Greystone's Weekly Picks 10-12-09

Gaming with Greystone:

Gamer Review:

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS!

Resident Evil 5: Well it’s time to jump back in the saddles boys and girls and kill us some zombies. As any RE fan knows RE5 is far from being the 5^th title in the series due to the many split offs but it, like the other 4, follows the more direct storyline. Ever since a couple years back when an old friend of mine got me to play RE4, I’ve been waiting on a 5^th. RE4 is still held in high regards as one of my favorite games ever. I loved it so much I went back and bought the first 3 thinking they’d be just as awesome and that I’d really get into the stories but I couldn’t even make myself play through the first one. The bad graphics and terrible controls should have popped in my mind being PS1 games but I thought I could see past all that. Turns out I was wrong. The only PS1 game I can still make myself come to play is Metal Gear Solid and even that’s pushing it but that’s another story. Now I will say I was fortunate enough to have played the remade version of RE1 on the Gamecube. That was also a really great game and made me wish they’d remake 2 and 3 like that as well. But I’m rambling on and it’s not even about the game I’m reviewing.

RE5 is hard to classify, I guess you could say, because while it has very strong qualities it also gives you that “been there done that” feeling whilst playing it. Being such a fan of RE4, playing RE5 wasn’t that big of an adjustment. A few of the controls were switched around but nothing you couldn’t get use to and it generally felt the same as RE4. The inventory system has also been revamped. Where in RE4 you could buy items to give you a larger inventory thus making it to where you hold more weapons, health herbs, etc.; RE5 only gives you 9 slots. At the beginning of each level or upon restarting after being killed, you’re able to fill those 9 slots with whatever you have stored in your main inventory and then are forced to make due with whatever else you get in that particular level. Which when you think about it sounds bad but that’s one of the perks of having Sheva as a partner is you can make her be your mule and carry whatever you want her to. Plus they did away with having weapon attachments taking up inventory slots and thus having you carefully arrange your inventory like in RE4, which use to be a real pain.

Back when I first saw that the game was going to give you a partner, I had mixed feelings and was a bit hesitant. Having played it, I kind of liked having Sheva around. But she does have her pros and cons. While she can be dead accurate, she wastes a lot of bullets shooting at more general areas like the chest rather than head shots. When I went through I only gave her the basic pistol letting her pick up all pistol ammo and have at it, while I had the shotgun and such. I also let her hold on to all the health items because she was good about healing herself around me thus healing us both instead of wasting them solely on her. Unfortunately, she’d tend to use a stronger health item to heal a not so threatening wound rather than use a single green herb that she also had.

Another good thing having a partner allowed you to do was have 2 player co-op campaign, which once my friend and me played was really fun. One of the bad things is that the game doesn’t allow shoulder switching. So if you’ve gotten use to always aiming over Chris’ right shoulder and then jump on with a buddy and are forced to play as Sheva then you’re forced to now constantly aim over her left shoulder. But in general both characters are the same and neither provides any different skills from the other. Visually, RE5 is one of the best looking next generation console games I’ve seen. Also the quick time events are back like in RE4 but thankfully aren’t quite as grueling except when fighting the giant, which on harder difficulties really gets on your nerves (especially the PS3 version because of the red circle and pink square looking similar). This was actually one of the few games that I played on both PS3 and my somewhat newly purchased Xbox 360 and honestly I couldn’t tell a difference. Perhaps the load times were shorter on 360 due to me installing the game on the hard drive but that’s probably it.

Really the only thing that disappointed me about the game was how blatantly similar the game play was with RE4. I mean it was like the only thing they changed was the character designs and level settings. Like in RE4, you’re making your way into town by car, the first person you really encounter tries to attack you like in RE4, the enemies used almost exactly the same weapons, enemies both talked in different languages you didn’t understand, both have parasite things popping out of their heads, both have chainsaw wielding people, have big giant guy with thing you have to shoot on it’s back, you work your way from town into a secret underground lab, etc. etc. I mean yeah I understand if you have a good formula you don’t want to change it but you don’t necessarily need to do it verbatim (that’s my big word for the day). About the only difference was that this time the girl with you was able to help you kill enemies rather than you walk her around the level telling her to go, stop, and hide.

Overall I really enjoyed RE5 and I give it 4.5 Boop BOOPS out of 5.

A Greystone Production