Resident Evil 5

"Sheva, go stand in the corner."

I've grappled with Resident Evil 5 for a long time now. It has great points, bad points, and some design decisions that strike me as counter-intuitive. Being a long-time fan of the series, this was easily the title I most looked forward to this year and, I have to say, it doesn't raise the bar set by Resident Evil 4. Admittedly that's a pretty tall order, but with series creator Mikami gone it's pretty clear the games will be all the poorer for it.

While Resident Evil 4 upped the stakes in terms of graphics, gameplay, and took the series in an overall action direction, Resident Evil 5 takes it even further and its association to anything horror or suspense-related is now tenuous at best. At its worst, it's like a Michael Bay movie: a big, dumb summer action movie with ooh-rah military moments, lots of visual eye candy, and things exploding left and right. Resident Evil 5 is here to rock your face off in the action department, no bones about it.

The game starts off with hero Chris Redfield, having joined an organization devoted to the prevention of bio-terrorism and lost fellow S.T.A.R.S alum Jill Valentine. His latest mission takes him to Africa where he meets up with Sheva Alamor, the rookie partner, and the two attempt to prevent an arms deal going down. In typical fashion nothing is what it seems and the two end up knee-deep in a plot by a certain RE villain to turn the world into a bunch of Las Plagas-infected zombies. It isn't Shakespeare, and Capcom doesn't try to make Resident Evil 5 come across as anything other what it is.

Lines are delivered with the typical ham you'd expect them too and every character is two-dimensional, but you can't hold that against them. It's done with pizazz, really great motion-capture and a coating of slick graphics. The story's a stinker, but man is this one of the best-looking games ever. Blows a lot of other games out of the water, too. Every detail from the explosions, enemies dissolving into puddles on the ground, and even Chris' ridiculous biceps are rendered to perfection. Presentation in Resident Evil 5 is second to none.

I was initially worried how the controls would fare on the Xbox after having played all those Playstation Resident Evils and it works wonderfully. Doing a 180-degree turn is easy, strafing too and aiming is great. You can even adjust how fast you want to swivel your gun around, in case you're the slower on on the draw type. There's also a decent amount of other options if you're not satisfied with the initial layout.

The meat of the Resident Evil experience, the gameplay, has changed drastically through one simple design choice. While the core of the game is intact as in you fight big baddies with your assortment of guns in a third-person, over the shoulder perspective, the formula is altered with the inclusion of your partner. Many fans have wanted a true multiplayer experience and now they have one with Sheva, the second player or AI-controlled partner depending. She's your typical video game, female side kick as in she's a nimble one and can't take as many hits as beefcake Chris Redfield.

Other than that, she's really on par with anyone playing as Chris. She can use all the weapons, items, and has her own set of melee attacks that are actually more effective than Chris'. Of course with all multiplayer experiences it really depends on who you're playing with. No matter how great a game is or well thought-out the design is, a bad player can ruin it. Like most games, it's best played with a trusted friend. In my case it was my brother, and when we popped this game into the Xbox we couldn't put it down.

Taking down hordes of enemies, sniping enemies off the other's back, and those "your mistake cost us the game!" accusations make Resident Evil 5 a truly fun multiplayer experience. You can head online to find a partner, do split-screen, or even system-link. The game practically screams out for you to get a second player, and with good reason. As soon as you boot up the single player, you're given the AI-controlled Sheva and that is where Resident Evil 5 takes a sharp left turn into a ditch.

Sheva is bad, so much so that I'm certain her name is going to be associated for terrible AI for years to come. So much of Resident Evil 5's gameplay no consists of cooperation, you can't just go out by yourself all willy-nilly. Open arena gunfights are broken up between sections that require both players to move/operate something together (busting open a door) or having one person enter a hornet's nest of danger while the other provides support.

It's at these moments Sheva will lose the game for you, opting to use the worst weapon in any given situation while wasting all of its bullets. She'll heal you when you don't need it and rush into the thick of an enemy horde. You'll need her to distract a boss while you shoot at him and she simply clings to you when you need her to do something specific. You can give her rudimentary orders, but it doesn't help anything. Most of all she will die, over and over again, and rather than simply continuing the game by running past her rotted corpse and going "serves you right" you instead fail the mission and have to start over.

Granted Ashley from the last game was a useless character you had to keep alive to progress, but at least she was somebody who knew they were useless and steered clear of enemies. Sheva is all too happy to charge in and start ruining things, a sharp contrast to your terrific game you just played with somebody online or with a friend at home. She will make any boss battle last several times longer than what it needs to and waste all of your precious resources.

Resident Evil 5 is very big on replay, but I can't help feeling the ability to go through all those levels again and accumulate a wealth of items is more of a way to deal with Sheva's inadequacy to preserve resources than anything else. Not to mention the game is significantly shorter than most Resident Evils, even taking into account the initial play through and higher difficulties.

The inventory system has also undergone a change in that you no longer can pause the game and go through your attache case, you instead have nine slots with which to manage weapons and items. It's an on-the-fly system, and more often than not you'll be panicking while trying to combine herbs and equip a particular item. With all the items you get it gets cluttered quite quickly, and it's a system I have mixed feelings towards. It's a nuisance, that's for sure, but it gives the game a certain calm-versus-panic in a tense situation quality about it. What is an unquestionable pain is the fact that herbs don't stack. Why can dozens of bullets and grenades take up one space while say three herbs waste three of your precious slots?

Enemies are incredibly similar to the foes in Resident Evil 4 and they are showing their age somewhat. They'll run at you, but as soon as they get in your face they slow down and they're never really much of a challenge even when you're facing a horde of them. The monsters also feel weaker this time around, not just in difficult but in design too. None of the bosses feel particularly threatening or inventive this go-around, you really start pining for the Tyrants and William Birkins of the past games. The final boss fight in particular is underwhelming. You're expecting a God of War-sized beastie and instead...it's just a dude with a tentacle.

The main threat of the whole game is essentially a rip-off of Resident Evil 0's Leechman design. It just shows how tapped-out creatively the Resident Evil team is, but I can't help holding the series to such high standards. Still, the solid gameplay makes up for that deficiency.

Overall, Resident Evil 5 is the epitome of a mixed bag. Get a good two-player game going and it's a great time while if you play by yourself you'll be constantly smacking your forehead at AI-controlled Sheva's mind-shattering stupidity. Some of the two-player mechanics such as saving your partner's life and branching off work while openings doors together and the like just feel like lame additions. The quick-time-events are back but scaled back and the game felt worse off. With the exception of an epic battle of biceps versus boulder late in the game, no event sequences stuck out.

In the end Resident Evil 5 is a great multiplayer game, easily one of the best experience even with the shortened length while the single player is severely lacking. If you're getting this a single player game it will gather dust and go unplayed. Take it as the two-player experience like it was meant to be played and you can see it's worth your time.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/09

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