Resident Evil 5
I'm up to the last chapter of Resident Evil 5 after having it for a two-night rental. There were a lot of things different with this installment of Resident Evil than with the previous games. Some were good like the improved handling of movement and the action itself but others not so good like the fact that my right hand is almost numb from the amount of timed button cues and smashing that is required for some boss battles. Well, to be fair, I'm playing this on an X-Box 360 controller and it's not exactly the daintiest controller around.
Regardless, there is certainly much to be said about RE5. The setting starts out in the slums of an African village where you play as Chris Redfield and his female partner Sheva. Sheva remains an almost constant companion to your character throughout the game and as such, many of the puzzles in the game do cater to your duo almost too conveniently. Just exactly why does an ancient civilization, an evil biological research facility, and run-down African mine all require two people to pull and/or press chains/buttons at the same time to open a door? This is taking the buddy system to a whole new extreme in security. >_<;
I digress. To be fair, most of the puzzles are not as eccentric or as redundant as puzzles in the first few Resident Evils which usually pertained to matching brightly colored tiles to open a door, pushing statues around onto various matching pedestals, solving obscure riddles, or having to defeat some giant monstrosity just to get the required key to move on to the next area. Most of the puzzles in this current RE were pretty easy with little head scratching involved but then again, perhaps I'm used to finding arcane riddles lying around with the answer to where I can find a silver key etched with a knight's helmet (not a shield) to help open up a door where I might possibly get a grenade launcher and the clue-by-four to continue on with the plot but not before having to wrestle victory from the jaws of an overgrown garden snake. If this sounds familiar to you then...well, we both play far too much Resident Evil.
Now on to the innovation! Well, every Resident Evil tries to do something innovative to sort of separate itself from the pack and remind us why we enjoy survival horror to begin with. RE 2 had the story change and items randomize during sequential replays and a battle survival mode with new characters separate from the main plot (Hunk and Tofu), RE3 allowed you to create your own ammo and had our delightful friend Mr. Nemesis chase you repeatedly with rocket launchers (yay to personal torture!) as well as an improved battle survival mode, RE:CV had improved knifing and creepy twin-cest (well, I'm sure they tried *something* new but being able to use the knife and not suck completely was a big help to ammo saving), RE Zero allowed you to switch between two characters on the fly as well as do inventory exchanging, and RE4 introduced us to zombies with a brain cell and the ingenuity to organize in groups and use weapons against our hapless heroes all the while protecting the president's daughter with an extremely annoying version of the buddy system ever(she at best useful when locked up in a dumpster, I kid you not in-game).
Up to speed on the main REs, we bring you to Resident Evil 5's stand-alone to greatness...an AI that can shoot! Praise be to whatever gaming deity blessed Sheva with the skill to actually be useful. She can hold her own in combat and she will help you out when another baddie has you tackled. She also is smart enough to heal when you need to be healed! My comments on her usefulness is in no means sarcastic. Every gamer knows the pain of a useless partner AI that is supposed to be as skilled a fighter as your main character (at least that's what the backstory always tells us). Don't get me wrong, Sheva is far from perfect (give her a stun rod in her inventory and she'll prefer to equip that in combat instead of the a shotgun *face-palms*). However, she will certainly hold her own in a gunfight and rarely will get herself killed doing stupid stuff (kudos to Capcom for removing friendly-fire damage from RE4). This is a humongous leap that makes having a constant partner throughout the game not only acceptable but even desired.
Now to the action! Well, the enemy AI has also improved although not in such leaps and bounds as they did from RECV to RE4. All of us squealed when suddenly your enemy wasn't a moaning and groaning zombie without any active brain cell to speak of. Case in point, you could sometimes trap a zombie at the base of a staircase and then shoot at him from above in older REs. "Zombies" are still the running, screaming, mob-mentality sort of creatures as of RE4 but I almost want to say they're dumber in RE5 than they were in RE4. Maybe there just isn't as many opportunities like there were in RE4 for mobs of zombie-like people to bring out ladders and torches and break into the cottage you were hiding to really see these new zombies in action. I guess the only difference I saw in these current "zombies" was that there were more diversity in the weapons they had this time around. I mean, it's not like I haven't seen them use a gatling gun, rocket launcher, flaming crossbow/bow'n'arrow, chainsaws, or other various guns before like in the last but to see them wearing African tribal paint and coming at you with large spears? Okay, that's certainly different, I'll give them that, but nothing to really write home about. No, the real joy in fighting enemies comes from the new monsters like the improved Lickers and the Reapers. Those are monsters with a bite.
With that said, I question why every boss battle has to have some sort of methodical tactic in RE5 that helps you get rid of the baddie with little fuss and muss? Don't get me wrong, I do like to have variety in how I deal with boss battles but you're faced with the decision of just going in guns a blazing or using clever tactics but when every boss can be defeated by one specific environmental hazard in the area then the notion of tactics becomes little more than a chore to lure the enemy into a large furnace or onto a landmine to expose its weakness. One boss battle was won merely by running in circles around corridors for seven minutes until they got tired. Really? We can win if we're persistent runners? The boss tactics just feel so gimmicky at times. It can be a fun break from hitting the zombies blow for blow with a sniper rifle but at the same time I do enjoy just letting loose a constant stream of shells and grenades once in a while for a cheap boss kill.
With that said, RE5 delivers its action consistently well. The pacing is certainly smooth as the story is set out in chapters with each chapter ending in an extravagant boss battle. There is less "survival horror" in the action and more fast-paced shooting scenes which sometimes makes me question if Resident Evil can deem itself a survival horror game anymore or should just jump ships to being an action game these days. I's certainly different than in past REs where your characters are given full reign to explore and backtrack. Instead, your characters are constantly plowing forward with no backtracking to previous areas whatsoever. This does mean though that you are more likely to miss out nabbing a weapon for free in a chapter if you're not careful. Capcom tried to balance this out with allowing you to purchase the weapon in between chapters for a fee if you missed nabbing it up for free during the level BUT with this in mind it severely lowers your likelihood of exploring the whole area as thoroughly as you would have in previous REs. Many of the ammo and loot are randomly dispersed so there is some replay in that but even then you are not too hard-pressed to find every treasure chest when at best you might get a crap-load of machine gun bullets.
I'll have to continue later on this...so sleepy.
Regardless, there is certainly much to be said about RE5. The setting starts out in the slums of an African village where you play as Chris Redfield and his female partner Sheva. Sheva remains an almost constant companion to your character throughout the game and as such, many of the puzzles in the game do cater to your duo almost too conveniently. Just exactly why does an ancient civilization, an evil biological research facility, and run-down African mine all require two people to pull and/or press chains/buttons at the same time to open a door? This is taking the buddy system to a whole new extreme in security. >_<;
I digress. To be fair, most of the puzzles are not as eccentric or as redundant as puzzles in the first few Resident Evils which usually pertained to matching brightly colored tiles to open a door, pushing statues around onto various matching pedestals, solving obscure riddles, or having to defeat some giant monstrosity just to get the required key to move on to the next area. Most of the puzzles in this current RE were pretty easy with little head scratching involved but then again, perhaps I'm used to finding arcane riddles lying around with the answer to where I can find a silver key etched with a knight's helmet (not a shield) to help open up a door where I might possibly get a grenade launcher and the clue-by-four to continue on with the plot but not before having to wrestle victory from the jaws of an overgrown garden snake. If this sounds familiar to you then...well, we both play far too much Resident Evil.
Now on to the innovation! Well, every Resident Evil tries to do something innovative to sort of separate itself from the pack and remind us why we enjoy survival horror to begin with. RE 2 had the story change and items randomize during sequential replays and a battle survival mode with new characters separate from the main plot (Hunk and Tofu), RE3 allowed you to create your own ammo and had our delightful friend Mr. Nemesis chase you repeatedly with rocket launchers (yay to personal torture!) as well as an improved battle survival mode, RE:CV had improved knifing and creepy twin-cest (well, I'm sure they tried *something* new but being able to use the knife and not suck completely was a big help to ammo saving), RE Zero allowed you to switch between two characters on the fly as well as do inventory exchanging, and RE4 introduced us to zombies with a brain cell and the ingenuity to organize in groups and use weapons against our hapless heroes all the while protecting the president's daughter with an extremely annoying version of the buddy system ever(she at best useful when locked up in a dumpster, I kid you not in-game).
Up to speed on the main REs, we bring you to Resident Evil 5's stand-alone to greatness...an AI that can shoot! Praise be to whatever gaming deity blessed Sheva with the skill to actually be useful. She can hold her own in combat and she will help you out when another baddie has you tackled. She also is smart enough to heal when you need to be healed! My comments on her usefulness is in no means sarcastic. Every gamer knows the pain of a useless partner AI that is supposed to be as skilled a fighter as your main character (at least that's what the backstory always tells us). Don't get me wrong, Sheva is far from perfect (give her a stun rod in her inventory and she'll prefer to equip that in combat instead of the a shotgun *face-palms*). However, she will certainly hold her own in a gunfight and rarely will get herself killed doing stupid stuff (kudos to Capcom for removing friendly-fire damage from RE4). This is a humongous leap that makes having a constant partner throughout the game not only acceptable but even desired.
Now to the action! Well, the enemy AI has also improved although not in such leaps and bounds as they did from RECV to RE4. All of us squealed when suddenly your enemy wasn't a moaning and groaning zombie without any active brain cell to speak of. Case in point, you could sometimes trap a zombie at the base of a staircase and then shoot at him from above in older REs. "Zombies" are still the running, screaming, mob-mentality sort of creatures as of RE4 but I almost want to say they're dumber in RE5 than they were in RE4. Maybe there just isn't as many opportunities like there were in RE4 for mobs of zombie-like people to bring out ladders and torches and break into the cottage you were hiding to really see these new zombies in action. I guess the only difference I saw in these current "zombies" was that there were more diversity in the weapons they had this time around. I mean, it's not like I haven't seen them use a gatling gun, rocket launcher, flaming crossbow/bow'n'arrow, chainsaws, or other various guns before like in the last but to see them wearing African tribal paint and coming at you with large spears? Okay, that's certainly different, I'll give them that, but nothing to really write home about. No, the real joy in fighting enemies comes from the new monsters like the improved Lickers and the Reapers. Those are monsters with a bite.
With that said, I question why every boss battle has to have some sort of methodical tactic in RE5 that helps you get rid of the baddie with little fuss and muss? Don't get me wrong, I do like to have variety in how I deal with boss battles but you're faced with the decision of just going in guns a blazing or using clever tactics but when every boss can be defeated by one specific environmental hazard in the area then the notion of tactics becomes little more than a chore to lure the enemy into a large furnace or onto a landmine to expose its weakness. One boss battle was won merely by running in circles around corridors for seven minutes until they got tired. Really? We can win if we're persistent runners? The boss tactics just feel so gimmicky at times. It can be a fun break from hitting the zombies blow for blow with a sniper rifle but at the same time I do enjoy just letting loose a constant stream of shells and grenades once in a while for a cheap boss kill.
With that said, RE5 delivers its action consistently well. The pacing is certainly smooth as the story is set out in chapters with each chapter ending in an extravagant boss battle. There is less "survival horror" in the action and more fast-paced shooting scenes which sometimes makes me question if Resident Evil can deem itself a survival horror game anymore or should just jump ships to being an action game these days. I's certainly different than in past REs where your characters are given full reign to explore and backtrack. Instead, your characters are constantly plowing forward with no backtracking to previous areas whatsoever. This does mean though that you are more likely to miss out nabbing a weapon for free in a chapter if you're not careful. Capcom tried to balance this out with allowing you to purchase the weapon in between chapters for a fee if you missed nabbing it up for free during the level BUT with this in mind it severely lowers your likelihood of exploring the whole area as thoroughly as you would have in previous REs. Many of the ammo and loot are randomly dispersed so there is some replay in that but even then you are not too hard-pressed to find every treasure chest when at best you might get a crap-load of machine gun bullets.
I'll have to continue later on this...so sleepy.