Resident Evil 5 Review

Heavy Action. Light Horror

by Shadow Wave

©2009 Ben Cadwallader

The long wait is finally over and Resident Evil 5 is finally out around the globe! But has Capcom’s latest entry in their popular horror franchise lived up to its huge hype or is the undead series mutating too much from its origins to be true survival horror fun?

More Resident Evil TRV pics

Essentially while it’s hard to identify the game’s genre as ‘survival horror’ anymore, Resident Evil 5 certainly does tell a great story and gives the player hours of great action gameplay.  Maybe ‘survival action’ would be a better description now. Purists of the pre-Resident Evil 4 era will probably see this change in focus as meaning the franchise is running downhill instead of shuffling on like it should.  Meanwhile, the new Gears Of War ‘run, cover, and shoot’ action crowd may find the game’s more slow and precise aim and shoot scheme too archaic for a this gen game.  Most players, though, are in for a treat.

This time Resident Evil 5 throws the player into the shoes of Chris Redfield, one of the classic characters of the series.  Accompanying him is the refreshingly new character Sheva Alomar.  Compared to the annoying Ashley from Resident Evil 4 she’s a huge step up in a companion.  For one thing you’ll no longer need to babysit your partner. Sheva is a fully fledged agent working for the Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), which Chris has also affiliated himself with.  Both of you have been put together as partners to work up a lead in Africa to find a man who is suspected of involvement with bio-terrorism. Shortly after their arrival in Africa the townspeople quickly become hostile towards Chris and Sheva.  Unable to communicate with the townspeople, they have no choice but to fight through them and the many other horrors as they progress and uncover the mysteries of the latest threat.

One thing that many fans will like to hear is that Resident Evil 5 does a great job on expanding  and connecting the stories from previous Resident Evil games. The loose threads left from Resident Evil 4 quickly become connected and understood and it made me appreciate Resident Evil 4 much more after I completed 5. The overall story of Resident Evil 5 is very enjoyable to see unfold and it successfully sucks you in: from the intro cinematic to the final credits the story barely ever lets you down. Though there aren’t as many twists and turns in the story, the somewhat dodgy dialogue from previous Resident Evil games is kept to a minimum in Resident Evil 5, which just adds to the quality. My only negative is that the main twist in the story is so obvious it can be predicted from a few hours into your journey. The game itself is essentially Resident Evil 4 with a face-lift, and that is a good thing, though those gamers described at the beginning may be unhappy.  You have plenty of different enemies to shoot, with plenty of different weapons. Enemies will react realistically when you shoot them (although they don’t die so realistically). The pace of the game is set out well, and you’ll often alternate between exploration and action, with the very occasional puzzle in-between.  This keeps the game from becoming too stale quickly. Resident Evil 5′s gameplay is about gunplay and action: point, shoot and blow those not-zombies’ heads off! It’s totally fun and satisfying. Boss fights are as memorable as ever, although there are a few too many ‘shoot the glowing spot’ boss fights for my liking.  Some of these bosses just look AMAZING and there are surely going to be a few particular boss fight experiences that stay with you for a while. Puzzles play the same minor role as they did in Resident Evil 4, and it is somewhat depressing that Capcom have completely ditched the ways of old in favour of a pure action game.  I still believe that one of the best parts of the classic Resident Evils was collecting and examining items to unlock a new door/box/etc. It was such a great feeling when that item you collected at the beginning of the game was needed to get through one of the final doors.  The complex puzzles were just so rewarding to complete that it’s sad that Capcom have officially killed the puzzle side of Resident Evil off. The closest thing to a complex puzzle in this  is very obvious and lasts about 1 or 2 minutes. I want to find another Helmet Key!

Horror, wherefore art thou?

As with Resident Evil 4, there are almost no ‘ jump out of your seat’ moments.  Sure there are some freaky looking enemies in the game, but they are never set up to scare you. Unfortunately these new action-orientated Resident Evils have ditched the old suspense and horror system almost completely.  As a fan of the older titles in the series it leaves me wanting more. I miss the sound of my beating heart going wild as I enter an unexplored room. Enemies are a still a little dumb, despite being ‘not-zombies’ these days.  However, Sheva’s AI is usually very good and she will save you on many occasions.  There are still a few area’s in the game (without spoiling) where it’s very easy for you to get across, but often the AI Sheva will have trouble making it across to you safely. Or she will arrive safe but stand in the wrong spot and get hurt. Also sometimes Sheva refuses to shoot enemies that are in the distance and instead just stands there taking bullets, but luckily these sections did not happen very often. The item management/inventory system is where Resident Evil 5 is the weakest. It’s clear Capcom tried to create a more ‘on the fly’ inventory system so that Co Op play would not be slowed down by players fiddling around all the items in their item boxes. But why oh why!  Sorting your item box in Resident Evil 4 was actually fun! Each character has nine slots for items to fit.  Nine slots might seem like a lot,  but it really isn’t.  After playing through the first few hours of the game, you will probably spend your time worrying about how much space is left in your inventory. Due to the scarceness of ammo you often can’t just pick one of your weapons for the next chapter and go with it, you will most likely need two or three weapons.  Essentially each weapon plus its ammo takes up 2 slots in your inventory, and that doesn’t leave much room for anything else besides health. Thankfully if you need to clear up some room you can trade items with your partner Sheva, but it’s still a quite flawed slow process, especially when you are in the heat of a battle.  She often will be too far away to complete the trade. Herbs are still here in the game, but have taken another step back to simplicity in that now there are only two types of herbs: red and green.  Combine both together, or 2 green herbs, to make a herb salad that heals you completely. But the problem is that quite often you will find your inventory is full, you have 1 green herb already, and there is a red herb on the ground. You can’t combine them together unless both are in one character’s inventory.  The obvious answer would be, okay I’ll just drop some ammo for a second while I combine these 2 herbs together… but NO you can’t.

In this game dropping items deletes them permanently!  Dropping items to be used later was such an important part of the older titles I can’t believe Capcom took this out. Now you will often have to sacrifice something else to make room unfortunately. The game is set out across 6 chapters, with each chapter having 3 acts, and in between acts you’ll have the chance to load up on weapons and equipment and prepare for the next act. This is where your closest thing to the Merchant from Resident Evil 4 comes into play. Here is where you can buy and sell items or treasures and upgrade weapons.  You are also able to use this feature when you die in the game. During the game there is no merchant or shop available, so if you have any important items or weapons you want to store for a later time, you’ll have to haul them with you until you die, or preferably until you complete the level.

Throughout your journey if you’re a player that likes to explore (perhaps you are a fan of the original titles?) there are hidden treasures laid out for you to find, but sadly most  treasures you find are there to simply increase your in-game bank account. BSAA emblems on the other hand, are hidden in almost impossible places. There are 30 hidden across the game world and these unlock things such as new costumes and visual filters that add to the game’s replay value. You can also unlock ‘figurines’ by collecting these emblems,  which are essentially digital toys (similar to Super Smash Brother’s trophies). I can’t see much point to them,  but neither are achievements and people seem to dig them. These emblems are not only very well hidden, but you have to shoot them, which means they could be literally anywhere.  I managed to find 5/30 during my play through and I looked really hard for them. Capcom though has  toned down  exploration even further than Resident Evil 4 and there is no backtracking at all in Resident Evil 5. You usually can’t go back through to a previous area, so once you miss a treasure or something, it’s gone until your next play through. There isn’t even a world map anymore, just a map of the current area. I think it’s a poor decision that backtracking is almost nonexistent now, as backtracking was quite a fun part of the game and helped connect the story together. So this plays like your typical shooter: a new location for every level.

The presentation of Resident Evil 5 is nothing short of stunning.

From the beautiful main menu to the exploding head of an enemy, it just all looks and sounds so good (if that’s an appropriate way to describe such things…). The visuals are very crisp and almost never let you down, and I never noticed any slowdown, even in some of the more intense fights.  The graphics are bright and clear: every enemy, environment, and cut scene is amazing. It is a bit disappointing that environmental interaction is limited, though.  You can’t walk through grass or brush past plants that sway for example, and in a few scenes you can see trees that look like they come out of Grand Theft Auto 3 if you look hard enough. These flaws are all very minor and do not take away from the beauty of this game. Screen tearing seems to be a MAJOR issue for 360 owners who are running 1080p, but dropping this down to 720p completely fixed the screen tearing issue, and I highly recommended people do this until hopefully Capcom creates a patch fix for this issue. With the impressive enemy reactions when they got shot, it would have been really great if we could have seen bullet wounds on enemies, it would have added a lot to the immersion, but its not a big deal. The Surround Sound quality of the game  made my ears tingle blissfully and the precise sound gave me perfect audio hints as to where enemies were coming from. Normally I find that even surround sound doesn’t help me too much in locating enemies, but in this game the surround sound helped me a lot! So crank up those speakers people, and enjoy the effort Capcom has made.

The controls are a love it or hate it proposition.

I personally think the controls combined with the style of the game works fine, and definitely adds to the tension. As a Resident Evil fan, I was completely used to the restrictive controls and had no worries in picking this up. I can appreciate how far the controls have come since the original. That said, for newcomers used to newer action shooter games there will be a struggles to adjust. The biggest problem with gameplay controls that needs to be fixed, though, is using your knife to melee.  When you pull out your knife you are completely fixed to the ground and cannot move. This makes knifing enemies extremely annoying as often you will just miss them and watch as a shovel hits Chris in the face. Even if you could move at half the speed or something it would make the usefulness of melee attacking much better.

There is plenty to do once you complete Resident Evil 5 too.

You can play through co-op with a friend, or by yourself and try and earn some unlockable content.  Or you can sit down and play mercenaries mode once you have completed a play through of the game.  This mode is almost exactly the same as Resident Evil 4′s: you and a partner (optional) are thrown into one of the areas of the game where you have to survive for as long as you can against an endless horde of enemies.  It’s sure to add many hours onto the game length, especially when you can play with a friend. Hopefully the upcoming multiplayer mode from Capcom will add even more replayability to the game, but I personally think it’s very dodgy of them to charge money for this so shortly after the game’s release. If Capcom are hoping to keep Resident Evil 5 high up on the charts for as long as possible, charging for this content was a BIG mistake. Capcom, keep your fans happy! Overall Resident Evil 5 has indeed lived up the hype. It’s an amazingly memorable 8-12 hour game that should manage to keep most fans of both the Resident Evil series and action shooter genre happy enough, even though some could initially be put off.  It’s clear Capcom are taking Resident Evil in this new action-orientated direction and the way they have done it here is fantastic. It’s just a little sad to see some of the old classic features go seemingly forever.

”9.0/10

©2009 Ben Cadwallader

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