get after beating the game the first time to change the visual filter is interesting but doesn’t really do much to really change the feel visually. For me personally, it takes away from what is already stunning, making the game seem like a bad remake of, “Night of the Living Dead.”

The beginning “tutorial” takes you through the town. Don’t be afraid to explore here. While everyone looks at you like they want to kill you, no one actually will. Yet. You make your way towards a butcher’s shop where you ammo up and equip your tools of trade. From there is where the game really begins. Quickly you are introduced to the infected and the control scheme with a few infected coming your way. You’re supposed to run but its not really apparent at first so just be warned. You’ll need every spare bullet early in the game so don’t make the same mistake I did – run for cover when Sheva says run.

Getting used to the gun control scheme was filled with frustration while I broke my traditional FPS habits. Remember, I’m not a veteran RE player, so this was even tougher for me than most. I would say, if you’re like me, it will take you the entire first chapter and part of the second before you instinctively have the controls down. Afterwards, I found the system interesting but ultimately it was just something to get used to.

The inventory system is intelligent and uses proximity to determine if you can give something to someone or get something. This by no means that it was any good. I found that most times I was managing my inventory and using Sheva as a pack mule. I’ll cover Sheva’s AI shortly, but to really drive it home the game is sometimes infuriating when you are trying to keep a decent array of weapons on your person for different situations and the game gives you items and/or ammo that you have next to no use for at the moment but you want to keep so you don’t have to tap into your very limited cash resources.

The games atmosphere was heavilly reliant on sound and the team did not slouch here. The use of dogs popping out of stuff to scare the living bejeesus out of you is still the hallmark of the RE games and is used to great effect. The music revving up when you are getting into a hairy situation is a nice indicator that they need to mentally prepare themselves. However, I think from a horror point of view this is a bit like giving away the surprise. Worked well for me, though.

In regards to the useful(less)ness of Sheva’s AI I found that she was nearly utterly useles throughout most of the game. Playing through parts of the game online in co-op mode I found the experience infinitely easier and more enjoyable as we were actually able to rely on each other. I know that AI isn’t going to be as good as any human but it would be nice if Sheva switched weapons to meet each challenge rather than when one of two scenarios arise:

1. She runs out of ammo
2. She’s on a rooftop and has a sniper in her inventory

Eventually I gave up on her and only gave her a fully upgraded pistol (one you start off with) and a sniper rifle with no additonal ammo. I essentially used her as a pack mule from there through the rest of the game. I did get annoyed with having to swap out herbs to combine them sometimes, and at other times she already took care of it. The game is obviously meant to be played co-op, but for many people they would rather have the option to do both. Personally, I didn’t have anyone that I could consistently play with on a regular basis available during my play-through but I jumped in on any number of games after I finished my solo-experience.

Now, I want to comment on the whole race issue very briefly here. I do not believe Capcom was out to anger anyone or point out one race over another. The thing is, they listened when the first truly angry people started criticizing the game. They made sure that all races were represented on both the protagonist and antagonist sides. I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but the 3 main evil people are all white? Again, I didn’t feel that race was an issue in the game because it doesn’t seem, to me, that the intent was there. I think the discussion is good and the sensitivity is good to have, especially in our Politically Correct US of A. However, Europe isn’t really like that, folks. Japan isn’t really like that. I keep reading and hearing about people taking issue with race but I just don’t see it.

Anyways, overall fun-value and replayability is very high for this game, despite the infuriating AI. After I beat the game I immediately went back and began planning out my next moves in regards to how to upgrade all of my weapons and get the rest of the goodies that I missed on my first run-through. I’ve gone back and played some pick-up games several times since I moved on to other games just for some fun zombie-esque blow stuff up cravings. I give this game very high marks based on its movie-style script and execution, and the AI and other small annoyances are gotten over somewhat quickly to give RE5 a solid BUY IT. I have not been this impressed with production value in some time. I loved the game and look forward to following the RE series as it goes into its “reboot” and see where that goes. Well done, Capcom. Well done.

P.S.
Now, I did not pick up the additonal content out of principle that I don’t believe in selling extra content so close to release. If its ready this close, just put it on the disk. If its truly a new chapter or content that continues the story after a great finale (RE5 does not slouch on the ending, either) then I am game but money is pretty tight in everyone’s wallet and I just don’t see paying $70-80 on my games when there are other options out there for my (and your) cash.

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