It's fair to say that Resident evil was one of 2009's most hyped and anticipated games, and that given Resident evil 4's critical acclaim across the board - expectations for it's sequel were running sky high. Trailers seemed to indicate the game would be everything and more, but unfortunately the game comes up short, way too short. Where exactly did Capcom go wrong!?
The plot in Resident evil 5 is your basic run of the mill 'taking over the world' schmuck. The actual premise of the plot is a good one, but its execution is poor, because there's never a point in the game where you feel the world is truly in any danger. This also goes for the main characters. Chris is just a big old tank who goes around speaking of nothing but Jill. And one of the characters in the game told Chris like it is and echoed my sentiments exactly with "Jill, Jill, Jill. You're like a broken record, you know that?" You don't ever care for Chris or feel he's in any danger. There's no vulnerability to him at all. Even though Resident evil 4 had elevated Leon to the status of a legendary action hero, there was still a rookie like venerability to him. Ironically it's new girl Sheva who feels the most real and like the one who is affected by what's going on around her the most. It's a shame that most powerful line in the game "These are my people that are dying here!" wasn't given more weight. If there were moments in the game where Sheva was alone, things would be different. But her venerability is constantly kept in check and off-set by the soulless Chris Redfield, who seems more concerned about Jill than the task at hand: saving the world and stopping bio-terrorism. The plot's as thin and pointless as 4's. The unlockable files in the game shed a great deal of light on the whole story surrounding the game and many of it's character. Upon reading these you realize how much was omitted from cut scenes. Surely explaining the Ndipaya via a cut scene was necessary to convey to gamers why the men in grass skirts with spears are infected and how the Ndipaya's downfall is connected to the flowers. The info is all in the game, but it's in a bunch of files. Not the ones dotted around as you're running around in-game, but ones you unlock and read in the 'Library'. It's almost as though Capcom couldn't be bothered with conveying the meat of the story via cut scenes, so they relegated it all to unlockable files.
![Resident evil 5 screenshot [screenshot courtesy of IGN.com]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tkVyZdVNJ0XQFNbP0MFsok_-EEcr4j2B-G084C-QIB6tRP1YWWH0oj-tO2gzvffWVVmXbYxFEukhmc_14_MyIR-ZNHQbV8lLvFqKE69QvBDqpmf3B-6zY8vJvUHwfkdqjHqR4o45bRCR2t4xZqR7stX2vt8aIFlXcPFI5aZjacdYEhSC9wJ-LMt4zqglsD92jzvWrZuovdesDDizAlaNhwWbTaQpWpM2Q_gxOX=s0-d "Resident evil 5 screenshot [screenshot courtesy of IGN.com]")
![Resident evil 5 screenshot [screenshot courtesy of IGN.com]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tsEKjXQ4G1sswjDplixPA9khVVp228dgzebxya23v44x7l3hUOEvf_krlBFu6NG4O0-tDMFr9i1aLhQCuOm9NEXzM0S35QUGrE_O5dIa9LOcbFkRBH_sxmrmeFtW7Dkrp27uqmHkhm8Yaks9EQ6G1SY0s9KPhBPzSc3UY4yDQPG8FBaoqoHkZkegY0ewEuzsIxOy8Rits4rgx8dpqSCRgTykAp6lFUQTHy0CLeMmPF2g4h=s0-d "Resident evil 5 screenshot [screenshot courtesy of IGN.com]")
Chris and Sheva's pairing is an odd one, because there's no connection or chemistry between them in the way there was with Chris and Jill, Jill and Barry, Leon and Claire, Rebecca and Billy, and even Claire and Steve. Resident evil has always hinged somewhat on character interactions and chemistry's, and there is none between Chris and Sheva. There's never a sense of rapport or friendship between the two, which causes them to feel disconnected from one another despite working within the same company and spending so much time together. Having Jill be Chris's co-leading lady would've made more sense. You feel more of a connection in the Chris and Jill flashback scene than you do throughout the whole entire game in the shoes of Chris and Sheva. Also, Sheva feels so detached because she's not up on the history concerning some of the characters. But Sheva's still the character you care for most because she seems so vulnerable and has what Chris doesn't appear to have: heart and a conscious awareness of the terrible things going on around them. Capcom should have had it that Chris and Sheva knew one another prior to the events of Kijuju and given them a history, and had their chemistry manifest itself over the course of the game. But the end result is a leading duo who have no connection or spark between them. The mystery woman is also not-such a mystery. Her identity is pretty much confirmed from the start. There is no curve ball or epic reveal. Her reveal isn't so much a "WOW! It's her!" moment as it is a "Damn, what's Nina Williams doing in Resident evil!?" moment.
Resident evil 5 isn't much of a scene setter. It does away with what made Resident evil, Resident evil. Suspense, claustrophobia, scares and isolation. You never truly feel like you're alone in Resident evil 5. Aside from Chris and Sheva always being tethered together, Chris has an iPhone which he whips out on multiple occasions to chit chat with his homies and request help. You never feel alone or isolated in this game, which kills a lot of the suspense. Even when you're crawling through pitch black mines, you never truly feel like you're in any real danger. It's like Capcom gave up on trying to scare you. Even during points in the game where they could have.
The locations in Resident evil 5 are also boring. You don't feel like you're actually making your way through a remote location. You're just flung from one area to another with no correlation. What's the deal with tribal village? What does a temple and ancient ruin have to do with anything? It's all pointless. Never do you hit a location that wows you or amazes you with it's grandeur or stunning architecture. If I was to describe the locales of 5 in one word, it'd be 'uninspired'. You never feel like you're in Africa half the time, with so many white, Arabian, Persian and Indian men running around. So God knows why Capcom invested so much money sending staff out there to take pictures. The game may as well have been set Iraq or Bahrain. Even when you're running around a tribal village with men in grass skirts and masks - you don't feel like you're truly Africa. Especially when the tribal village is right next to a big shiny oil refining factory.
The much talked about A.I is a mixed bag. It will always opt for the weakest weapon, use herbs for no reason, will delay in resuscitating you if you go into a dying state and won't get trigger happy, even when you give it the strongest weapon with infinite ammo and tell it to attack. The A.I is dumb in this regard and is not something you can rely on when you're swarmed with enemies. The A.I will however, never get whacked down when a prompt appears to dodge a boss attack, is able to pick off those pesky Ndipaya's who trap you in the marshlands even when you're zipping around in the hovercraft at full) speed and won't rush to smash barrels and hoard ammo like an online partner will. The A.I does a good enough job of things, but there are moments when it is a liability and it makes certain sections harder than they should be. Certain boss battles are are nightmare with the A.I. Especially the later ones. Thankfully the online co-op is run by some robust code. I've never once had a problem with lag. But the system could have been made to be a bit tighter. Sometimes during a game you'll get a request someone wants to play; but they can only join when you reach a checkpoint or if you restart the game - something you don't really want to do when in the thick of things. So the gamer gets tired of waiting and cancels the request to join your game. Also, annoyingly, when you cancel a request to join a game or you're told you can't join a game for what-ever reason, the game decides to throw you several menu's back - so you have to go through the process of searching for a game all over again. Annoyingly bad menu design.
Resident evil 5 just seems to hang on what made 4 such a stand out game. Many of the bosses, scenario's and memorable moments are copy and pasted directly from Resident evil 4. The whole 'village goes empty' at the start moment, the chainsaw man, the giant troll, the truck coming for you head on, the stupid little midget man who ends up infected and turning into some monstrosity that has to be killed - it's all re-hashed with very little newness coming in to truly wow you in any way. All of the games jaw dropping moments, are purely graphics related.
![Resident evil 5 screenshot [screenshot courtesy of IGN.com]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_seh2TqqRt9kVYzHqJLkBHLZVntqR5VFvL3GVI5ZJiP_Sz94QT1ZqUyUjwCHz2DOybSncbPMUD0OYA_2W-m79yXdJ8c27dYk1sqPzLmPdfzimdj2nXG6VHukxKnSnfUpClm7ZSxcJQ4UwFtnwUXz3yMYh8OnDuSfbBRcYWcncof2pjWd1DlNruHPByhPKIi9bFKWgQsSU0Nuy5U-XqfoRHDkWdCuFGfEPsj20SyGR_qKVk6=s0-d "Resident evil 5 screenshot [screenshot courtesy of IGN.com]")
![Resident evil 5 screenshot [screenshot courtesy of IGN.com]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vf1HRULzkD24UlVm05Jo-fzyPCHDEUuVwtUgLS-65lJ1c6oKPU3M01lRlDDxDCjNO7u0Sfgq8aPeUxxG5Qti49Vl1kECAvHLz81VB8ZmRnvLFkEoMxTTpaBUZy21GvbY355WuoECBKgxB00I8jXE9-ayYIKvWvNg17Ux-QTlGjbIk1Bj47Miys1PToMco9UsDrW9H3FE4WcYsurh0gRhIc-CWo_UdIct087ZJWPebRp3V-=s0-d "Resident evil 5 screenshot [screenshot courtesy of IGN.com]")
The co-op is fun, but nowhere near as fun as it could have been, because Capcom never seem to fully tap into the potential of it. The team play never really exceeds having Chris boost Sheva up to higher area's. Only in the final boss battle is the potential of the co-op finally realized. But by this point it's too late. The game's already done, and nothing it pulls out at this point can really sway you into thinking differently from what you felt about the game up until this point.
So I've slagged off enough of Resident evil 5, so let me stick in the praise boot in. Graphically Resident evil 5 is easily one of this generations best looking games. Right up until the end, the game just lobs graphical spectacle after graphical spectacle your way. The character models are incredibly detailed, with every expression looking incredibly life like, especially on the ladies. You can see every thought process Sheva's going through in each cut scene, and Excella's face contorts in ways as she speaks that make her look every bit the bitch you just wish would get taken down Chris Brown style by Wesker. There are genuinely times some of the characters faces look real. The lighting is outstanding. From the orange light that spins and casts real time shadows during the first showdown in the furnace with Uroboros to the sunlit haze of the Savanna. The audio is also stellar, with some decent voice acting and a solid soundtrack which sets the mood of the game really well.
The Mercenaries mode is a great bonus to the game - exhibiting many elements that most definitely should have been spread to the main game. The sense of danger, the sense of being overwhelmed, knowing that your partner needs you to act right and that if it all goes tits up: it's YOUR fault. You also get to run around as Wesker and the not-so mystery woman, which is always fun!
Aside from the graphics and The Mercenaries mode, you just don't get the feeling Capcom put enough time, effort and love into this game. Instead they just re-hashed what made 4 a great game, diluted it and glossed it all up in a HD package with some co-op play and seemed to have forgotten what made Resident evil, Resident evil. Going in a new direction with the series is fine, but make it a tight package and really sell it. Don't go about it half arsed. The controls, the stupid menu system, no merchants for upgrades and the bastardized cover system that gets introduced mid way through the game. All stupid.
Resident evil 5 is not an amazing game. It's not even a great game. It's just a good one. Nothing about it feels fresh. I'd still warrant it an essential purchase, because it is a fun game which gets more fun once you complete it. And it's just one of those games every 360 and PS3 owner just should own. But it's far from amazing. And for what could possibly be a bookend to the whole Umbrella and Wesker chapter in the Resident evil series, it's a shame Capcom didn't bow it out more spectacularly. I say for Resident evil 6, Capcom rope back Shinji Mikami and really re-think what would make an amazing playing experience, as opposed to one that just gets the job done and ticks boxes.
The good
+ Outstanding graphics and audio
+ Co-op play is great fun
The bad
- Game play can feel like a chore at times
- The partner game play isn't explored or exploited enough
- Crap story
- Feels like a far too blatant re-hash of Resident evil 4
The plot in Resident evil 5 is your basic run of the mill 'taking over the world' schmuck. The actual premise of the plot is a good one, but its execution is poor, because there's never a point in the game where you feel the world is truly in any danger. This also goes for the main characters. Chris is just a big old tank who goes around speaking of nothing but Jill. And one of the characters in the game told Chris like it is and echoed my sentiments exactly with "Jill, Jill, Jill. You're like a broken record, you know that?" You don't ever care for Chris or feel he's in any danger. There's no vulnerability to him at all. Even though Resident evil 4 had elevated Leon to the status of a legendary action hero, there was still a rookie like venerability to him. Ironically it's new girl Sheva who feels the most real and like the one who is affected by what's going on around her the most. It's a shame that most powerful line in the game "These are my people that are dying here!" wasn't given more weight. If there were moments in the game where Sheva was alone, things would be different. But her venerability is constantly kept in check and off-set by the soulless Chris Redfield, who seems more concerned about Jill than the task at hand: saving the world and stopping bio-terrorism. The plot's as thin and pointless as 4's. The unlockable files in the game shed a great deal of light on the whole story surrounding the game and many of it's character. Upon reading these you realize how much was omitted from cut scenes. Surely explaining the Ndipaya via a cut scene was necessary to convey to gamers why the men in grass skirts with spears are infected and how the Ndipaya's downfall is connected to the flowers. The info is all in the game, but it's in a bunch of files. Not the ones dotted around as you're running around in-game, but ones you unlock and read in the 'Library'. It's almost as though Capcom couldn't be bothered with conveying the meat of the story via cut scenes, so they relegated it all to unlockable files.
Chris and Sheva's pairing is an odd one, because there's no connection or chemistry between them in the way there was with Chris and Jill, Jill and Barry, Leon and Claire, Rebecca and Billy, and even Claire and Steve. Resident evil has always hinged somewhat on character interactions and chemistry's, and there is none between Chris and Sheva. There's never a sense of rapport or friendship between the two, which causes them to feel disconnected from one another despite working within the same company and spending so much time together. Having Jill be Chris's co-leading lady would've made more sense. You feel more of a connection in the Chris and Jill flashback scene than you do throughout the whole entire game in the shoes of Chris and Sheva. Also, Sheva feels so detached because she's not up on the history concerning some of the characters. But Sheva's still the character you care for most because she seems so vulnerable and has what Chris doesn't appear to have: heart and a conscious awareness of the terrible things going on around them. Capcom should have had it that Chris and Sheva knew one another prior to the events of Kijuju and given them a history, and had their chemistry manifest itself over the course of the game. But the end result is a leading duo who have no connection or spark between them. The mystery woman is also not-such a mystery. Her identity is pretty much confirmed from the start. There is no curve ball or epic reveal. Her reveal isn't so much a "WOW! It's her!" moment as it is a "Damn, what's Nina Williams doing in Resident evil!?" moment.
Resident evil 5 isn't much of a scene setter. It does away with what made Resident evil, Resident evil. Suspense, claustrophobia, scares and isolation. You never truly feel like you're alone in Resident evil 5. Aside from Chris and Sheva always being tethered together, Chris has an iPhone which he whips out on multiple occasions to chit chat with his homies and request help. You never feel alone or isolated in this game, which kills a lot of the suspense. Even when you're crawling through pitch black mines, you never truly feel like you're in any real danger. It's like Capcom gave up on trying to scare you. Even during points in the game where they could have.
The locations in Resident evil 5 are also boring. You don't feel like you're actually making your way through a remote location. You're just flung from one area to another with no correlation. What's the deal with tribal village? What does a temple and ancient ruin have to do with anything? It's all pointless. Never do you hit a location that wows you or amazes you with it's grandeur or stunning architecture. If I was to describe the locales of 5 in one word, it'd be 'uninspired'. You never feel like you're in Africa half the time, with so many white, Arabian, Persian and Indian men running around. So God knows why Capcom invested so much money sending staff out there to take pictures. The game may as well have been set Iraq or Bahrain. Even when you're running around a tribal village with men in grass skirts and masks - you don't feel like you're truly Africa. Especially when the tribal village is right next to a big shiny oil refining factory.
The much talked about A.I is a mixed bag. It will always opt for the weakest weapon, use herbs for no reason, will delay in resuscitating you if you go into a dying state and won't get trigger happy, even when you give it the strongest weapon with infinite ammo and tell it to attack. The A.I is dumb in this regard and is not something you can rely on when you're swarmed with enemies. The A.I will however, never get whacked down when a prompt appears to dodge a boss attack, is able to pick off those pesky Ndipaya's who trap you in the marshlands even when you're zipping around in the hovercraft at full) speed and won't rush to smash barrels and hoard ammo like an online partner will. The A.I does a good enough job of things, but there are moments when it is a liability and it makes certain sections harder than they should be. Certain boss battles are are nightmare with the A.I. Especially the later ones. Thankfully the online co-op is run by some robust code. I've never once had a problem with lag. But the system could have been made to be a bit tighter. Sometimes during a game you'll get a request someone wants to play; but they can only join when you reach a checkpoint or if you restart the game - something you don't really want to do when in the thick of things. So the gamer gets tired of waiting and cancels the request to join your game. Also, annoyingly, when you cancel a request to join a game or you're told you can't join a game for what-ever reason, the game decides to throw you several menu's back - so you have to go through the process of searching for a game all over again. Annoyingly bad menu design.
Resident evil 5 just seems to hang on what made 4 such a stand out game. Many of the bosses, scenario's and memorable moments are copy and pasted directly from Resident evil 4. The whole 'village goes empty' at the start moment, the chainsaw man, the giant troll, the truck coming for you head on, the stupid little midget man who ends up infected and turning into some monstrosity that has to be killed - it's all re-hashed with very little newness coming in to truly wow you in any way. All of the games jaw dropping moments, are purely graphics related.
The co-op is fun, but nowhere near as fun as it could have been, because Capcom never seem to fully tap into the potential of it. The team play never really exceeds having Chris boost Sheva up to higher area's. Only in the final boss battle is the potential of the co-op finally realized. But by this point it's too late. The game's already done, and nothing it pulls out at this point can really sway you into thinking differently from what you felt about the game up until this point.
So I've slagged off enough of Resident evil 5, so let me stick in the praise boot in. Graphically Resident evil 5 is easily one of this generations best looking games. Right up until the end, the game just lobs graphical spectacle after graphical spectacle your way. The character models are incredibly detailed, with every expression looking incredibly life like, especially on the ladies. You can see every thought process Sheva's going through in each cut scene, and Excella's face contorts in ways as she speaks that make her look every bit the bitch you just wish would get taken down Chris Brown style by Wesker. There are genuinely times some of the characters faces look real. The lighting is outstanding. From the orange light that spins and casts real time shadows during the first showdown in the furnace with Uroboros to the sunlit haze of the Savanna. The audio is also stellar, with some decent voice acting and a solid soundtrack which sets the mood of the game really well.
The Mercenaries mode is a great bonus to the game - exhibiting many elements that most definitely should have been spread to the main game. The sense of danger, the sense of being overwhelmed, knowing that your partner needs you to act right and that if it all goes tits up: it's YOUR fault. You also get to run around as Wesker and the not-so mystery woman, which is always fun!
Aside from the graphics and The Mercenaries mode, you just don't get the feeling Capcom put enough time, effort and love into this game. Instead they just re-hashed what made 4 a great game, diluted it and glossed it all up in a HD package with some co-op play and seemed to have forgotten what made Resident evil, Resident evil. Going in a new direction with the series is fine, but make it a tight package and really sell it. Don't go about it half arsed. The controls, the stupid menu system, no merchants for upgrades and the bastardized cover system that gets introduced mid way through the game. All stupid.
Resident evil 5 is not an amazing game. It's not even a great game. It's just a good one. Nothing about it feels fresh. I'd still warrant it an essential purchase, because it is a fun game which gets more fun once you complete it. And it's just one of those games every 360 and PS3 owner just should own. But it's far from amazing. And for what could possibly be a bookend to the whole Umbrella and Wesker chapter in the Resident evil series, it's a shame Capcom didn't bow it out more spectacularly. I say for Resident evil 6, Capcom rope back Shinji Mikami and really re-think what would make an amazing playing experience, as opposed to one that just gets the job done and ticks boxes.
The good
+ Outstanding graphics and audio
+ Co-op play is great fun
The bad
- Game play can feel like a chore at times
- The partner game play isn't explored or exploited enough
- Crap story
- Feels like a far too blatant re-hash of Resident evil 4