Resident Evil 5 Impressions

First of all, I have to say I love Resident Evil 4. It amounted to my first true-blue horror game (well…as much horror as an action game can get). There are very few games I feel are textbook perfect examples of excellent game design—and this was one. The pacing was impeccable; the action engaging and tense; and the difficulty, just right.

I’d recommend it to anyone, casual player or hardcore. If you have a Gamecube or preferably a Wii, get it. (The PC Version, however, was one of the worst ports ever devised. The PS2 version, though okay, is just simply an inferior experience.)

So you can understand the anticipation I’ve kept deep within my heart ever since I saw the shadows of zombies and some badass guy pointing a gun in the most unrevealing trailer of all time. Resident Evil 5 was upon us, and when I saw that Gamespot had a one hour stage demo of the game, I jumped on that faster than white on rice.

Suffice to say…I’m really disappointed with Capcom. Now we know they aren’t exactly the poster-children of innovation here (after all, their franchise stuck to one formula for nigh ten years), but RE4 was such a breakthrough! It sent a shockwave through the gaming community, radically changing the face of action games (ex. Gears of War). But these games didn’t just capitalize on RE4’s innovations, they improved on them adding cover and even more cinematic gameplay.

But watching this video, here it looks almost like Capcom has done absolutely nothing new with the sequel. They simply copied and pasted Resident Evil 4 into Africa with a handful of expansion pack additions. The burlap-sack-wearing chainsaw psychos are replaced with…a burlap-sack-wearing axe psycho (with an inexplicable chain wrapped around it, which evidently grants its wielder +2 badassness). The villagers have been replaced with…villagers. And a village has been replaced with...a village.

Okay, okay. A desert village.

I could take all that—if Capcom wasn’t knowingly committing the greatest sin ever to curse game design. We’re talking the kind that game designers simply can’t get into their heads that it isn’t fun. Never ever. Yes, if you haven’t guessed by the picture to the right, escort missions. They represent some of the greatest frustrations in video game history. Only we aren’t talking just a small section here, we’re talking the entire game.

So you think to yourself, in the first game you had to escort Ashley, so this time you get another helpless maiden. Her name is Sheva Alomar (is that name even real?), and hey, at least she has a gun! (Not so helpless now, bitches!) You ask yourself, how can you go wrong?

Well, that’s exactly the problem. The problem is that Sheva isn’t helpless like Ashley was. Ashley had the good sense to stick close to you. And the one time she didn’t you got to shoot at her to teach her a lesson. (Ever tried shooting off those bars with a riot shotgun?) Sheva makes her own decisions like a second player.

Capcom’s representative, ignoring the fact that he’s probably never picked up a video game save Madden in his whole life, explains that her AI is so great, she can essentially “hold her own”--which is why he spends the whole video shooting zombies off her. Oh yeah, and did I mention that it’s game over as soon as she dies?

Wait, she can take care of herself, but suddenly I’m responsible for her death? How is that even remotely fair? And we’re talking about zombies here. If you ever catch me in a situation with zombies it’s every man for himself. You get knocked down? Good, distract them while I make a break for it.

This can be nothing but a no-win situation. Anytime the computer takes control out of the player’s hands, the result is always frustrating. And given an AI controlled co-op NPC, if you lose, you want to throw your PS3 out the window. If you win, there’s this uncomfortable feeling that it actually wasn’t all you. And being the self-absorbed egoist I am, that hurts my esteem.

Ultimately, it appears that Capcom simply isn’t intending this to be a single-player game. Evidently Sheva can be played by a second player, and thus designed the entire game around that. Sorry if you don’t play on xbox live. Sorry if you’re more a casual gamer. Sorry if you can’t find anyone to play with. It makes me wonder though how they will balance the game for two players—which often makes things a cake-walk. And will it be game over if one player dies?

In other notes, the paths through the game look as linear as they were in RE4, which is just inexcusable. We all know how big and sprawling the worlds of Assassin’s Creed and GTA IV are—we’re not exactly limited by last-generation hardware anymore. And it’s not that I mind linearity—just as long as it doesn’t break the player’s immersion. Maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much if your paths weren’t defined by the same make-shift fencing from the first game.

So I guess Capcom is back to its “play it safe” self, wear its completely acceptable to make the same game for another decade . I’m not saying I won’t play this title, but, I just can’t help but express my extreme disappointment that likely this game will be nothing we haven’t seen before. I feel like I could just go back and play RE4 on hard. Or fuck it, play a game RE5 should be, like Gears of War.

All images are owned by their respective owners, not me. The images were borrowed from Gamespot and is owned by Capcom.