Please note that before I start that I am new to this whole game reviewing thing. My favourite reviewers are Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation and Armake21/Nicotine Alien who is now suspended for reasons I don't know of though I'm sure it is caused by the assholes on the internet. You know who you are... So if my reviews resemble theirs then I -am- probably copying their style but not in spite, but because I am blinded by their glory, so I'm trying to turn on a flashlight to represent a glimpse of the light they shine upon us humble gamers.
--Edit 2-- + Note: My review came before the ZP one so hah!
Resident evil 5 follows along the story of Chris Redfield and a new girl called Sheva, who upon completion of the game enjoys spending her time with a longbow and wearing a bikini and belt with a folded hand tissue to cover her bum, don't get me wrong I'm not saying that's a bad thing... but who's complaining? Oh wait a minute, I know who! Oh, but not about that. Yes this is probably the first Zombie game in which our Zombie - oh wait sorry, they're not zombies they're Parasite-Infected-People - anyway, in which our P-I-P are no-longer 'Caucasian'... or white to most people to put it simply. ZOMBIE's (or parasite infected people in this case) are not supposed to be civil and do not represent a people group. British Zombies do not walk up to you and ask politely "Excuse me sir, might I have a nibble upon thy brain?" Because your answer would probably be "No Fuck off" and then piss on his shoes. Then again later on in the game you come across P-I-P's who actually know how to use complex firearms including mounted machine guns and crossbows which raises the question if they deserve rights as they are an "intelligent" species of parasite. Wow I'm starting to sound political so let me just finish right there.
Back to the point. Resident evil 5 has come to the pointy-point where the zombie virus has been turned into a convenient Bio-weapon, and it's at this point the game begins to feel more like an interactive movie in which you have to trace back to the source and stop the Crazed Scientist who works for Miss Doomsday who works with Mr Sepharim and there's also a mysterious cloaked woman who is definitely not , wait what? She is? Oh snap!
Well the resident evil series has always been known to have controls parallel to those of a tank driving down an alleyway, and this game keeps to the tradition - and it's a tradition that needs to be thrown into a pit of faecal matter and dusted with thermite before lighting it into a smouldering pile of shit. Controls have been what's put quite a few people off the resident evil series and all fairness they're right. The whole Stop to Shoot and boatly turning might have worked from the overhead view with zombies that crawl towards you like they have glass in their shoes, but when you've got a behind view it should be fast paced at least. That doesn't mean it's hard, because in return the P-I-P give the helping hand in which they will run to within 5 meters of you then stop, waving a wrench menacingly while you line a shot up his nostrils. In fact most enemies can be completely bewildered by circling them including some bosses too. So the controls do take a bit of getting used to and even after a while of playing, the controls still manage to slap you every now and then, such as why the hell is the shoot button the same as the "Look at Partner" button? It makes me believe that the person programming the controls was testing it with his co-worker who just so happened to be their arch nemesis or maybe that cloaked woman for constantly shooting them in the back while they're trying to take down Sepharim - err I mean Wesker.
Although the stop and shoot is a bit of a failure what's quite interesting is that there are no crosshairs shown besides scoped weapons of course because even resi cant tit's up a sniper rifle. This does also add to the balance slightly such that unless you have a big enough screen, you can't pick off that P-I-P's eyeballs from half a mile away with a pistol (And if you do have a big enough screen then you can take your monocle and shove it up your... anyway). What brought me to buy this game, besides it has a female character playing a decent role, is that its co-op. It's one of those games best played with another human being, as much as befriending people over xbl is as fearful as the game itself. So while playing on Co-op it practically removes the fear factor from the game, it's like playing left 4 dead, except a hell of a lot slower, and half of the zombies have guns too. It's quite important that you work with your partner in co-op, important though not necessary as you can pretty much sustain yourself until you really slip on the shit and 'mini-boss' equivalents start trying to cleave off your face.
The game is very much linear where each area you visit is the last time you'll see it, which is what makes Chapter 3-1 quite nice as it's a free roam lake, but the overall linear style of the game is an awful shame and removes practically all the puzzles from the Resident Evil series, although there is that one Zelda light temple extract but with lasers, which anyone who can do a dot-to-dot -should- be able to handle.
One of the things that have been appearing more and more in games is Quick Time Events, and by the light don't the people at resi 5 programming know it. QTE shows up almost constantly. Of course when in a boss fight you want to avoid a boss pulling off a Mortal Combat finisher and ripping out your spine. It's good to have them at times as it helps to keeps up the challenge, but it even has a large presence in cut scenes which are designed to sneak up on you, although you do get a smug moment when you avoid getting completely obliterated while your partner is splattered all over the floor.
Overall the game play in incredibly easy in comparison to previous games from the Resi series, or at least the ones I've played. The only times they'll get you is when you're struggling with controls or the QTE. Ammo and health items are thrown at you at such a rate there's no need to be a ninja and take all the items like greedy bastards, because even with the two of you it's still a struggle with slot space. And once completing the game you can unlock infinite ammo for weapons including a rocket launcher which almost breaks the point to play besides more money and collectables. I could help tell you where shortcuts are and all the Emblems are... but Miss Mir has done that already.
I could go on further like how Chris is like Dom from Gears of War 2 crying out constantly as soon as he finds out might be alive.. and small things like how the doors get fussy and can't decide whether to be opened with X or B, or how they should really make the same game with another name and characters to stop the ascending numbers that every game seems to have.
So it's an alright game strangely enough. You do need to remember the thing about game critics is we're supposed to nit-pick at annoyances and usually the bad side of games more than the better. The graphics are pretty ace with both Model and Scenery sharing in detail and quality, online there's very little lag and it's fairly well handled even when there is, and it does have a fair amount of replay value trying to get achievemtns; but it can easily be completed in 7 hours which is a bit of a shame. There is an additional Survival "Mercenaries" mode which could be quite fun although I haven't really tried that yet. I'd recommend it if you have XBL, and if you don't then get it so you can play with all the crazy people online such as myself... or the PS3 equivalent but who cares about that piece of sh__.
--Edit 2-- + Note: My review came before the ZP one so hah!
Resident evil 5 follows along the story of Chris Redfield and a new girl called Sheva, who upon completion of the game enjoys spending her time with a longbow and wearing a bikini and belt with a folded hand tissue to cover her bum, don't get me wrong I'm not saying that's a bad thing... but who's complaining? Oh wait a minute, I know who! Oh, but not about that. Yes this is probably the first Zombie game in which our Zombie - oh wait sorry, they're not zombies they're Parasite-Infected-People - anyway, in which our P-I-P are no-longer 'Caucasian'... or white to most people to put it simply. ZOMBIE's (or parasite infected people in this case) are not supposed to be civil and do not represent a people group. British Zombies do not walk up to you and ask politely "Excuse me sir, might I have a nibble upon thy brain?" Because your answer would probably be "No Fuck off" and then piss on his shoes. Then again later on in the game you come across P-I-P's who actually know how to use complex firearms including mounted machine guns and crossbows which raises the question if they deserve rights as they are an "intelligent" species of parasite. Wow I'm starting to sound political so let me just finish right there.
Back to the point. Resident evil 5 has come to the pointy-point where the zombie virus has been turned into a convenient Bio-weapon, and it's at this point the game begins to feel more like an interactive movie in which you have to trace back to the source and stop the Crazed Scientist who works for Miss Doomsday who works with Mr Sepharim and there's also a mysterious cloaked woman who is definitely not , wait what? She is? Oh snap!
Well the resident evil series has always been known to have controls parallel to those of a tank driving down an alleyway, and this game keeps to the tradition - and it's a tradition that needs to be thrown into a pit of faecal matter and dusted with thermite before lighting it into a smouldering pile of shit. Controls have been what's put quite a few people off the resident evil series and all fairness they're right. The whole Stop to Shoot and boatly turning might have worked from the overhead view with zombies that crawl towards you like they have glass in their shoes, but when you've got a behind view it should be fast paced at least. That doesn't mean it's hard, because in return the P-I-P give the helping hand in which they will run to within 5 meters of you then stop, waving a wrench menacingly while you line a shot up his nostrils. In fact most enemies can be completely bewildered by circling them including some bosses too. So the controls do take a bit of getting used to and even after a while of playing, the controls still manage to slap you every now and then, such as why the hell is the shoot button the same as the "Look at Partner" button? It makes me believe that the person programming the controls was testing it with his co-worker who just so happened to be their arch nemesis or maybe that cloaked woman for constantly shooting them in the back while they're trying to take down Sepharim - err I mean Wesker.
Although the stop and shoot is a bit of a failure what's quite interesting is that there are no crosshairs shown besides scoped weapons of course because even resi cant tit's up a sniper rifle. This does also add to the balance slightly such that unless you have a big enough screen, you can't pick off that P-I-P's eyeballs from half a mile away with a pistol (And if you do have a big enough screen then you can take your monocle and shove it up your... anyway). What brought me to buy this game, besides it has a female character playing a decent role, is that its co-op. It's one of those games best played with another human being, as much as befriending people over xbl is as fearful as the game itself. So while playing on Co-op it practically removes the fear factor from the game, it's like playing left 4 dead, except a hell of a lot slower, and half of the zombies have guns too. It's quite important that you work with your partner in co-op, important though not necessary as you can pretty much sustain yourself until you really slip on the shit and 'mini-boss' equivalents start trying to cleave off your face.
The game is very much linear where each area you visit is the last time you'll see it, which is what makes Chapter 3-1 quite nice as it's a free roam lake, but the overall linear style of the game is an awful shame and removes practically all the puzzles from the Resident Evil series, although there is that one Zelda light temple extract but with lasers, which anyone who can do a dot-to-dot -should- be able to handle.
One of the things that have been appearing more and more in games is Quick Time Events, and by the light don't the people at resi 5 programming know it. QTE shows up almost constantly. Of course when in a boss fight you want to avoid a boss pulling off a Mortal Combat finisher and ripping out your spine. It's good to have them at times as it helps to keeps up the challenge, but it even has a large presence in cut scenes which are designed to sneak up on you, although you do get a smug moment when you avoid getting completely obliterated while your partner is splattered all over the floor.
Overall the game play in incredibly easy in comparison to previous games from the Resi series, or at least the ones I've played. The only times they'll get you is when you're struggling with controls or the QTE. Ammo and health items are thrown at you at such a rate there's no need to be a ninja and take all the items like greedy bastards, because even with the two of you it's still a struggle with slot space. And once completing the game you can unlock infinite ammo for weapons including a rocket launcher which almost breaks the point to play besides more money and collectables. I could help tell you where shortcuts are and all the Emblems are... but Miss Mir has done that already.
I could go on further like how Chris is like Dom from Gears of War 2 crying out constantly as soon as he finds out might be alive.. and small things like how the doors get fussy and can't decide whether to be opened with X or B, or how they should really make the same game with another name and characters to stop the ascending numbers that every game seems to have.
So it's an alright game strangely enough. You do need to remember the thing about game critics is we're supposed to nit-pick at annoyances and usually the bad side of games more than the better. The graphics are pretty ace with both Model and Scenery sharing in detail and quality, online there's very little lag and it's fairly well handled even when there is, and it does have a fair amount of replay value trying to get achievemtns; but it can easily be completed in 7 hours which is a bit of a shame. There is an additional Survival "Mercenaries" mode which could be quite fun although I haven't really tried that yet. I'd recommend it if you have XBL, and if you don't then get it so you can play with all the crazy people online such as myself... or the PS3 equivalent but who cares about that piece of sh__.
