Synyster Graves

Resident Evil 5

by on Aug.23, 2010, under Xbox 360

Resident Evil 5 is the latest in the Resident Evil franchise and depicts the all american hero Chris Redfield and his partner Sheva Alomar in the ficticious town of Kijuju, set in Africa. The game itself is similar in approach to Resident Evil 4 with the over shoulder perspective as seen in Gears of War comes back and the game throws you in the action straight from the off.

Immediately you notice at how good the graphics look and the very “Black Hawk Down” style of the back drop and you really feel immersed straight away into the humid and hostile environment of this African town. Similar to Resident Evil 4, gone are the slow walking retarded zombies but instead have brought back the Plagas parasite of infected citizens (called Majini in this game) which have a lot more sense so they will attack a lot more intelligently rather than the usual brain devouring amble you’d expect from a resident evil game. Res5 for this reason has a lot more tension and build up of this as a result and you find yourself constantly on edge for large proportions of the game. In true survival horror style you start off with next to no ammunition and waves upon waves of enemies, so you really should run. One fantastic perk of this game is the situation can be completely reversed and if you complete it several times like I have, you can fully upgrade all your weapons and with your ranking points buy perks like unlimited ammo for certain weapons. While some gamers will argue this takes away the fun of the game, I personally find it quite cathartic unleashing an unlimited volley of ammo on a horde of 30 majini.

The game itself is designed to be a co-operative experience, one player plays as Chris Redfield, the other as Sheva Alomar, and to its credit it really works well especially if you have a good co-op partner. However this completely falls over in single player as your AI co-op partner is nothing short of retarded. The have a habit of straying in front of you when you’re aiming at enemies and they also have a habit of taking all the available ammunition of which they hardly ever use. They also never utilise all the necessary weapons you give them, for example will only use the pistol even if you equip them with an assault rifle and a shotgun. They also follow you blindly around like a retarded sheepdog which is very frustrating if you have to split up to flank a boss creature but instead will hang onto your coattails.

Another huge flaw with the game is the constant reliance on quick time events. Any game which has vital stages requiring you to repeatedly bash a series of buttons to stop your character dying. Not only is this very frustrating but its complete bollocks! I can accept that for certain stages of the level that throwing in a QTE can add to the tension. But when you have half of a boss fight comprising of a series of pressing buttons in time, this can quite quickly severely piss you off. Throwing a series of QTEs in a game is a poor substitute for actually implementing a proper battle, after all where is the skill from being told “press A to kill the boss”? On harder difficulty levels the buttons are all over the pad instead of just one and the window for pressing it diminishes faster. Now in principle this works but when you have to press an entire series of stupid buttons like some kind of guitar hero piano concerto it gets pretty boring pretty quickly. I personally hate QTEs in games because it swaps out your ability to play a game and substitutes in chimpanzee-like mimic skills. It’s bollocks.

The controls are shonky it has to be said although after hours of gameplay you do get used to it. The main gripe I have with it is that you cannot aim and move at the same time. As a consequence you cannot strafe and shoot at the same time. In other survival horror games like Dead Space you can so why can you not in this game. Yes you get used to it eventually but standing static like an erect penis makes you quite the target especially when you’re facing fast moving enemies like the Lickers. Capcom also have a habit of giving you a mark at the ned of every level like you’re doing some kind of fucking exam and while it gives you something to aim for, what is the point about giving you a mark, evaulation and subsequent parents evening to review your performance in the game? Devil May Cry 4 suffered because of this but Capcom must insist on putting these school grades in their games.

All in all, Resident Evil 5 is a very good game and has had me addicted for a good length of time and has enough content to keep me coming back to this game time after time. I really enjoyed playing this game in co-op as it’s definitely one of the co-op games out there. Avoid single player though, unless you like pulling your own hair out.

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4 Comments for this entry

  • Tom Stanley

    I was on Yahoo and found your blog. Read a few of your other posts. Good work. I am looking forward to reading more from you in the future.

    Tom Stanley

  • Whyte Rabit

    I totally agree, especially with the quick time events… “press ‘A’ to live is just lazy programming” as I think Yahtzee Croshaw put it!

    Although I wanted to ask, did you get the DLC and is that worth it? I seem to remember seeing some DLC chievo’s in your gamerscore!

  • Synyster Graves

    @Tom: hey Tom thanks for the comment, I do my best at trying to review/mock everything so the sentiment is much appreciated!

    @Rabit: the DLC is pretty good but doesn’t have a lot of lastability in all honesty for how much it is

  • Ette

    I have to say I opened Res5 with dread as the demo was awful and it was only picking up a copy in my local crime converters(TM) for £8 that made me buy it. I was so glad I did the storyline managed to tie in all the previous res evil games including res 4 which had gone on off on a tangent. I hate the QTE’s they really are just a cheap way of padding out a game and the Jill Valentine fight takes far too long. That said the controls become second nature quickly and the storyline and graphics are first class. Add the Xbox live achievements to it and there’s quite a long lasting playablilty to it. (Especially since I’m only once achivement away from the 1000G) my only gripe being it shows up the DLC Achievements even before you download the DLC so the only way it will register a maxout is if you totally max out the 1400G

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