Resident Evil 5: The Review

March 13th, 2009. Resident Evil 5 is finally out. Most people went to buy it that day. As for me, I already had it a day early and finished it in co-op on the 13th. The saga finally reaches it’s climax as everything is revealed. More or less. Some questions are still left unanswered but there’s always the next game.

March 13th, 2009
March 13th, 2009
March 5th, 2009

Resident Evil 5
Developer: Capcom
Platform: PlayStation 3 (reviewed), Xbox 360

Let’s recap. In 1998 the mansion incident occurs. Umbrella created monsters swarm the mansion as the STARS members sent there try desperately to survive. Albert Wesker, STARS captain is revealed to be a traitor who is working for Umbrella. His plan to gather combat data and betray Umbrella fails as the remaining STARS members foil his plans and Wesker is presumed dead. Chris Redfield survives and continues the fight against Umbrella. Together with his teammates Jill Valentine and Barry Burton they began their anti-Umbrella activities.

In 1998 December, Claire Redfield – a survivor of the Raccoon City outbreak of September 1998 – is captured in Paris for entering an Umbrella HQ while searching for her brother. Taken to an Umbrella base on Rockfort Island, she ends up notifying his brother of her whereabouts through Leon Kennedy, another survivor of Raccoon City. Chris rescues her sister and meets Wesker again who has gained superhuman powers via a virus injected in him before his death. Wesker gathers the T-Veronica virus’ sample from Steve Burnside’s dead body and fights Chris. Wesker has the upper hand and Chris almost dies. It is with luck that he manages to escape alive when Wesker gets injured in an explosion. Unknowingly to Chris and his friends, Wesker has obtained samples of the T, G and T-Veronica viruses, along with the Progenitor Virus, the base for all the later ones.

2003, Russia. The anti-Umbrella movement has grown huge by now. A small army of people to be exact. Chris and Jill plan to end Umbrella once and for all by attacking their Russian base, where their newest B.O.W, T.A.L.O.S lies. Unknown to them, Wesker was the one who leaked the information to them in hopes that they would occupy the enemies while he steals the research data and kills the facility’s director Sergei Vladimir. They succeed, the bio-weapons are destroyed and Wesker gets not only what he wants, but proof against Umbrella’s development of bio-weapons as well. Umbrella is destroyed when the news get out and only Wesker remains to be dealt with in the eyes of Chris and Jill.

2004, Spain. Leon Kennedy encounters the Las Plagas parasites. Saving the American president’s daughter in the process he foils the terrorist effort of attacking the USA with the parasites and saves the day. However, Wesker manages to obtain a sample of the Las Plagas from the shadows. Bio-weapon terrorism becomes commonplace soon after this incident as Umbrella’s viruses and the Las Plagas samples overflood the black market, creating a separate market for B.O.Ws. Wesker is no doubt behind this development.

Soon after, the BSAA is formed with Chris being one of it’s founding members. The organization’s goal is to stop bio terrorism and rid the world of all these monsters. Chris and Jill take part in various operations and become respected members of the unit.

2009, Africa. Chris is sent to investigate the area for B.O.W activity with Sheva Alomar, a member of the BSAA African branch. Together they encounter a new form of the Las Plagas hosts called “Majini” and must find out what happened to the locals and apprehend the individuals responsible. Little do they know this would be the biggest challenge they’ve faced yet…

Thus the story begins and promises to be a monumental adventure. Let’s see if it lives up to it’s name.

The story is good enough, but ultimately not as good as you expect. It has a lot of good ideas and moments, but overall is kind of lacking in the end. Looking aside from the fact that the some parts story and some scenes bear an uncanny resemblance to Metal Gear Solid 4, the story’s climax at the end is kind of a letdown. Wesker’s grand plan turns out to fairly cliché, but more importantly simple. The guy who was going around in the shadows, faking his death and collecting viruses ends up with a plan that just doesn’t live up to him.

The graphics are of course marvelous as you’d expect. The environments are also diverse and Africa looks really, really good, it is a shame that near the end of the game you’ll be playing in ruins and industrial areas. The graphics went for the realistic approach as most games do these years and the quality is incredible. Although I myself don’t think photorealistic characters are the way to go (who wants to see every last wrinkle on someone’s face anyway?), I do find the characters and enemies to be very good looking in terms of graphics. The environments and effects are also breathtaking. Can’t say whether or not the graphics are the best out there right now but it sure is perfectly satisfying. The environments are filled with life, the houses are full of things and everything feels very real, especially in the beginning.

Water physics…none? Seriously, the characters run as fast in waist-high water as they do normally. No wonder the crocodiles don’t scare you, you can outrun them easily. Little weird considering how much time Capcom spent on the other graphical aspects. Another thing, why do enemies still disappear? I guess it’s an aspect of the Las Plagas, but then why don’t the bigger ones dissolve as well? Chainsaw Majini, Executioner Majini? Anyway, it’s not a problem it just ruins the atmosphere a bit for me. It would be more fun to have the defeated enemies lying there if you ask me.

You can play the game in three modes: single player, online co-op or split-screen co-op. Obviously, playing together with a friend is very, very fun regardless of how you play it. In single player you can only play as Chris on the first run. The partner AI is pretty good but I felt that the commands were rather archaic. Attack or cover mode and that’s it. So Sheva either grabs her stronger weapons and kills everything she sees or she stays with Chris (more or less) and only uses her handgun. The default setting is cover by the way, and it is quite hard to switch tactics in the middle of battle. Holding the Circle button brings up the menu and pressing up or down will select the commands. Sometimes it’s a bit hard to do since everything happens in real time. In my opinion the options are rather lacking here, many games involve AI tactics and honestly RE5’s AI, even though it works well most of the time, just lacks options. Some other tactics, like “Don’t fight unless necessary”, “Stay behind me” or “Conserve items” would’ve been nice. Although I do think it would’ve been a bit troublesome to make all these and using them ingame would’ve been more troublesome with the game’s controls, at least Sheva could be controlled a bit more. Most people never end up switching tactics anyway, so it would’ve been good to have some useful tactics in the repertoire. This is of course not the case in multiplayer, and it pretty much goes without saying that multiplayer is much better than single player.

Speaking of real time, in RE5 everything is in real time. No more pausing the game while healing or reloading or switching weapons, you’re in constant danger all the time. Luckily the developers came up with a pretty good method to counter the chaos this would cause while in battle, these being the button shortcuts. Each direction of the D-pad allows the player to switch to a preset equipment. If you want to have a healing item and the shotgun on the ready, just locate them to the desired buttons. From there on out all you’ll need to do to switch from the standard handgun to a healing item/weapon/grenade/ammo box is to press one of the directional buttons. Although there are a total of nine spaces in your inventory, there are only four shortcuts because of the controller limitations, but seeing how you store ammo and stuff in those spaces, it doesn’t matter. Not only that but that’s what your partner is there for, to watch your back while you’re in trouble or busy healing.

Your partner is like in RE0 is a crucial part of the game. If you are heavily hurt and dying, the only one who can save you is your partner. Not only that, but your partner can save you if an enemy grabs you, provide cover fire and help you get passed areas you alone could not. These aspects make the multiplayer modes a lot of fun to play.

So…what is bad about the gameplay? It’s very similar to RE4. It’s really fun, but it just ends up feeling like RE4. The game manages to add some new things, but some people will definitely end up feeling like they’ve played it all before. What I’m saying is, the enemies are all too similar. Once again we face a thousand parasite-infected enemies, employing the same tactics we used four years ago. Unlike a survival horror game – where a new environment and situation alone can make you feel like you’re playing a new game – action games feel too similar if they employ the same enemies and weapons. Let’s face it, RE2 was the same as RE1 but the new area, situation, item placement, monsters etc. made it feel different and new. RE5 when compared to RE4 feels like the same game sometimes. RE5 manages to earn it’s individuality in my book because of the new enemies and environments, but don’t be surprised if you end up feeling like you played the game before. It is worth saying however, that RE5 improves on the basics set by it’s predecessor and makes the gameplay more fun. Overall it is a better version of the same thing, and while most of us will have fun with it, some people may end up feeling as if they’re replaying RE4 again.

Puzzles? Gone. There is one but that’s it. Honestly, what were you expecting after RE4? Same goes for survival horror, there’s hardly any of that either. There are a few intense situations, but they are more adrenaline pumping than scary and even if you run out of ammo (which will probably only happen during some later boss fights) you’ll find some way to replenish ammo during the stage. If you can’t, just quit the game, go to chapter select, pick and easy chapter and get yourself some ammo while killing the weaker enemies.

When it comes to subtlelty and pacing, RE5 has zero of it. The first ten minutes of the game are peaceful, with nothing happening. After that, enemy hordes will appear out of nowhere and won’t waste time attacking you in the face. You’ll end up fighting enemies soon enough and you won’t have time to rest, believe me. If you liked RE4’s over the top, in your face action, you won’t be disappointed. For people who likes scares, first off this game isn’t for you, second the most fear you’ll experience will be in the pitch black caves. One player must light the path while defenseless and the other must clear the way through a cave that has zero light. Somewhat scary at first, but seeing how this a shorter part of the game with very few enemies it loses it’s potential. Overall, it would’ve been better if you just had to navigate the pitch black area without the lamp. At least that way you would’ve been scared when you suddenly noticed a pair of red eyes coming toward you.

To be honest, I’ve never been really scared in any RE game. At most, I felt like listening to a creepy story, creepy but too interesting and fun to make you scared of it. But at least it had that certain atmosphere. When RE4 came out, that old feeling disappeared along with the old gameplay style. RE5 if you ask me, is just like RE4 – not scary at all. Only those people will be scared who are terrified of a large horde of enemies chasing them. Yes, being chased by monsters in the game makes the game frantic and might even boost your adrenaline, but in my case, that’s all I felt. I wasn’t scared of being caught by the monsters chasing me or anything like that. Why would I? There were no repercussions, no sense of loss. If you die, you restart from the nearest checkpoint, which there are quite a lot of, but more importantly, you get a chance to manage your items before trying again. Now why would I be the least bit scared? If I die, I get a bigger death count which might mean a lower grade at the chapter’s end, but that hardly affects anything in the game and what’s more, if I die I actually get a chance to change my weapons to those that are more suitable to the situation. You die because you didn’t have healing items or a sniper rifle? No worries, take them out of your inventory and try again. You see when dying has no repercussions, it doesn’t make you scared. The only times I was scared were actually in the Mercenaries. Why? Because if I were to die, I’d lose all those hard earned points and the chance to unlock a new character. And dying like that is far more frustrating and unwanted than a death in the main game, thus making you fear it.

About the controls, there are four types. Apart from my preferred “classic RE” setting, there are three other, more modern ones. They all work fine, but I wonder why you can’t customize the button layout yourself? You can also change the aiming speed which is good although I think even the fastest setting will be slow for some people. Apart from these you can switch friendly fire on and off which is really helpful, considering how many times your partner can accidentally walk into your line of fire.

Bosses are fun, but I was honestly disappointed in some of them. There are two bosses in the game where the primary method of attacking is using infinite gatling guns or rocket launchers, seeing as both of them are gigantic. Another requires you using a special laser launcher thing as well because of it’s size, but at least you have to shoot it with standard weapons. In all honesty, I didn’t feel like playing RE at all during these segments. It was just like a normal action game and that kind of ruined the atmosphere. RE always had the player going against smaller, but deadly bosses with their own equipment, however some bosses in RE5 feel too different from these and make the game feel like any other action game. What’s more, many action games use this method for bosses and I find the previously mentioned two bosses very boring because of it. They were no challenge at all, and what’s more they hardly required any tactical fighting. Just shoot them with the machine gun till they die. Sure the battle looks epic enough, with two people aboard a battle ship, fighting a giant amphibian monster, but the experience itself is not. How is it epic if you have an infinite gatling gun and the boss itself attacks quite rarely – and even when it does, it’s easy to avoid? Wesker might be smaller and not as grand, but at least he’s actually a challenge to take down. And this is coming from someone who isn’t one of those challenge-obsessed gamers.

If you would’ve asked me 1998 what I thought would happen to Resident Evil in ten years, I never would’ve imagined that I’d be playing as Chris, wielding an infinite machine gun on a truck and shooting infected bikers. Fun? Certainly, provided that you aren’t bored of these sections by now from all the other action games out there that have them.

Some normal enemies can also ruin the game’s atmosphere. Toward the later parts of the game the player will be fighting infected humans wielding AK-47s and flash grenades. You’ll be going into cover and shooting from behind it and although that could’ve worked it just makes the game feel unlike RE because of the gun wielding enemies. Ironically, as repetitive as it may be to fight the normal, tool wielding enemies in the beginning, they are the most fun to take down as they are the ones that make the game feel somewhat horroristic. Sure their AI is a bit weak as sometimes they stand in line waiting to be shot in the head, but at least they make you feel threatened by their large ambushes and it is incredibly fun to try shooting them in the head to kill them fast. Later on some of the enemies can become frustrating to deal with, such as the gun wielding Majinis or the reaper, a giant bug who can kill the player in one hit even when he’s on full health. The rest of the enemies are pretty fun to fight, the normal Majinis are simple but very fun to kill (partly because they resemble zombies the most) the tribe Majinis use various spears and shields to attack you and some Majinis use explosive arrows as well. Although they become much more annoying as you go, they are fun to battle against. Each kind of Majini has it’s own superpowered version: the chainsaw wielding Majini, the tribe elder Majini and the gatling gun wielding Majini. Other enemies include the reapers, the returning lickers from RE2 and the Las Plagas themselves: just like in RE4, hosts’ head may explode and reveal a mutated monster that must be dealt with. This time they are more types of these some of which are particularly hard to kill without using the instant-kill flash grenade method. Some animals are also thrown into the mix, the player will be facing infected dogs and crocodiles, although the crocodiles are fairly harmless, not worth killing and easy to avoid so most people will forget about them quickly.

It’s kind of hard to explain why the weaker enemies are so much fun to fight, but let me try anway. When up against later tribal enemies with shields and spears I felt I was playing Tomb Raider. What I’m saying is that I find it much more fun to kill enemies that are traditional to RE: enemies that seem fairly mindless and unpredictable, enemies that can’t come up with various tactics like using shields or guns. Facing savage crazy enemies is much more fun and RE-ish than facing the cultists of RE4 or the soldiers/tribe members of RE5. Especially since you have a partner the game can really feel like one of those movies where two people barricade themselves and try defending against a horde of savages – a feeling that becomes obsolete after the more intelligent enemies come into play.

There are plenty unlockables, almost too much. Seriously to unlock everything, you need to play Mercenaries or the main stages a lot of times. Considering how short the game is, you’ll be spending a lot of time replaying if you want everything out of the game. You can gather various figurines and screen filters – allowing you to play the game in black and white for example – along with special settings. There are also 30 BSAA emblems hidden in the stages to shoot for bonuses.

Finally you can truly customize weapons. This means that unlike in RE4, you can have a relatively weak handgun that has a very high critical hit rate. In RE4 there were exclusive upgrades available but they were only buyable when the player maxed out the weapon’s other attributes – at which point these exclusives were really just overpowering. This also means that if you prefer realistic weapons like in the old RE games and you want special upgrades, all you need to do is not upgrade the handgun’s capacity to 100 bullets and buy the critical hit upgrade. Small for some people, but I was very satisfied by this little detail.

Returning from RE3 and RE4, there is the now traditional Mercenaries minigame. Ten characters and eight stages total, double that of RE4. However I thought it was lacking. The ten characters are just the same four repeated with different clothes and equipment. It is nostalgic to see Chris and Wesker in their STARS uniforms, but some other characters would’ve been nice either from this game or as cameos from earlier games.

The game’s biggest flaw is it’s length. From my experience, I’d say the game takes about 8-12 hours to complete for the first time (for me it was a little less than 9 hours). Compared to RE4’s 15-18 hours it is a bit short, but another problem with it, is that is also feels short. When I reached the end of the game, I wasn’t feeling satisfied. Unlike in MGS4 for example – where I felt content with the game and immediately restarted – RE5 just felt a little lacking. My words after beating the game were “That’s it? Whatever.” After playing a little Mercenaries I shut down the console and didn’t feel like playing it again. Maybe it is because you get almost everything out of the game on your first run and the conditions for unlocking extra things are really simple, basically you just have to replay the game again and again and that can get boring after a while, not to mention that most unlockable things are not very useful. However the co-op aspect makes up for this and really increases the replay value.

The Final Word
All things considered, RE5 may be a little lacking and only seem like an improved version of RE4, but it is still very fun to play especially in co-op. This aspect gives a whole new feeling to the game and makes it very enjoyable to play. It has some flaws, but ultimately ends up being a worthwhile experience. Not survival horror, not an unforgettable adventure unless you play it in co-op, but still a very fun action game that sets the standard for what good action games should be like in 2009.

– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good