Mon 08 Aug 2011
Playstation
More about Playstation:
« Explaining the popularity of the PlayStation console | No need for an Age of Empires CD today »
Resident Evil 5 – Review
But it wasn’t until 2005 when the Resident Evil Franchise was forced by
changing technology to reinvent the franchise for the next generation.
Resident evil 4 departed from its predecessors and lured the franchise
away from the eerie, and suspenseful story to a more action orientated
shoot em up style of play.
Resident Evil 5, the latest addition to the RE franchise continues in the direction of an action orientated style of play that the developers changed direction in with Resident Evil 4, but has now reintroduced their revolutionary element of a completely revamped multi player interface.
My biggest problem with Resident Evil 5 is the same problem I had with Resident Evil 4, these games are simply no longer scary. They’re no longer survival horror game and to me they’re no longer Resident Evil. The tension that took hold of you and captivated you with the original Resident Evil is simply non-existent The resident Evil series has been reduced to merely another fun, mindless Zombie Shooter.
The problem with this is Resident Evil has turned away from what distinguished it from the rest of the Zombie games out there and instead wound up in the same realm as others who have already succeeded at mastering the Zombie shoot em, Ie. Left 4 Dead which simply does what Resident Evil 5 is trying to do better.
The story is set ten years after the destruction of Raccoon City, Chris Redfield (the ex-S.T.A.R.S) member whose been part of the RE franchise from the start is now an agent of the B.S.A.A. This anti-umbrella organization, kind of like PETA only with guns, exists as an opposition to Umbrella.
My problem with this story is, common, this is getting a bit ridiculous, the world is essentially in ruins, extinction has pretty much run its course and this Umbrella corporation is still carrying on as if nothing happened, and worse yet is still operating as if nothing happened, it’s just not believable, surely some of these Corporate beurocrats had family on the surface.
You essentially play Chris or Sheva, a local B.S.A.A. agent, where you than take on the endless streams of ravenous villagers, and workings of the umbrella corporation.
The core combat mechanics are essentially the same as Resident Evil 4, it’s still played from a close second view perspective. But what really pisses me off about this game is you still have to stop moving to fire your weapon!!! In this day and age of gaming, I simply cannot believe that they have not taken action and gotten rid of this ludicrous mechanic.
This seemingly little fault bothers me to the greatest degree, being aware of how simple it would be for them to fix it. Being forced to stop moving and press another button prior to fighting meanwhile having hordes of Zombies at merely inches away from me, makes the game extremely tedious and frustrating to play. With the original Resident Evil this slow, restrictive style of play was well-suited to the slow movement and story based nature of the game.
Resident Evil 5 however tries to combine these awkward and restrictive mechanics with an action orientated style of play which for me just doesn’t work, the fact is there are far more Zombies around you at a time than there ever were in Resident Evil Classic. New to Resident Evil 5 is the inclusion of a second character which is an attempt to assert RE5 as a team based action game, to the point where you can’t play a single player game by yourself, even if you’re playing a single player campaign you’ll be accompanied by the character Shiva.
Furthermore, there have been radical changes to the inventory. Enemies no longer politely wait for you to figure out which weapon you’re going to use after your shotgun runs out of ammo, in other words bringing up the menu system is no longer also a pause button. Yes, this is a very realistic addition to the game unfortunately I found this to be very frustrating given the scarcity of ammo and the initial difficulty of switching between weapons. A great addition to the controls however is the new ability to access different weapons with the D-pad which does make it easier and allows you to react urgently erasing my previous point.
The AI of the character Sheva who will accompany you throughout the entire game is surprisingly well done, she is very competent and very helpful. At no point in the game does she feel like she was just there, rather there were often times I was playing where I would have died without the NPC. The good news is the graphics are simply amazing. The game looks like a polished gem, the character models are very detailed, the environments are gorgeous, the Zombies look believable.
But despite Resident Evils 5’s efforts to contend with games that have already mastered the formula, the game still feels to me like it’s trying too hard to be something its not. The brightly lit environment and frequency at which you encounter large amounts of Zombie’s adds to the redundancy of the awkward controls and pesky mechanics, it’s just not scary!
And this is what I loved about the Resident Evil Franchise, the ominous and slow, story driven pace, if I wanted to play an action survivor horror game I’d pick of up Left 4 Dead. Also the Zombies (although now much more numerous are inconsistent), a Zombie standing right in front of you takes an abnormal amount of time to attack you, the Zombies just stand in front of you for sometimes more than a few seconds before making an attack, this makes it easy for you to just run around and avoid being hit by Zombies, not only does this make the game too easy, but it just takes away from the realism of the game.
Overall I’m disappointed with RE5, I found the game to be hard to get into. The controls just felt so outdated and in no way suitable to the style of gameplay that the RE franchise was going for. RE appears to be trying to jump ship from a survival, story based horror game to just another fast paced action game, but the bottom line is it just doesn’t contend with its competitors who have already delivered what RE5 is attempting to deliver.
The attempt at a faster more action orientated style of play unfortunately compromises what initially set the franchise apart. Between this and Left 4 Dead I’d go with Left 4 Dead.
Rating: 85%
Pros:
The game looks great, sounds great.
Greater focus on Co-op play makes this an excellent game to play with a friend
Cons:
Doesn’t feel like a Resident Evil/tries to hard to be like Left 4 Dead type Zombie games
Outdated and frustrating controls, you still can’t shoot while walking
Resident Evil 5, the latest addition to the RE franchise continues in the direction of an action orientated style of play that the developers changed direction in with Resident Evil 4, but has now reintroduced their revolutionary element of a completely revamped multi player interface.
My biggest problem with Resident Evil 5 is the same problem I had with Resident Evil 4, these games are simply no longer scary. They’re no longer survival horror game and to me they’re no longer Resident Evil. The tension that took hold of you and captivated you with the original Resident Evil is simply non-existent The resident Evil series has been reduced to merely another fun, mindless Zombie Shooter.
The problem with this is Resident Evil has turned away from what distinguished it from the rest of the Zombie games out there and instead wound up in the same realm as others who have already succeeded at mastering the Zombie shoot em, Ie. Left 4 Dead which simply does what Resident Evil 5 is trying to do better.
The story is set ten years after the destruction of Raccoon City, Chris Redfield (the ex-S.T.A.R.S) member whose been part of the RE franchise from the start is now an agent of the B.S.A.A. This anti-umbrella organization, kind of like PETA only with guns, exists as an opposition to Umbrella.
My problem with this story is, common, this is getting a bit ridiculous, the world is essentially in ruins, extinction has pretty much run its course and this Umbrella corporation is still carrying on as if nothing happened, and worse yet is still operating as if nothing happened, it’s just not believable, surely some of these Corporate beurocrats had family on the surface.
You essentially play Chris or Sheva, a local B.S.A.A. agent, where you than take on the endless streams of ravenous villagers, and workings of the umbrella corporation.
The core combat mechanics are essentially the same as Resident Evil 4, it’s still played from a close second view perspective. But what really pisses me off about this game is you still have to stop moving to fire your weapon!!! In this day and age of gaming, I simply cannot believe that they have not taken action and gotten rid of this ludicrous mechanic.
This seemingly little fault bothers me to the greatest degree, being aware of how simple it would be for them to fix it. Being forced to stop moving and press another button prior to fighting meanwhile having hordes of Zombies at merely inches away from me, makes the game extremely tedious and frustrating to play. With the original Resident Evil this slow, restrictive style of play was well-suited to the slow movement and story based nature of the game.
Resident Evil 5 however tries to combine these awkward and restrictive mechanics with an action orientated style of play which for me just doesn’t work, the fact is there are far more Zombies around you at a time than there ever were in Resident Evil Classic. New to Resident Evil 5 is the inclusion of a second character which is an attempt to assert RE5 as a team based action game, to the point where you can’t play a single player game by yourself, even if you’re playing a single player campaign you’ll be accompanied by the character Shiva.
Furthermore, there have been radical changes to the inventory. Enemies no longer politely wait for you to figure out which weapon you’re going to use after your shotgun runs out of ammo, in other words bringing up the menu system is no longer also a pause button. Yes, this is a very realistic addition to the game unfortunately I found this to be very frustrating given the scarcity of ammo and the initial difficulty of switching between weapons. A great addition to the controls however is the new ability to access different weapons with the D-pad which does make it easier and allows you to react urgently erasing my previous point.
The AI of the character Sheva who will accompany you throughout the entire game is surprisingly well done, she is very competent and very helpful. At no point in the game does she feel like she was just there, rather there were often times I was playing where I would have died without the NPC. The good news is the graphics are simply amazing. The game looks like a polished gem, the character models are very detailed, the environments are gorgeous, the Zombies look believable.
But despite Resident Evils 5’s efforts to contend with games that have already mastered the formula, the game still feels to me like it’s trying too hard to be something its not. The brightly lit environment and frequency at which you encounter large amounts of Zombie’s adds to the redundancy of the awkward controls and pesky mechanics, it’s just not scary!
And this is what I loved about the Resident Evil Franchise, the ominous and slow, story driven pace, if I wanted to play an action survivor horror game I’d pick of up Left 4 Dead. Also the Zombies (although now much more numerous are inconsistent), a Zombie standing right in front of you takes an abnormal amount of time to attack you, the Zombies just stand in front of you for sometimes more than a few seconds before making an attack, this makes it easy for you to just run around and avoid being hit by Zombies, not only does this make the game too easy, but it just takes away from the realism of the game.
Overall I’m disappointed with RE5, I found the game to be hard to get into. The controls just felt so outdated and in no way suitable to the style of gameplay that the RE franchise was going for. RE appears to be trying to jump ship from a survival, story based horror game to just another fast paced action game, but the bottom line is it just doesn’t contend with its competitors who have already delivered what RE5 is attempting to deliver.
The attempt at a faster more action orientated style of play unfortunately compromises what initially set the franchise apart. Between this and Left 4 Dead I’d go with Left 4 Dead.
Rating: 85%
Pros:
The game looks great, sounds great.
Greater focus on Co-op play makes this an excellent game to play with a friend
Cons:
Doesn’t feel like a Resident Evil/tries to hard to be like Left 4 Dead type Zombie games
Outdated and frustrating controls, you still can’t shoot while walking
