GamerNode: Reviews - Resident Evil 5

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• Resident Evil 5
• Xbox 360
• Capcom
• Capcom
• March 13th, 2009

It's hard to critique the game's enemies without simultaneously examining the environments and situations in which players encounter them. While beautifully rendered in some of the most refined visuals on modern consoles, with incredibly detailed textures and realistic dynamic lighting, the game's environmental design is not typically conducive to interesting or unusual enemy confrontations. Many of these places, although visually quite dissimilar, feel very much the same as one another due to the way they are laid out and the way the action unfolds within them. Gamers won't find themselves on the edge of their seats and hanging in suspense in these mildly horrifying locales, despite the moody, orchestrated score providing all the proper ambiance. This is as much (maybe more so) a repercussion of gameplay mechanics as it is of level design.

The game's controls have been improved this time around, featuring four different setups, including a modified version of the more popular dual-stick controls (with strafing, yay!) found in many modern third-person shooters, but the further the franchise slips from its survival horror roots into action territory, the more dated and awkward they feel. A new cover system to help combat the more gun-loving enemies of the later stages works very well, aside from the fact that players cannot move laterally behind their cover of choice, but can only pop out and back from a single position at a time. Still, a cover system in a Resident Evil game at all feels slightly out of place, and along with the game's more hard-driven pacing, is more evidence that this is no longer a "survival horror" franchise.

The inventory system, too, has been updated, allowing each player to carry a maximum of nine weapons or items at a time. Ammo, grenades, and mines take up slots, but are stackable. Chris and Sheva can swap items, so long as they are within arm's reach of one another, but taking a cue from EA's Dead Space, inventory management happens in real time, meaning the action doesn't stop while players trade guns or combine herbs. Of course this change warrants a fast weapon-swapping function, and answering the cries of RE fans, the inventory slots corresponding to the four cardinal directions are now instantly accessible via the d-pad. This is absolutely invaluable when a freshly emptied gun goes *click* in the middle of a firefight, and is a welcome addition to the RE series.

All of these updated and improved controls make fighting non-zombies a smoother experience, especially in the returning Mercenaries minigame, a timed game of survival, set in a number of the game's locations. Mercenaries is playable alone, with a partner, offline, or online, and is an even more action-packed version of the oppressive situations found in the main storyline. Blasting as many enemies as possible nets the team points, and a final ranking at the end of the round. These points can later be used to purchase cool bonuses like new costumes, screen filters, enemy figurines, and unlimited ammo for particular weapons. As in the past, Capcom has given players plenty of reason to keep playing, well after the credits roll. That's good news, because the main game's brevity is a contributing factor to many of the enemy- and environment-based complaints noted above.

Resident Evil 5's biggest flaw is that it immediately succeeds the most historic entry in the series, and although it does a lot to innovate and deliver a great gameplay experience, it doesn't do enough to match the ground-breaking performance of its predecessor. To make an analogy of it, RE5 is to RE4 what Majora's Mask is to Ocarina of Time. Resident Evil 5 does have other flaws, namely some questionable partner and enemy AI, lack of a diverse stable of bosses, and further abandonment of the tempered survival horror gameplay that the franchise was founded upon, but it still remains a shotgun-blasting good time.

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