J-Cat's take on the opening salvos in Resident Evil 5. Prepare yourself for slow-moving, zombie-killin' madness.
My ongoing affair with the Resident Evil franchise has always been of the love/hate variety.
If you count shouting instructions at my boyfriend as a "foray," Resident Evil was one of my first games. "Don't get your face eaten by that zombie! Ha ha." I was so very helpful. When I finally got a stable paycheck I bought my man a PS2 so we could play RE3. I bought a Gamecube as a "gift" for my now husband just for RE4. As a total fangirl of the series I've put my money where my heart was.
But while I loved "helping" my man play, I could never get the hang of playing the game myself. Sadly, I convinced myself I wasn't a gamer. If I couldn't get Jill, Chris or Leon to walk a straight line, I obviously suck at gaming. I gave up.
Then I played RE5, and I knew. Nope, Resident Evil, it's not me, it's you. Your control scheme is in fact full suckage. I am not that bad of a gamer. But you did set my gaming back by years, so now it's personal.
The demo turned me off so much that this much anticipated title in a franchise where I have laid down serious coin on consoles was a total no go. Then, on Saturday, the man says "I'm going out to get some stuff. I'm picking up RE, do we need anything else?" Well, if he's going to lay down the cash, who am I to complain? I figured we would either have a great time or be divorced by Sunday morning.
The result? Still married, and it wasn't half bad.
Disclaimers: We only played up to Chapter 1-3. And it's on easy. Screw off, we really do play for fun, and getting frustrated from replaying levels over and over again is not the type of tension I am looking for on a Saturday night.
Yes, it's slow. Run or shoot, not both. The aiming is slow, too. Chris and Sheva move like they are in molasses. If there were one or two zombies coming at you, it would not be so bad. But this game seems to throw an endless stream of the infected at you. The result? Zombies gnaw on your face more often than you would like. Okay, that's the bad, we know all this from the demo. So if I hated the demo, why would I like the game?
First things first: the demo was flawed. RE has always been about running or killing. The demo really only gave you one option. You pretty much had to kill everyone, including the big guy. Since the controls are so bad, it's hard. It's a lesson in nun-punching frustration to kill all of the zombies. The fact that you had to reload the demo every time you died was just a lesson in stupidity. In the game though, it's obvious. You are not meant to kill everyone. It's a run-over-gun affair. As a result, it works much better.
"Okay," says the RE fanboy who wants to justify the $70 (CAN) cost of the game, "so the demo was not set up well to show off what the game is really about, that doesn't tell me if the game is any good."
Well, you know, Resident Evil is Resident Evil. They are always good games. Kill zombies, get a shotgun, kill more zombies eventually get the magnum and kill LOTS of zombies. Giggle like a schoolgirl when you unlock the infinite rocket launcher. Sometimes face a really big zombie, use the environment against him. Rinse, repeat. It's a formula that works because it's fun. Thankfully, that hasn't changed. You are also forced at certain times to break up Chris and Sheva and do things solo. So while one person is far away providing cover, the other one does whatever needs to be done. I am looking forward to more of this co-op play; I think, and hope, that it can be quite creative.
I like the art direction: bright hot sunlight can be as fearful as a bleak European village or a creepy mansion. As I progress through the game, I want to see new areas. Let's see if they change the art direction or not. The shanty town is still very linear, so you won't get lost. However, the zombies will pour in from multiple entrances if you are in a room. The dogs are done very well. They look more like pooches you would see running around a village rather than the Doberman zombies we are used to seeing. It's early on and I've seen two new baddies, not including zombies with big weapons. The zombies are much like they were in RE5. There are many different kinds and they all move differently. They run at you, then dodge. One type of zombie will take an obscene amount of damage before going down and multiple shots will not slow him down. This is good, the variety is nice you can't treat them all the same. The infected have learned under the "run really fast, then stop so that you can shoot me" school of zombification, but that's par for the course. The series has been marred by over-the-top, cackling bosses -- perhaps we'll see this toned down a touch.
There are some annoyances in the game. I can trade anything with my partner, but I cannot split up the ammo. So if one person is out of ammo, you don't have the option of giving them a few rounds: you have to give up all of your ammo. The game requires some suspension of disbelief that makes me grit my teeth. Namely that in the game you can magically upgrade your weapon at the beginning of any chapter, not just when that mysterious stranger happens by. I found that the mysterious stranger broke the wall of realism, this weapon upgrade mechanic just sort of blows it out of the water. I find that it takes away from the feeling of helplessness that marked the series so well.
Bottom line?
I'm probably like many of the RE fans on this site: I love the series, hated the demo. My message: it ain't that bad. If you are a fanboy of the series: pick it up. Give it a shot, rent it if you aren't convinced. For non-RE fans: wait and see if a buddy will play on line with you and if not maybe rent it.
What am I I'm looking forward to?
- New and interesting enemies
- New areas: make it beautiful, scary and three dimensional
- creativity in the use of co-op
- bosses with more depth
With a little luck you guys may get my final impressions of the game. With a little bad luck I'll see you in divorce court.
