Resident Evil 5

I figured I would use Resident Evil 5 as my first review for a couple reasons.
1. As you will come to learn RE is possibly one of my favorite franchises. I have followed the game through thick and thin and loved every game, even the so-so titles (RE:CV, RE0). I also have an Umbrella and Los Illuminados tattoo. But I want to review a game that I can prove my unbiased opinion of gaming.
2.I think the game was completely underrated and over criticized by most of the gaming community and it's a good game to prove how lazy and unimaginative the current gaming community is.

CONTROLS/GAME PLAY
I have heard a lot of guff on this game about how it looks and plays just like RE4! First off, this complaint is totally uncalled for. I heard none of this when Gears of War took a downgrade to Gears of War 2. Hell, I didn't even hear a complaint on RE1 being too similar to RE2. A good sequel to a good game is keeping everything that worked and getting rid of everything that didn't. The controls of the characters were incredibly more advanced then those of it's predecessor. Going back and playing RE4 you realize how blocky the controls were. In RE5 they added a much more controlled sprint. My favorite part of the sprint controls was that you could click in the left analog stick to run, just like Modern Warfare 1 controls, which are arguably the best controls for any current game to date. Also adding in strafe was a huge help in fighting hordes of undead. Fans of RE4 will remember the frustration of moving around the village trying to escape the chainsaw man and getting caught in the turn around. For movement I honestly think RE5 is a great turn in 3rd person gaming.

One thing that did bother me on the control scheme was that of the "secret" trust system you had to build up with Sheva for her to even be worth a damn. The "secret" was that when she was to give you an item, heal you, or save you from a grab you were to hit B/Square to thank her. This would build up your trust system thus making Sheva a better partner, increasing her accuracy and intelligence. I know, I know, "She never rescues you!" And you know what? You are right! One of the biggest improvements on the franchise was the addition of co-op multiplayer throughout the single player campaign. This being the primary focus the producers and developers of RE5 wanted playing with the AI to be much like playing with a person. The goal was for you to communicate with Sheva like you would a real player. When you are being attacked while playing with a friend online the general reaction is to yell into your headset, "Save me bro!" However when we are not online with a friend we all just expect the AI to pick up on our mental mind waves. Sorry "bros" magic isn't real, so any time you need Sheva to save you you can hit B/Square while being attacked and she will immediately help you.

Also by holding down B/Square you can set your partner to either attack or cover. This is basically how you choose what weapon she will use. She will always use a less powerful weapon for cover, as not to hit her partner with a magnum or rocket launcher, and vice versa for attack. The biggest mistake the devs made on controls was making it a "secret" system. This should have been made a primary function of game play, rather than another place to add an achievement/trophy.

It might have felt like firing weapons in RE5 became boring, or all the weapons felt the same. Personally, I agree, but punching a zombie to the ground just to stomp his head clean off never got old. Weapon play in the RE franchise has never been a major part of game play. A lot of gamers complained about the weapon system. Not being able to run and shoot was the biggest complaint or that there was a lack of ammo. I just have to point out here that RE has never been a "run and gun" game. Simply put, it has transitioned from survival horror to action horror, never horror shooter. With the introduction of the behind the shoulder camera RE lost a lot of its suspense. They also dumbed down puzzle solving immensely making it seem like the primary focus was just shooting things. But it still was never classified as a shooter. Sure it has a lot of shooter elements like enemies dropping ammo and upgrading weapons. But just because a prostitute has beautiful eyes, long hair, and big breasts doesn't make her a woman... that bulge is saying something else, just try looking closer. Loosing the stationary shooting would have completely ruined to RE franchise as being any sort of horror game. The devs knew they had to keep the game somewhat scary so I think it was only appropriate to make the suspense come from forcing you to get really close to your enemies and forcing you to engage in cqc. When you can't move and there are 20 crazed maniacs with axes, knifes and steel pipes..... oh god steel pipes.... it gets a little more intense. The guns you used in RE5 were more or less just a catalyst to get your melee kills. I think that the devs wanted to make the melee system far more advanced than the previous title. If you remember, there were no head stomps nor was there much variety to the melee kills. In RE5 you can not only throw a thrust punch knocking your enemy to the ground you can then stab or head stomp the fallen zombie. If you are playing online with a friend you can even combo attack some of the tougher enemies. For example, Chris throws an uppercut, Sheva then flip kicks the knocked back enemy allowing Chris to get that final devastating thrust punch, or as I call it, "FALCON PUNCH!!"



Overall the controls for the game were above average, but nothing legendary. Making a secret system on something so critical to the game play was really the biggest downfall of the game. But the worst part is seeing how many game reviewers couldn't figure it out.

CONTROLS/GAME PLAY- 8.2/10

STORY

Zombies.... It's pretty simple. Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil have some of the most confusing plots in gaming history. The problem with RE is that it falls into that line of B rate horror movies. I just can never tell if the hilarious dialogue in RE is just Japan's attempt at American horror or if it is a joke on the b rate zombie film genre. Nothing will ever be more hilarious then in RE1 finding your fellow officer bitten by a large snake and hearing him yell (literally) OUCH!!! But I think most of us just thought that was poor voice acting and nothing more. The problem is that it never got better. Even now with RE5 the voice acting is crap... mostly. They can't keep from pointing out the obvious. Don't get me wrong! Michelle Van Der Water (Sheva) is smoking! But I'm tired of seeing characters stare at a giant monster just to hear them say, "LOOK OUT! It's a giant monster!" Listening to this kind of dialogue makes it hard to follow the story. It pretty much stopped making sense after RE: CV when they tried to add a fantasy element. At this point the RE franchise has turned to the plot line of, "Creepy stuff! We will kill it before it kills the world." And that's about it. RE4 (while being one of my favorite games) had the worst storyline ever. It made no sense, it was hard to follow, and the voice acting was, once again, lack luster. Without spoiling too much here is a synopsis that most gamers should understand.

WESKER IS BACK ZOMG!!!

I'm Chris Redfield and I am magically assigned to yet another case with seems normal and yet OH NO! Things go wrong, but its ok! I have an unrealistically hot partner to help me out.

ZOMG WESKER HAS A PARTNER!
ZOMG WESKER HAS THREE PARTNERS!
ZOMG THEY ARE ANNOYING! (Big surprise!)

I'm Chris Redfield and I remember Raccoon City! So I can handle this no problem!
I'm Sheva and I'm from Africa... So I can Handle this!

ZOMG EPIC LONG AWAITED CHRIS vs WESKER MOMENT!
never mind, its the somewhat anticipated Chris AND Sheva vs Wesker!

You win!

Although I do have to say that even though the story was so-so, the scenes in the game were just incredible. I've waited 10+ years to see what is truly Wesker badassery!



There were some nice plot twist that made you excited if you were a long time fan of RE5. However they were plot twists you could call from the first cut scene.

Overall, generally I am not playing an RE title to get a deep story or deep character development. They do a good job of making just enough story and character development to keep you interested between jumping out of your seat and shooting the undead. If you are wanting a survival horror game with character development and deep story you should hold out for Alan Wake
STORY 6/10

GRAPHICS
If you haven't got a chance to play this in HD, even 720p, you have to. I am not a game developer and I don't know how hard it is to make a game look that good today. But for what Crysis is on PC and what it takes to run that game, RE5 blows it away. It looks almost just a good as Crysis and it plays on the Xbox360. The shadowing effects are perfect and realistic. When you play this game you will truly feel like you are in Africa. My personal favorite thing about RE5 was that throughout the game the time of day is changing. It really makes you feel that you are heading towards an ultimate end. Unlike previous RE games (with the exception of RE4) it took play entirely at night. No matter how far you progressed or spent in the Mansion|Police Station|Lab|Prison it was always night. In RE4 they tried this, and succeeded. However there wasn't much of a transition. In one part of the game it was day, then the next it was night. In RE5 there was a scene in which you were seeing a storm roll onto the African plains as it turned from day to night. The problem with this part was only that you were on a level which bolted you to a truck with a Gatling gun. I'm just F#$%ing tired of every game involving a gun needing a level were you just shoot from the back of a truck.

Overall there isn't much to say about graphics other than that they are amazing and incredibly realistic, aside from the undead Majini running rampant.

GRAPHICS 10/10


MULTI PLAYER/ONLINE CONTENT

Of course as mentioned before there is a co-op campaign. This is interesting because of how the game mechanics had to change to avoid boosting for achievements/trophies. Because of this they made it to where you could not share weapons while playing online. However you could share eggs, health, and ammo. And as I am sure you have read you can glitch easily for money. If you don't know what it is and are too lazy to use google on your own, here. But when it came to actually playing the game it worked really well. In fact beating the game on professional almost required you to play with a real partner. The game worked so well as a co-op campaign that anytime I get on RE5 now I will always play online. Having and instant game over for the death of one character made team work necessary to complete the game. Left 4 Dead is a good example of your run and gun co-op games, they did it flawlessly! However for a true team work, true cooperation type of co-op game you will want to play RE5.

After beating the campaign, or having somebody who has beat the campaign invite you, you will open up Mercenaries mode. This is a fun, frantic, time based mode where the player is to gain points by killing Majini alone or with a friend in duo. The more kills in a row increase you max combo increasing your points. Also killing all 150 Majini including the three bosses under your given time will also increase your points, 1,000 for every 1 second. My personal best was having 9 minutes left in duo which gave us an extra 540,000 points. So if you are going to play, try to get all the kills you can! If you can get kills using melee attacks you will gain 5 seconds for each kill. There will also be time bonuses spread throughout the map that you can pick up anytime during the game. There are usually between 3-5 treasure chests giving you combo time which will give you another 1,000 points for every combo kill. Mercenaries is one of my favorite online co-op experiences ever. But that's just one game mode! There's more.


With the release of the game they also set to release DLC a few weeks later, Versus. This would add two game modes, each with a team mode, so essentially four game modes were added. Slayers and Survivors.
In Slayers you were put in a game of 1-4 players, host determined whether it was teams or free for all, and it's basically mercenaries but you are competing for your kills. This would have been awesome except that you could kill the opposite team. This doesn't become an issue of who wins or not but more of an annoyance. The majority of people playing games just want to shoot people and that is not what this is about. It is about killing the Majini and the bosses for the highest score. Killing an opposite player only gets you 1,000 points and costs the opposite player 1,000 points, which in theory would be a decent amount of points to gain, except that while they are unloading clips into you you can manage to get 5-6 Majini killed scoring 300-600 each making the 1,000 point loss for dieing more like a 1,700 or so point gain, 700 more than the person killing me. It just gets old after a while dealing with the BS.
In Survivors you are put in the same maps but instead of getting points for killing Majini you now have to gain points from killing opposite players. This game modes was so bad that I didn't even bother getting all 1200G available on XBox I had to stop at 1180G. The game mechanics used in RE5 do no work for a death match style game. Having to stand still to shoot makes the game suspenseful sure but it makes it incredibly hard when you want to shoot somebody. It either turns into you taking turns killing each other (because you will just stand there shooting each other until one person dies leaving the victor with no health, only to be killed seconds later by another player.) or you just chase each other around the map until somebody gets bored and quits out. Honestly the DLC isn't worth downloading, just stick with Mercenaries.

Multi player/Online content- 5/10

Resident Evil 5 overall is a great game and worth playing. It looks spectacular, plays well, and is an awesome action/horror fix.

Overall price label- $49.99