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Resident Evil 5 Review

Stiff controls and archaic gameplay design prove problematic but enjoyable in coop modes, amazing looking and great running game.

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Unfortunately the AI for friend and foe is also terrible and at times adds unnecessary time wasting and frustration. The Majini are essentially zombies so calling their AI bad is a lot harder to justify. Nevertheless they seemed to get stuck behind doorways or have problems navigating tight spaces quite often. The real problem however comes from your female partner, Sheva, and her incredible ineptitude. Sheva will get in your way, shoot you, waste ammo, and kick you down among other things. In the open areas often you will need to run and then turn around to unload a few bullets. Unfortunately more times than I can count as soon as I turned around Sheva was standing right in my line of fire! Now if I could move slightly this would probably have eliminated this problem too. It is quite hard to throw grenades when Sheva just stands directly in your way. The next thing she loves to do is shoot you. Now clearly Capcom worked out she does this so her shots do not damage you unless she has a grenade launcher. However in a world where ammo is very rare unloading 10 bullets directly into my back makes me cringe. She will also regularly kick you down as you are near other zombies and she goes for a flying jump kick.
 
She has some scripting that will take her near barrels and ammo caches so you can see them easier, but she will just stand there as I use my knife to slice her and the barrel open. You can order her to attack or cover you. In cover mode she simply took control of the stun rod and stood by my side taking only those in close range. In attack mode she would move forward and shoot fairly accurately at enemies but often running into my line of fire or unloading her weapon very quickly. Of course a few times during the game she seemed to ignore both of these orders. This might be charging in to a group of weapon wielding Majini with a stun rod even though she had ample ammo. Other times just standing by my side as I ordered her to attack a boss. In one game section she was stuck on a conveyor belt for 10 minutes, trying to run along it. There really is only one good thing about the AI and that is it shoots very accurately so a few places so she redeems herself a little bit for weak spot bosses. The AI is badly flawed and is not good enough for people who want to play alone without being frustrated.

 

Hey let me show you my shiny spear, oh and my gum disease.
 
Fortunately there are some redeemable qualities here, graphics and cut scenes among the top. The graphics on the PC are pretty amazing most thanks to the character design. The main story characters have been modelled amazingly well with crisp textures. They also have put some high quality work into the cut scenes with some good directing, clean voice work and impressive animation sequences. In fact in many ways the cut scenes are perhaps the best part of the game, they are entertaining and you won’t be struggling with stiff controls. There are some good lengthy cut scenes that honestly felt more fun than most of the single player gameplay did. Sadly there is some button mashing cut scenes, requiring you to push a button in rapid succession or tap a button in time. In comparison with other button mashing RE5 is generally pretty easy to complete, especially at the start.
 
The graphics aren’t just good in the cut scenes though, the world is desinged really well and the Majini look incredible sometimes. This is partly due to the good animation work in conjunction with the attacks. Shoot one Majini in the head and watch him hold his head and bend over. Shoot one in the leg and he will kneel over. Many later in the game also do some evading so headshots don’t come easy. Two sequences featured a rather unique “flowing” boss creature in some sewers that looked amazing I can’t quite work out how they managed to animate it so well. Even the presentation carries over to some of the action set pieces. One was a car chase across the desert, featuring motorbike riding Majini and trucks. It’s one of the best chase sequences I’ve played for a long time in video games and these can be really hard to pull off. At times I would have to say the graphics easily rival Crysis, the game’s speed is nowhere near as fast which might explain why it can produce such good visuals. It doesn’t have huge levels but there is some really great design here. If you are a big eye candy gamer than RE5 is really a no brainer. Some of the problems with single player do seem reduced when stepping online. 

Comments
Resident Evil 5
Resident Evil 5 box art Platform:
PC DRM: SecuROM
Our Review of Resident Evil 5
72%
Good
The Verdict:
Game Ranking
Resident Evil 5 is ranked #1030 out of 1957 total reviewed games. It is ranked #52 out of 63 games reviewed in 2009.
1029. Gears of War 5
Xbox One
1030. Resident Evil 5
1031. Demigod
PC
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Screenshots

Resident Evil 5
35 images added Oct 17, 2009 19:14
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