Resident Evil 5 – PlayStation 3 Review by | Simon a.k.a. TheDevilDweller |

Resident Evil 5 – PlayStation 3 Review by | Simon a.k.a. TheDevilDweller |

*****1. Introduction*****

The highly anticipated game wish list of the year and one of the most highly acclaimed horror game series ever made, Resident Evil 5 is here. I’ve played the crap out of it, experienced everything I could experience from it, but was it what I expected? I was expecting something more than great; I was expecting something so much more… Was it what I expected? Read on and find out what I thought.

*****2. The Plot*****

· Main Story

The main story is set in the present time in Africa as you play Chris Redfield, a former member of S.T.A.R.S. and one of the main characters in the Resident Evil series, as well as being one of the first main playable character in the original Resident Evil game back in 1996, making an appearance in Resident Evil: Code Veronica back in 2000, and with the Resident Evil remake in 2002. Unlike back in the good old day, Chris will no longer be threatened my flesh eating zombies instead, a new type off enemy that doesn’t just went to eat his flesh or just chew away at his neck as they grab him, but instead inflict physical pain, brutality and violence and pretty much make his life a living hell as much as they can.

After a long journey over winding African roads, the lone vehicle finally stops near Kijuju. From it emerges one man: Chris Redfield. He’s looking around when, suddenly, she appears.

“Welcome to Africa. I’m Shevia Alomar.”

Shaking her outstretched hand, he realizes that he’s got some assistance for this mission. In his line of work, partners are people that come and… go. He wonders whether it’s really worth risking his life to protect the world. That’s a question that he can’t answer yet, but there is one thing that he does know for sure: there’s something he need to do.

The story is quite good but pretty much like the other Resident Evil games, sometimes the story can feel a little ridicules at time with over-the-top boss mutations which everyone who knows the Resident Evil series will come to expect, but it’s not too ridicules to make the story painful to follow. However the story does feel as if there really just doing anything now just to keep the Resident Evil series going and to probably see how far they can go with the series. The Resident Evil series really did end after Resident Evil 3, with three great games which you could even call classics, but with Resident Evil 4, and 5, it feel like they’ve just taken the old characters and the Resident Evil name and made up something entirely different.

· The Main Characters

The characters in Resident Evil 5 are just like the pervious Resident Evil characters and other Capcom characters, great. You well see new as well as a few old characters from the previous Resident Evil games.

Chris Redfield:

One of the main members of S.T.A.R.S. Chris Redfield was sent to investigate what is now called the Mansion Incident from the first Resident Evil and one of the few survivors of the mission. Chris kept a low profile after the Mansion Incident, until after the Racconn City Incident Chris later came out of hiding and joined the B.S.A.A. (Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance) Chris has dedicated his life to stopping the Umbrella Corporations, and one man who betrayed him and the S.T.A.R.S. unit, Albert Wesker. His observational skills, insight, and attack power are unparalleled within the B.S.A.A., and years of experience have endowed him with the ability to adapt to a variety of weapons. Since Umbrella’s downfall, he has combated several biological threats throughout the world, but with the hard fought victories has also come devastating tragedy.

Sheva Alomar:

Sheva is a new character to the Resident Evil series, a B.S.A.A. agent and an African native whom aids Chris as his new partner. After the death of her parents, Sheva Alomar joined a West African anti Government gorilla group. After being rescued by a Government agency Sheva was sent to live in the United States. A number of years later Sheva graduating from college and was recruited into the B.S.A.A. to combat Bio Terrorism in their West African Division. With her skills in Guerrilla warfare, and her knowledge of the West African terrain she was the best suited for her position. Later she is ordered to aid a B.S.A.A. agent from the United States who is dispatched there to counter a bio terrorist threat. She joins this mission as Chris’s partner

Excella Gionne:

Excella is new to the Resident Evil franchise. She was born into one of the elite families of Europe. She is a direct descendant of one of the founders of Tricell. Sent to the finest schools and Universities in Europe, Excella quickly excelled as a young and gifted geneticist. With her superior intelligence, charm, and lust for power she quickly climbed the ranks of Tricell to become one of the major CEO’s. As the overseer of a private project in West Africa, Excella has personally traveled there to meet one of Tricell’s affiliates who is heading up a secret project…Albert Wesker.

Albert Wesker:

He’s back. Wesker made his appearance in the first Resident Evil as the commander of the S.T.R.A.S. unit and leader of Alpha team. Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine find evidence in the mansion’s underground laboratory implicating Wesker as a member of the Umbrella research staff. Wesker eventually reveals that he was ordered by his superiors at Umbrella to lure the S.T.A.R.S. into the mansion, using them as test subjects against the mutated creatures to gather battle data. Wesker is presumed dead, destroyed by his own creation, the Tyrant at the end of the first Resident Evil.

Wesker makes another appearance in the later half of Code Veronica having survived his apparent death in the first Resident Evil by injecting himself beforehand with an experimental virus provided by his former colleague William Birkin. The virus brought him back to life, augmenting him with superhuman strength and agility. Wesker appears as an agent working for an unnamed secret organization against Umbrella. Chris and Wesker confront one another and Wesker escapes at the end of Code Veronica.

Wesker makes yet other appearances in the Resident Evil remake and Resident Evil Zero as well as in Resident Evil 4 as a conspirator manipulating events from behind the scenes. He is a central character in The Umbrella Chronicles, where he appears as a playable character in several of the game's scenarios, expanding upon events alluded to in earlier games, as well as his involvement in Umbrella's downfall after the events of Code Veronica and his development in Resident Evil 4.

Surprise, surprise Wesker make yet another appearance in Resident Evil 5 but now has his plan ready and set to launch a global operation, starting in Africa.

The Plot Score 6/10

*****3. The Graphics*****

What did you expect? It’s Capcom for crying out loud. Capcom is one of those company, like Konami and Square Enix and so on, that it doesn’t matter if the game is poor, there visuals are always ether close to amazing or, outstanding. And Resident Evil 5’s visuals are, outstanding. Everything from the characters and background rendering to the small details and textures are mind-blowing. Zooming in on Sheva with the sniper rifle and getting a close up look at her face (or anywhere else) and seeing the details close up are very impressive, but not just on Sheva, but the background and enemies as well. The first level in Resident Evil 5 is definitely made for one reason, and that reason is to show of the visuals, and the look of Africa and to tell you the truth, I was blow away. Africa is a hot country as you all know, but playing the first few level in Resident Evil 5 I really did feel the heat, the way the sun glared in the sky and the sunlight bouncing of the hot sand on the ground is just amazing, but don’t just taking my word for it.

The Graphics Score 10/10

*****4. The Game-Play*****

The game-play to me is one of (If not most) important aspects of any game. If the control layout take time to get used to, or the feel of game-play is frustrating to play, than that can turn even the most beautiful looking game into, “It’s just a game.” Or a game you probably want think twice over. The game-play in Resident Evil 5 are pretty good, but if you hoping for new additions to the game-play from Resident Evil 4, then you may be disappointed. The game-play is exactly the same as Resident Evil 4 and sometime feels as if they just took the game-play from Resident Evil 4 and just throw it in ether due to laziness, or they couldn’t make a better game-play or they thought the people (us) would appreciate the old Resident Evil 4 style over the shoulder game-play more than anything else. Personally I would have preferred the old school Resident Evil style game-play. But that doesn’t mean the game-play is bad, it certainly is not.

· Controls

As said above the controls are exactly the same as Resident Evil 4, the camera view is always over Chris’s right shoulder, (or if your playing co-op, over Sheva’s left shoulder. Sheva is left handed.) which can make it sometime hard to see if enemies are coming from the left (or right). You can aim in Resident Evil 5 (naturally), which was a big thing when Resident Evil 4 came out, being the first Resident Evil game with a proper aiming system. Even though it is good to aim, you want really experience or feel anything new in Resident Evil 5 in terms of game-play (unless you’ve never played Resident Evil 4).

You can ready your weapon and aim at your enemy’s legs, arms, head, body or wherever you wish, but like Resident Evil 4 you cannot walk or run and aim at the same time like most games nowadays. When you reload your weapon, Chris (or anyone else your playing) cannot move from the spot while reloading which mean, if you need to reload you’ll need to be a quite far away from your enemies to do so without getting hit. You can do action combo attacks that require you and your partner to hit the action button at the right time to perform a combo attack. It does look pretty cool but the combo attacks are quite limited. The healing system is quite good, you can heal yourself and your partner at the same time (when close) and gain health depending on what you use like first aids, herbs and mixed herbs. When close to death you are basically now in the red zoon and all you can do is move away from danger. You can’t shot, you can’t run, all you can do is basically wait for your partner to help you, which if your playing offline is pretty easy because your (computer) partner is always behind you and will help you no matter what. Through the whole game your inventory is limited to 9 slots and cannot be upgraded, which means you will have to really think hard about collecting weapons, ammo and health items. Key items however do not require any inventory slots, which is a big help. After every level (chapter) you will have the opportunity to buy and sell weapons (from an unknown source. The merchant from Resident Evil 4 didn’t make it into Resident Evil 5), upgrade weapons and reorganize yours and Sheva’s inventory slots. You also have an off game inventory where you can store any items or weapons you find as you play through the game. The off game inventory has a total of 54 slots which is more than enough to store weapons and other items you want to keep for later on. There are over 20 weapons to play around with in Resident Evil 5 from standard handguns, shotguns, and sniper rifles to grenade launchers and rocket launchers, as well as grenades and other weapons to unlock and find. The weapon are pretty sweet and they all can be upgraded and become more powerful. And if that wasn’t enough, every weapon you full upgrade will unlock infinite ammunition for that weapon which you can exchange points for at the bonus feature menu. There are a total of 16 level to go through and four different difficulty settings, easy, normal, veteran and professional which will require you to complete veteran mode first to unlock. Each difficulty setting is harder than the next (naturally) but even veteran mode can be easier than you would expect if you use your head. If your playing on easy or even normal mode you’ll find you’ll very rarely use grenades, so save them and put them into your off game inventory if need them for veteran mode. Repeating the same level over and over again is very helpful, especially a level with a lot of treasures, money, items and perhaps a weapon because they can all be added on to your inventory as many times as you like, where you can just sell them for money to upgrade your weapons and unlocking infinite ammunition, which is very helpful for veteran mode. There are lots of treasures to find which you can sell for money in order to upgrade your weapons, or buy new ones. The boss fight are quite good but like previous Resident Evil games, some (if not all) of the boss mutations can feel a bit ridicules, but still look pretty impressive in how they did the modeling and animation and just the basic ideas of the boss designs in Resident Evil are pretty impressive (but still ridicules). Like other Resident Evil boss fight, in Resident Evil 5 you’ll find yourself wasting all your ammunition before finding out you have to hit the bosses weak spot about three or four times. At certain parts in the game it requires you and your partner to split up, which is very good when playing in co-op. Playing offline however is ok but a bit annoying because you can’t communicate with the computer. Everything you can do in the game is pretty good, but if you like playing co-op games, Resident Evil 5 is definitely a great game to play with a friend. You can ether play with a friend or host a game and play with a stranger, ether way you’ll find the co-op mode more satisfying than playing the game on your own. When playing on your own you may find Sheva’s actions in game rather annoying. She tends to waste ammunition, and to make it even more worse she like to remind you of the fact that she has no ammo, “I need ammo.” She good at giving you ammo and would gladly give you her last ammo, even if you don’t want or need it which will probably result in you giving the ammo back. She picks up anything she sees even if you don’t want her to pick something up. One thing she’s good at is keeping you alive. Whenever you are low on health and she has a health kit, she’s not afraid to use it even if you or her are surrounded by enemies. You can’t really communicate with Sheva (playing offline). If Sheva is far away from you, you can call out to her with the O button, which basically tell her to get her ass over here, and you can tell her to pick up an item, again by pressing the O button (incase she doesn’t pick it up anyway). The game is meant to be played co-op, like in the case with some boss fights, one will distracted the boss and the other will attack. Sheva (playing offline) always stays behind you, even at boss fight, which can make it sometimes difficult for you to attack the boss because, you and Sheva being together give the boss an advantage in hitting at lease one of you. Playing co-op is a must with Resident Evil 5 and as great as the co-op was I can’t help but think how will they make the next Resident Evil (there will be more Resident Evil game). To me it feel like Resident Evil 5 was a test game for Capcom to see if they can make a co-op Resident Evil, and I think they succeeded with the co-op play but, do I want them to continue with making co-op games and making more Resident Evil game? Making different co-op I hope so yes, making another Resident Evil… not so much (even though they probably will)

7/10

· The feel

The feeling when playing Resident Evil 5 is pretty good. It can be a bit annoying if not frustrating when playing off line due to Sheva’s A.I. system. It can also feel annoying at the fact that you cannot aim and walk at the same time, or find yourself running around being chased by enemies and looking for a good opportunity to reload your weapon without getting hit.

6/10

The Game-Play Score 7/10

*****5. The Sound*****

· Music

The music is pretty standard I mean, it’s not Devil May Cry music but it dose a great job with keeping the flow of the game-play and with what’s happening in the scene.

9/10

· Sound Effects

The sound effects again pretty standard and great. A gunshot sounds like a gunshot. Explosions and what not all sound great and even better with surround sound.

10/10

· Voice Acting

The voice acting are impressive. Capcom are really getting better with the voice talents not like the way it was back many years ago. Even though the voice talent where so unbelievably slow and the responsiveness where rubbish, it always makes me laugh (in a good yeah) when I think about them. I miss the good old days. But yeah, the voice talents in Resident Evil 5 (to me) where spot on.

10/10

The Sound Score 10/10

*****6. The Life Value*****

· Main Story Length

Resident Evil 5 will probably take you about 10 hours to finish which is pretty decent for a survival horror game and a Resident Evil game.

7/10

· Extra Content

The extra contents are great in Resident Evil 5. On top of the 51 trophies to collect (If you’re a trophy nut) there are a lot of things you can do to find and unlock. There are 76 full body figures to unlock (that will make you wish they where real so you could collect them yourself) of enemies and character, each brilliantly modeled and rendered and nicely posed. You can go back and read fact files to brush up on your knowledge and the history of the Resident Evil Series as well as character profiles. You can go back a watch your favorite cut scenes anytime you want in the cut scene’s menu which is pretty sweet (A feature I think should be in all games). There are Over 20 weapons as well as a lots of treasures and 4 hidden costumes to find and unlock, and you can even change the filter settings if you wish. You can go back and play any level you want (any completed levels) as many time as you want (naturally) which is a good way in upgrading your weapons and find treasures quicker than playing the whole game again. Complete the story mode with unlock The Mercenaries mode where you have to kill as may enemies and rank in as much points as you can before the time limit end. There are four characters to play with in which two will need to be unlocked. The Mercenaries mode is quite fun and can be played with a partner. There are 30 B.S.A.A. symbols to find and destroy which will unlock new items in the bounce features menu.

So to sum it up, the extra contents are very good… if you like the sort of thing.

7/10

· Replay Value

The replay value is pretty decent. There are a lot of things to collect and unlock but after awhile the game can be quite boring when playing the same levels over and over again in order to gain more money to upgrade weapons. The replay value is great when you and your co-op buddy are playing together but playing on your own can be quite, annoying and repetitive after awhile.

6/10

The Life Value Score 6/10

*****7. Additional*****

· A.I. System

The enemy A.I. is nothing really much. Your enemies are stupid, I mean there not human what did you expect. They have no scene of apprehension for their life (where you honestly expecting anything more?) or the lives of others. All they do (if they see you) is run and attack.

5/10

· Animation

The animation in the game is fantastic hands down. The way your character moves his or hers hips, the way they walk, run and so on (In game-play) are bloody amazingly done. Some of the death scene are quite brutally animated that may very well make you cringe a bit. The in games cut scenes are very impressive and quite entertaining to watch. Some of the cut scene require you to press the right button to proceed like repeatedly press the X button the run, or press the square button to jump. Sometimes pressing the right button to even make ether Chris or Sheva shoot or to dodge. Much like Resident Evil 4, but a lot more of it. Every time a cut scene comes on, remember not to put your control down because you never know when you’ll need to hit a specific button (On your first play through)

10/10

· Difficulty

Resident Evil 5 is quite easy, maybe not your first time play though but once you know what your doing and you know how to defeat a boss, veteran mode want look that scary.

5/10

*****8. The Good and The Bad*****

***The good***

· Visuals

· Sound-Effects

· Voice Acting

· Co-op

· Brutal

· Animation

· Weapons

· Just Right

· Extras

***The Bad***

· AI

· Single Player

*****Overall Score*****

Story – 6/10

Graphics – 10/10

Game-play – 7/10

Sound – 10/10

Life-Value – 6/10

Overall Score – 8/10

*****9. Final Thoughts*****

Resident Evil 5 was one of the big games I was looking forward for in 2009 every since the first announcement. Now that it’s finally out and I got my hands on it like a child excited at Christmas, I was somewhat disappointed after finishing the game. I’ll tell you the truth, my first experience with Resident Evil 5 was solo, yes I play the story mode in single player so take my word for it, play with a friend. I did find Resident Evil 5 great when played in co-op mode however; I was really expecting so much more in terms with game-play and excitement. I was excited when I first played Resident Evil 5 (naturally) but after about half way though, I just wanted to finish the game just to get the story mode over and done with. After awhile the game became a bit boring especially coming toward the end. But, the game was good nevertheless.

So, if you like playing co-op games, like the Resident Evil series you probably will like Resident Evil 5.

I personally give Resident Evil 5 a 7/10, which is good. Overall score, 8/10.

By | Simon a.k.a. TheDevilDweller |

http://thedevildwellergames.blogspot.com/