Resident Evil 5
Did we ever play Resident Evil 1, 2, 3, or 4? No; however, we have seen Resident Evil 1, 2, 3, and 4 game footage PLUS we watched the three movies starring Milla Jovovich. Now, going into part 5, I knew that part 4 took an odd turn by placing us in some South American country where the citizens have started revolting. In part 5, we're going to be spending all of our time in and around Africa. Before the allegations of racism start flowing in, let's maintain focus on what we're here to do. You see, as I was about to find out, we have entered the age of the intelligent zombie.
The basic premise of this game is that we're reprising the role of Chris Redfield as he goes around the globe investigating terrorist activity in bioweapons since the fall of the Umbrella corporation. As we find out, the new bioweapons are more focused on creating obedient and intelligent slaves as opposed to slobbering masses of brainless corpses only driven by the need for human flesh. The zombies in this game can communicate, use weapons, and organize car chases across the savannah. Are these zombies scary? No. Are they annoying? Yes, at times. These zombies are also native African, so enter the allegations of racism.
The unique feature in this game is the use of a partner, named Sheva, who's portrayed as a young black female. This partner gives you another nine item slots for use and management, can cover you or attack and gain the attention of enemies, and comes in handy for situations where you have to stay in one place and need someone to hit a switch somewhere else. You won't get to play as her until you finish the game one time. However, the majority of the time, leaving your partner on cover-mode works just fine and she'll help you take down foes.
In order to deal with the mobs of enemies, you have various weapons at your disposal. If you explore every corner of the map, you're guaranteed to find at least one of every weapon. If you want an identical one for your partner, you can buy that at the "store" that appears between chapters or between continues if you die. You can even upgrade your weapons to increase their damage, reload speed, ammo capacity, and critical/penetration percentage.
The one thing you cannot do, which will annoy the HELL out of your sense of basic logic is purchase ammunition for your weapons. There are two exceptions: 1) You can purchase grenades for the grenade launcher; 2) If you upgrade your weapon's ammo capacity it's automatically refilled to max capacity. Does that make any damn sense to you? Think about that. You can't purchase bullets but if you upgrade how many bullets a gun can carry it's automatically refilled to max capacity as a result. If you're purchasing guns from a store and they have ammo to refill your gun when you increase its clip size how in HELL do they not have any ammunition for sale?
I get why they did this. The series started out as a bit of a survival horror game where every bullet was precious. But now we're going around the globe fighting bioterrorism. I think we can afford to sell some bullets. It's not like it's absolutely necessary to have bullets for sale; but there are a few times when it would be nice to be able to stock up on bullets. Say, for instance, during the last chapters when you're fighting things that require emptying EVERYTHING YOU HAVE into them. Yes, there are probably OTHER ways to handle those fights; but that's not the point. If you can have this "backdoor" way to refill your weapon, you might as well just start selling ammo.
The control isn't horrible, but it's a bit annoying to have to adjust a laser sight on a moving enemy using little more than an analog stick. This is the reason why we developed mice. Having an auto-aim feature would have made the game a lot easier; but it may have reduced the frustration of just how slow it seems the aiming speed is as compared to the enemy speed. A lot of modern games suffer from this I-wish-I-had-a-mouse syndrome. This won't be the last one.
It looks and sounds good enough, it plays well enough, but it's not something I can see myself wanting to play again and again. It doesn't have real compelling style; and, quite frankly, once you escape this nightmare you probably won't want to go back for seconds. You do get a New Game + option that allows you to re-play with all your inventory; but by the time I got to the end I had gotten my fill of that universe and then some.
In short, it's a rental.
The basic premise of this game is that we're reprising the role of Chris Redfield as he goes around the globe investigating terrorist activity in bioweapons since the fall of the Umbrella corporation. As we find out, the new bioweapons are more focused on creating obedient and intelligent slaves as opposed to slobbering masses of brainless corpses only driven by the need for human flesh. The zombies in this game can communicate, use weapons, and organize car chases across the savannah. Are these zombies scary? No. Are they annoying? Yes, at times. These zombies are also native African, so enter the allegations of racism.
The unique feature in this game is the use of a partner, named Sheva, who's portrayed as a young black female. This partner gives you another nine item slots for use and management, can cover you or attack and gain the attention of enemies, and comes in handy for situations where you have to stay in one place and need someone to hit a switch somewhere else. You won't get to play as her until you finish the game one time. However, the majority of the time, leaving your partner on cover-mode works just fine and she'll help you take down foes.
In order to deal with the mobs of enemies, you have various weapons at your disposal. If you explore every corner of the map, you're guaranteed to find at least one of every weapon. If you want an identical one for your partner, you can buy that at the "store" that appears between chapters or between continues if you die. You can even upgrade your weapons to increase their damage, reload speed, ammo capacity, and critical/penetration percentage.
The one thing you cannot do, which will annoy the HELL out of your sense of basic logic is purchase ammunition for your weapons. There are two exceptions: 1) You can purchase grenades for the grenade launcher; 2) If you upgrade your weapon's ammo capacity it's automatically refilled to max capacity. Does that make any damn sense to you? Think about that. You can't purchase bullets but if you upgrade how many bullets a gun can carry it's automatically refilled to max capacity as a result. If you're purchasing guns from a store and they have ammo to refill your gun when you increase its clip size how in HELL do they not have any ammunition for sale?
I get why they did this. The series started out as a bit of a survival horror game where every bullet was precious. But now we're going around the globe fighting bioterrorism. I think we can afford to sell some bullets. It's not like it's absolutely necessary to have bullets for sale; but there are a few times when it would be nice to be able to stock up on bullets. Say, for instance, during the last chapters when you're fighting things that require emptying EVERYTHING YOU HAVE into them. Yes, there are probably OTHER ways to handle those fights; but that's not the point. If you can have this "backdoor" way to refill your weapon, you might as well just start selling ammo.
The control isn't horrible, but it's a bit annoying to have to adjust a laser sight on a moving enemy using little more than an analog stick. This is the reason why we developed mice. Having an auto-aim feature would have made the game a lot easier; but it may have reduced the frustration of just how slow it seems the aiming speed is as compared to the enemy speed. A lot of modern games suffer from this I-wish-I-had-a-mouse syndrome. This won't be the last one.
It looks and sounds good enough, it plays well enough, but it's not something I can see myself wanting to play again and again. It doesn't have real compelling style; and, quite frankly, once you escape this nightmare you probably won't want to go back for seconds. You do get a New Game + option that allows you to re-play with all your inventory; but by the time I got to the end I had gotten my fill of that universe and then some.
In short, it's a rental.