Resident Evil 5

"The Year's Greatest Disappointment."

When Resident Evil 4 came out, it re-invented both the action/shooter and the survival horror genre. Regarded as one of the greatest games ever made, RE4 set the standard in quality and pushed the boundaries of what you can do with a video game. In its wake came games such as the Gears of War series, Dark Sector, and Dead Space. Each game built upon the foundation laid by Resident Evil 4. Many long time RE fans were disappointed--albeit, I'm not sure why--with the lack of survival horror elements, the atypical Movie of the Week storyline, and the focus on action oriented gameplay.

Let's fast forward to 2007 when the first Resident Evil 5 trailer was released. We're greeted with Chris Redfield, protagonist from the original Resident Evil, walking through the streets of an unnamed country in Africa. We see hordes of enemies clawing at Chris in an attempt to kill him. My jaw dropped when I saw the trailer. There were so many enemies on screen. It looked genuinely scary. That's when it all came crumbling down.

I'm not sure if Capcom changed the game because of the unwarranted controversy, but it sure seems like it to me. I remember reading about new features they were bringing to the table. Features that seemed really breakthrough, even though they were small. Things like heat exhaustion, hallucinations, eyes adjusting to new light. Those are all out the window. In their place we get something I dread in any game; a tag-along companion. At least they had the courtesy to give her a gun this time.

Now, onto cover the general basics of the game. First of all, this game is fun. The most important part of any game is how enjoyable it is. However, it is not the most fun I've had with a game. In fact, some things in this game are downright grueling to endure. One of the factors making this game so weak is the co-op system. Not only is it forced, it's nothing special.

"Hey, is that a ladder? Oh I'll climb it and...oh the ladders broken. That's funny. Oh, I see! I have to throw my partner up there? Really?"

It's like they are just making excuses for you to have a co-op system. Another thing I can't stand in this mess of a game is the recovery system. Instead of just going to the red like you do in all other Resident Evil games, you go into a DYING status. Then, it's the responsibility of your partner to punch you in the chest and give you a pep talk so you can access your inventory and move at a speed other than stop.

That's right. In dying status, you cannot access your inventory. You just have to stand there and try not to get hit until your partner--AI or player controlled--happens by to resuscitate you. Again, this is something that they didn't need in the game, but just put in as an excuse to make the game co-operative.

That brings me to my next point; Then inventory system is just awful. Awful. It's the worst inventory system I've seen in any game. In old Resident Evils, you would pause the game to use an herb, or reload your gun in a pinch. This time, not only is your inventory a whopping 9 spaces, but you have to access it in real time. So if you're about to hit dying status and you need an herb, you better have that set to a quick action spot (inventory positions mapped to the D-Pad. Yay!) so you can hit it and go. If you have to open up the menu to retrieve it, consider yourself dead.

Like I stated earlier, you only have 9 spaces for your inventory. Everything takes up one slot. Ammo of course stacks on top of each other to a limited amount. Oddly enough, herbs don't. You'd think if you can load ammo boxes on top of each other, you can slip a few herbs in the same pocket. Not only that, but the ability to use an herb you find lying around is gone. If you don't have a space in your inventory for an herb, sorry pal, you don't get to heal. Of course, if you get rid of something like a grenade launcher, that frees up just enough space so you can grab the herb, heal, and be on your way.

Now, you may be asking yourself why this game has such asinine features like that. The answer Capcom gave is simple, and is really just a bad excuse. It's supposed to add to the survival horror elements. Let it be known, this game is not a survival horror game in any sense. As I mentioned earlier, the trailer showed up to 20 enemies on the screen at the same time. Not the case now. In lieu of the co-op--which I'm guessing took up a quite a bit of space--you can now have a total of 10 enemies on the screen at the same time!

Not only that, but there is so much ammo scattered throughout this game that there's no way you'll ever run out for long, if at all. Even in the original, one of the factors in the horror was the lack of ammo. Not this time. There's tons of ammo and very few enemies, which reduces the challenge factor from about 8 to 2. Of course, to compensate, they include a difficulty where one hit puts you in that dreaded DYING mode.

The controls in this game work, but they're quite dated. This game is very much an action shooter, but you still use the tank controls of a survival horror game. That simply doesn't work. The cover system is about 10 years old. If you're taking cover against a wall, you can't move. You can't shimmy over to a new spot to begin firing again. No, you have to leave cover mode, walk over, go into cover mode again, and hope the enemy hasn't changed location. And what kind of action shooter doesn't let you walk and aim at the same time? Resident Evil 4 laid the ground work. It was the first of its kind. You didn't need to walk and shoot. However, RE4 was four years ago. Times have changed.

The best part of this game are the beautiful visuals. The graphics are top tier and breathtaking to behold. Setting the game in Africa gave them a lot of room to play with different terrains and really make you feel like you're in a foreign world. The sound effects are great, while the music in the game is completely forgettable. At first, the story seems like a major improvement over RE4, but as you progress, it quickly comes apart until it eventually falls flat on its face.

A lot of this game feels recycled from RE4. Some of the enemies bear a striking resemblance to enemies in the predecessor. Not only that, but even more of the enemies bear a distinct resemblances to bosses from other games. Capcom claimed to have been inspired by Gears of War and Dead Space, and the inspiration is clearly evident. In fact, it's so evident that it just feels like it's ripping them off.

As far as replayability goes, this game has very little. It has some of those freebie achievements I can't stand. Unless you're a completionist, you'll be turning this game off after two playthroughs and a few runs in the extra modes. The game gives a good new game high, but it burns out faster than it arrived. It leaves a lot of be desired.

However, there is a little more replay value in playing online co-op mode. Something else that may perk your interest is the soon to be released VS mode, though I'm not sure how that will work with these sluggish controls. If you're new to the series, RE4 was your first, or you're really into action shooters this is definitely a rental at best.

To me, it feels like Capcom had a lot of original ideas, but scrapped them half way into development to avoid backlash from the media. What little fun exists in this game is plagued by outdated controls, a practically useless co-op mode (unless you play with a friend), and an unbearably bad inventory system. This game is in every way a huge step backwards from its predecessor, and from the games that were built from Resident Evil 4's formula. After all the hype and all the controversy surrounding it, Resident Evil 5 is nothing short of the year's greatest disappointment.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/30/09

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