There will be a lot of people who will feel a mixture of
shock, anger, dismay and even betrayal at these words, but I have never
played a Resident Evil game.
Until now, the closest I have come to one of these supposedly 'scary'
games is a blind date with a rotund German spinster who went by the name of Insa.
Anyway,
I've heard a lot of good things about Capcom's survival horror game but
the whole concept of 'survival' didn't much appeal to me.
I prefer lots of ammo, run and gun sorta action than miserly gun
fighting and tip-toeing around, but first the intro.
Hello
Dolly! Nice graphics anyone? This game looks awesome and even if the
Resident Evil 5 were a steamy pile of porcine waste material I would
still have played through just to watch the cut-scenes. Golly-gee,
they're flippin' brilliant.
The art direction and the camera work are excellent, almost Hollywood like
in their ponderousness, and while the dialogue is a bit B-grade at
times the quality of the rendered cut-scenes is excellent and helps set
the scene very nicely.
From the facial expressions to the epic scope of some of the set pieces, the cut-scenes are easily one of this games drawcards.
You play a dude called Chris Redfield and you've just met up with the ultra-foxy Sheva Alomar in Africa.
Long
story short, while you'd prefer to be whispering sweet nothings in the
ear of this smokin' hot femme fatale, such activities have to wait as
zombie-like creatures begin cropping up everywhere and kinda mess up
your plans.
So you guess it, it's killin' time.
Played from an over-the-shoulder or third-person perspective, Resident Evil 5 is a very attractive game.
From
the way the character models (living and unliving alike) animate and
move to the sprawling level design and bleakness of a dusty and
deserted African town, this game's graphics cannot be faulted.
There's
plenty of blood and gore and some chilling horror effects (look out for
the black oil that infuses eyeballs - ewww!), with a few helpings of
sticky ichor thrown in for good measure.
There's
even some nicely rendered vehicles to boot, and the guns and weaponary
in general look and sound excellent. Simply put, there's more eye candy
here than a bowl full of a fizzoes.
The
game manages to create a real sense of foreboding at many junctures and
though not as pants-pissingly scary as F.E.A.R 2 in my humble opinion,
there were many instances that made me twitch in almost-terror.
While
the game is essentially a winner, a multimedia extravaganza – nay - an
interactive movie of gargantuan proportions, newcomers to the series
may find it a bit dumb.
Okay, let me paint a picture for you.
It's the first level and I'm all excited after the gory, glossy
intro and looking at some of the most finely crafted *this sentence has
been removed by the Federal Governments new Internet Censorship system*
to have a lie down.
But how does the game play?
Overall, it's a highly enjoyable game. Combat is, by and large, fairly good and navigating the gameworld is fairly intuitive.
However, I have to say that I wasn't a big fan of having to stand still to fire a weapon. Move your legs fool!!
If
you want to fire your weapon in this game, you have to come to a stop.
If this Redfield character is such a highly trained professional, you'd
think he'd learn to multi-task. I can brush my teeth while taking a
dump, and I didn't even go to university!
The lack of ammo in the
game was quite irritating, but in hindsight the two gameplay barriers
of low ammo and stationary gunfire do help to create more tension and
enhance an atmosphere of moderate terror.
When
you can see a range of fast and slow moving ghastly's sprinting toward
you from all angles, knowing you have to stop to unleash the pain
train, it's really very nerve-wracking.
It's
not nice being chewed by zombie creatures, especially because you have
to waggle the control stick left and right really quickly to shake them
off or hope that your partner spin-kicks them in the teeth, but
sometimes you just have to prepare for some flesh tearing.
And don't get me started on the stick waggling thing to break free of zombie holds. We've already broken one control pad...
However in saying that I did find the controls to be tight and responsive giving you a good feel and control of your character.
While there are certain things that displeased me about this Japanese-developed
game, overall it is one of the most exciting pieces of interactive
entertainment I've sunk my sparkling white teeth into for some time.
Resident Evil 5's story is quite compelling and there aren't too many
flat spots so you rarely get bored with proceedings.
The combat is not perfect but it is a lot of fun blasting biohazard
baddies can be rewarding, especially if you play the game in co-op mode.
This is arguably one of the best aspects of the game - co-op mode.
Split
screen on the one system is a very nice addition, but the best is
playing online co-op as you get the whole screen to yourself (and good
for picture-in-picture stuff when the trots are on).
While the AI
scripting for Sheva is not bad at all (she is a real asset and will
take the initiative at times), having a human player controlling your
partner usually the more preferable option. Unless they speak
Portuguese and you don't.
Not since the original Halo burst onto the scene on the Xbox was a co-operative
game mode so utterly addictive, and Capcom has crafted an excellent
2-player mode where you can still play through the full game,
cut-scenes and all.
Though it took me a good couple of hours to
really 'get' this game and to start appreciating it, I'm glad I
persevered because it's one of the most satisfying games I've played.
The
story really sucks you in and almost always leaves a pleasant taste in
your mouth and with only mild ringing in your ears. Resident Evil 5
also has some of the highest production values of any game I've ever
played and is one of those rare games that makes you think "wow" games
really are freakin' cool.
So compelling is the game that I'm
actually on a mission to play through the entire Resident Evil (aka
Biohazard) back catalogue.
When a game can do this to a jaded, wisened old gamer like yours truly, you know it's doing something right. Highly recommended.
