Resident Evil 5

"What happened to that game the E3 07 Trailer teased us all with?"

E3 2007: Capcom debuts Resident Evil 5 at E3. They release a trailer showing Chris Redfield fighting ridiculously large mobs of infected, showcasing duck maneuvers and intense tension in overwhelming and extremely outnumbered odds. Leaving fans drooling.

E3 2008: Coop is revealed in their new trailer. Gets the fan base even more excited thinking coop will be able to match the intense sequences shown in the 2007 trailer.

February 2009: Demo is finally released on XBOX live, showcasing two levels. With all the elements in the E3 2008 trailer, but none of the intense overwhelming themes from the 07' trailer. Perhaps an early build or slower paced level choices for demo?

March 13th, 2009: Resident Evil 5 is released. How does it hold up? Well, very faithful to the E3 2008 trailer, but almost nothing we were excited about originally made it very far. Here I will express my opinion and views on Resident Evil 5. All separated into their own categories that are individually scored.

Single Player: 6/10
By far the most disappointing aspect for me. I was expecting intense moments the 2007 trailer showed off. Instead, you get a very watered down version of that. With a lot of the features show cased in the trailer, stripped away. Perhaps for a good reason? No. Instead they force the coop mechanic, a mechanic solely designed around multi player, into the single player. The results leave a lot left to be desired. To put it simply, if you don't plan on playing with a friend. Your not going to get much at all from the single player experience. There are not that many on screen enemies (in comparison to the 07' trailer), which definitely hinders the whole tension aspect a lot of people were looking forward to. You also have twice the amount of guns and ammo (thanks to the coop partner) mixed with less than half of the onscreen enemies shown in the trailer. The overall feel is severely lack of desperate, overwhelming moments we found ourselves in previous Resident Evil games.

It's quite clear that coop would of been much better without in the single player campaign. The AI partner is sometimes downright frustrating, as you will find her shooting you in the back because the AI for her isn't smart enough to know you are in front of her. She sometimes gives you ammo when you don't want it, and she is only effective with certain weapons. The pistol, not being one of them. Of course you can order her to attack, or cover, but all this really does is change the priority of what weapon she uses, and has much less care for ammo conservation.

In terms of level design, it goes from really open something could come from anywhere kind of feeling. To a linear corridor, everyone is crowded down the hallway scenario. The further I progressed, the lack of tension became more apparent. In the later chapters, they start handing out assault rifles to the infected, and throw in a mediocre out of place cover system into the mix. To me, this really throws the game out of pacing and rhythm. I always liked to believe that Resident Evil wasn't just another shooter, and the developers seem to pride themselves on that. I also liked to believe that they didn't have to rely on forgettable gun totting enemies. When you hand the infected guns, and add in a cover system, it just feels like a very bad third person shooter, with worse AI and an even worse cover system. The only thing covering up the reality of that are the infamous tank controls. Their ace up the sleeve they use to prevent this game from being branded as another third person shooter. With some of these poor game play design choices, that disguise is beginning to thin.

The Merchant from Resident Evil 4, and save system from previous Resident Evil games is gone. Which leaves a lot of confusion and logic out of a perfectly fine system from previous games. Now you can magically buy items and upgrade weapons between chapters or when restarting checkpoints even though your on a trolley, for example, when it is obvious there is no one there. You can pull up your storage inventory in between chapters and checkpoints as well, which makes even less sense. Because you can store anything and everything in there and swap it with your current inventory as if it was magically in one of the players pockets they magically pull out from a magic lantern. From a game play aspect, I suppose it's very intuitive, and keeps players feeling even less pressured about lack of ammo, items or weapons.

Granted don't get me wrong, the game still controls a lot like Resident Evil 4. But it's missing a lot that makes it feel like a Resident Evil. The coop mechanic completely subtracts the all alone feeling and a lot of tension away from the game. The context sensitive cut scenes we loved so much in RE4 are only used in very few and far cut scene sequences in the entire game. Why is this? It's not like the cut scenes are void of any action. They could of added a lot more. There are no clever puzzles. The fear is gone, because a lot of instant death, or any death scenarios (with one or two exceptions) are instead replaced with the generic coop "dying mode" in which you are helpless and must rely on your partner to revive you. Not to mention you are very rarely scarce on ammo. Since there are two of you and the game throws ammo at you when the game recognizes you are low on it. For example, if the only weapon I have is a magnum, enemies will constantly drop magnum ammo when I am low, which is pretty much always with that weapon.

While we're on the topic of coop, I'm just going to put this out there and say it. Coop is not that innovative. It does nothing we haven't seen before, and only hurts a lot more than helps. From the generic revive system we see in almost all coop games of recent history, to the forgettable coop character. You can share ammo and items, assist one player to a place one can not reach by themselves, etc etc. The most intriguing coop feature I found, was the coop melee combos, which the AI nor most of the on-line community really even uses.

It's not all negative, there are many positive game play elements in the campaign mode. Memorable bosses (though some of them are very questionably coincidental to those found in other game series like MGS and Gears, not going to factor that into this, but I know I am not the only one who sees these commons the games share). The first few levels are definitely a great kick off. And there are a few tense moments, just no where near enough of them.

Multi player 7/10.
The only reason it is a 7, is because "The Mercenaries" mode (Kind of like a time trial game mode focused on how many points can you get with multiple characters to choose from) makes up for a lot the campaign misses on. First though, I will talk about the campaign mode. Through my experiences, it's just better to stick with a friend on-line or split screen. Seems almost no one through the lobby system uses mics. The majority of players tend to want to skip the cut scenes (which is made very apparent through the annoying on screen prompt letting you know the other player wishes to skip) and a lot of people just seem to rush through as fast as they can guns blazing, not seeming to want to savor anything that makes the campaign great to begin with. Which brings into question the whole point of the coop campaign.

Then comes The Mercenaries, where all those complaints of mine are void, because there are no cut scenes, no story, no objective except to go guns blazing as fast as you can before time runs out. Main point being, is the majority plays the campaign mode like it is mercenaries mode. So like I said, it's probably just best to stick with friends if you want to savor the campaign mode for what it is. If it was up to me, I would of left coop in Mercenaries mode, and delivered that single player experience that a lot of people like me were drooling over in the 07' trailer.

Story 7/10
This is very mixed, and was hard to place a score on. The story has it's up and downs. Some of the dialogue feels like it was pulled from a Saturday morning cartoon, and makes taking the already over the top plot even harder to take seriously. Some of the characters are memorable, some of them made me question their purpose in the plot to begin with. Also included is the most predictable plot twist, which doesn't seem to serve much purpose but to please the hardcore fans. There are some instances that could of done something for the game play, but for some reason went with the less interesting approach. For example, without giving away spoilers. There's a point in the game where they discover where the characters could fight fire with fire, (which would of been awesome given what the "fire" is) but instead choose to use it in a much less desirable way. The ending chapter seems a little bit way too cliche, but wraps everything up sensibly. All in all, don't expect a God Father 2, but it will satisfy in one way or another.

Overall 6/10
At first the announcement of Coop was really exciting, but in it's place was sacrificed many things we were looking forward to in Resident Evil 5. As for a Resident Evil game, it's no where near the strongest link. If your looking for a Coop game. I would recommend one or two titles before this one. As for a "survival horror" game I would tell you to look elsewhere. As I never felt pressured to survive nor is there any really horror in there. Seems the new definition of horror is gore and grotesque creatures. Which is a shame. As for a third person shooter, I'd recommend a look into it It is definitely unique in terms of controls and atmosphere. As for die hard Resident Evil Fans, I doubt anything I've said would stop you from buying the game anyways.

Resident Evil 4 definitely took the step in the right direction for the series, adding action elements which supplied a little adrenaline while also maintaining those tense moments and actual fear where you were wondering what was going to jump out next. As well of a lot of original features that easily formed a lot of game play influence on many games (most notable over the shoulder camera used in countless games).

Many will argue: "If it's not broken, don't fix it". Which I hate that saying, if it wasn't broken how would you fix it? And I suppose your car isn't broken either, but adding a turbo charger sure would make it a lot more enjoyable I imagine. Problem is, Resident Evil 5 didn't add anything mind blowing. Instead it took a lot out of what we loved from the series in exchange for a forgettable Coop experience. It feels more like a shooter now. No puzzles, no horror, hardly any tension, hardly any theme that your actually fighting to survive. It just feels like a third person shooter, with unique anti run and gun controls. Granted there is still fun to be had. But it's getting to the point where the only thing linking this game with Resident Evil is the story.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/23/09

Game Release: Resident Evil 5 (US, 03/13/09)