Casual Cogitations

Piece of Advice

First off, looking through the net regarding the race issues within the game, I honestly think it's been blown well out of proportion.

There was no fuss when the gamer was shooting the heads off the Hispanics in RE4. The African American community need to get over themselves as some of them are digging up ambiguities over nothing.

It's a piece of interactive fiction...get over it.

Anyway, on to the review....

The Resident Evil franchise has come a long way since it was scaring the pants off gamers back in 1996 with crude polygon blocks. Thanks to Hollywood move adaptations and Milla Jovochich’s legs, the T-Virus, Umbrella Corp and Racoon City are almost common knowledge these days. So now after many gaming titles, across five different platforms and over 35 million copies sold worldwide – what can Capcom possibly offer next?

When Shinji Mikami rebooted the Resident Evil series with the landmark survival-horror game, Resident Evil 4, he set the bar unreasonably high for any subsequent sequels. Arriving in gorgeous form on the underdog GameCube, RE4 introduced vastly-improved controls, a truly unsettling new type of zombie-like enemy, and a massive adventure that all but put to rest any complaints about the series' typical game length. It featured Resident Evil 2 co-protagonist Leon Kennedy -- mostly alone and mostly in the dark -- and was, for the most part, an excellent, chilling, frightful action game. Resident Evil‭ ‬5‭ ‬, on the other hand, is less of a survival-horror game and more of a survival-action game in which you are never alone, and rarely in the dark.

This completely saps the horror out of Resident Evil‭ ‬5‭ ‬. It is very nice to have an A.I. partner like Sheva around watching your back, and it's a worthwhile spin on the classic RE formula. But her presence adds a layer of comfort that extinguishes the creepy, unnerving experience that running through the game solo would have created. The much-vaunted "fear in broad daylight" concept, while briefly unique, is overrated, too, as the feeling of being completely exposed out in the light of day soon gives way to the usual RE brand of action which forces you to stick and move, stand and shoot. The difference here is that in past RE games shadow was never used as an advantage -- the series has never been a Metal Gear stealth game -- and so, suddenly being thrown in the heat of the desert sun is no fundamentally different than creeping around in the darkness. It's mostly a gimmick. Seeing your highly-detailed enemies lunging after you is pulse quickening for sure, but once you get over the novelty of it, your survival instincts kick in and it's the same old Resident Evil all over again, except this time with the lights turned on.

Resident Evil‭ ‬5‭ ‬offers some great level designs. The opening scene place you in a poverty stricken village filled with narrow alley-ways and confined spaces like two or three roomed houses that you can try and defend by pushing bookcases in front of windows. Zombies will smash down doors, leap in windows or climb in from the roof to ensure that you squeal like a little girl in front of your flatmates. Later on this sense of claustrophobia is counted with a scene that takes place on a cliff-face overlooking a huge desert canyon - fighting off a giant maggot thing with wings and nippers. Next you will be in a pitch black mine.

Here it is so dark that it requires one partner to light the way with a two-handed battery operated torch. The genius behind this is that it leaves just one other player to fend off attackers when they suddenly appear in your team-mate’s beam of light. Resident Evil 4 sometimes felt a little recycled in the environment department so it’s great to see that Capcom have put the next-gen technology to use creating exciting surroundings. I did find it a bit odd however the way Chris felt the need to smash through glass windows by jumping head-first every time. Surely knocking the glass out with your gun or maybe even just opening it would be a safer option? I guess it just takes a real man like Chris to open a glass window with his skull.

Firstly, Resident Evil‭ ‬5‭ ‬isn’t about plain old zombies now. Mindless brain-eating zombies are totally old school these days. Instead the poor inhabitants of this African town have been infected by a much more serious strain of the virus causing a wealth of ugly side-effects. They are smarter (they operate machine-gun turrets and ride motorcycles now!), fast and sometimes very difficult to take down. While some can be killed by careful headshots, others will mutate into other, more destructive forms when wounded. As Chris mentions early on, “…they don’t move like any zombie I’ve ever seen.”

As in Resident Evil 4, players cannot target and move at the same time. Holding down L1 gives you a cross-hair (or the ultra stylish laser pointer) and R1 shoots. In order to move around you have to lower your weapon, preventing you from shooting while retreating…which is what I would be doing in most cases Chris and Sheva find themselves in. But this element of gameplay is one of Capcom’s finer creations and truly opens up that aspect of survival horror. It basically means that every shot counts – whether you aim for a leg to slow down your attacker or try for a well-placed headshot as a zombie charges for a taste of your juicy bits. The inability to fire blindly while running around like an idiot makes the combat intense and personal. Not to mention the sparse ammo in the game that will cause you to curse every missed shot. The only main gripe with the combat is the hand-to-hand fighting with your knife. At times where you run out of ammo, your trusty blade is your only defense. But without being able to move while holding it, you are forced to just stand around and wait for them to come to you. Moving closer and then drawing your knife is often too time-consuming, leaving you vulnerable to their close quarter bites. Surely a burly lad like Chris can operate a knife at the same time as moving his legs?

The introduced concept of having a partner changes the dynamics of the gameplay considerably. Sheva can provide you with backup, direction when you’re lost, help you find items scattered around in crates, hold extra equipment that one person couldn’t carry and - most importantly – is someone to hear Chris’ wise-cracks and general banter. If you are low on ammo she will (if she posses any) throw you some from her inventory. Sheva will also cover your back and help you if you get pinned down in a tight spot. When playing single-player the AI that controls your partner is fairly clever and usually gives you a good sense of team-work.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is, for all of the improvements that Resident Evil 4 made, Resident Evil‭ ‬5‭ ‬ only magnifies the franchise’s need for an overhaul. You have a cover system grafted onto a control schema that’s irrationally tank-like. For every level that borrows from Uncharted or Capcom’s own Lost Planet, you’ll face a series of corridors nearly copy/pasted from Resident Evil 2. And regrettably, the positives in these statements only bolster how, at its worst, Resident Evil‭ ‬5‭ ‬ is simply derivative.

Resident Evil‭ ‬4‭ ‬was always going to be an albatross for its successors,‭ ‬but it’s the temerity with which Capcom treats it that’s really surprising.‭ ‬There’s so much reverential reuse of ideas,‭ ‬from basic combat to the big set-pieces,‭ ‬that it’s almost as if RE4‭ ‬had a formula that could be copied.‭

Even if‭ ‬it did,‭ ‬a trick never looks quite as good the second time around.‭ ‬It’s not surprising that Resident Evil‭ ‬5‭ ‬was intimidated by its predecessor,‭ ‬and it’s not surprising that it believes imitation to be the most sincere form of flattery.‭ ‬It’s also not surprising that such reverence has created mechanical clichés,‭ ‬from barrels to chainsaws,‭ ‬as pervasive as item boxes ever were.

The other problem that's starting to bog down the Resident Evil series is that the bosses are gradually becoming more and more ridiculous. Either Capcom has started to run out of ideas, or they've truly lost sight of just how many giant ogres with huge, rumbling tumors they've created over the years. Likewise, our tolerance for writhing, wriggling, snake-covered bosses, and enormous tentacle-porn monstrosities has been sorely tested through the years. Is this really someone's idea of fun? Is this truly what Umbrella hath wrought? Seemingly so, but while the key encounters in the game may border on uninspired, their execution is still good fun. If only it weren't so derivative of things we've already seen. The same can be said of the much-vaunted Jill Valentine/Albert Wesker story arc. At this point, if you've followed the coverage of the game at all, you've probably already figured out who Jill is, and by the time you reach your fateful showdown with Wesker, it's hard to tell if he's evolved into this truly menacing near-deity, or if he's just hamming it up. Your mileage will vary depending on how much you love your CG cut-scenes, but while the production values are very high in RE5, expect few surprises.‭

Thankfully, a no-strings-left-untied ending may signal RE5 is the final stop for the franchise as we know it. That’s for the better as RE5 isn’t a stronger 3rd person action game than Gears of War 2, nor a better adventurer than Uncharted, and fans of Resident Evil 4 will probably find this one a bit of a step backwards.

Resident Evil 5‘s both pleasantly new school and frustratingly old school. It’s not even surprising,‭ ‬despite all‭ ‬this,‭ ‬that Resident Evil‭ ‬5‭ ‬is a good game.‭ The surprising,‭ ‬and sad,‭ ‬thing about‭ ‬Resident Evil‭ ‬5‭ ‬is that it feels old. And thats never a good thing.