Comments
- on Apr, 7 2009
- in Gaming
The next game in the Resident Evil franchise recently dropped, and despite my initial aversion to the control scheme (“Tank controls can’t work in the post Gears of War world”), I have to say that the game has once again gotten its hooks in me and I am happy to admit that I believe that Resident Evil 5 ranks near the top of the series (The all time favorite for me is, was, and always will be Resident Evil: Code Veronica).
I will say this right off the bat – if you enjoyed Resident Evil 4 you’ve made it half way, because Resident Evil 5 is pretty much Resident Evil 4 in HD. Well, with one extremely important addition.
CO-OP
The frequently used gaming adage of “Everything’s better with coop” is pretty much dead on, and when you put CO-OP on top of an already good game, you get a fantastic game.
Throughout the whole game, you see little indications that the design really is for coop, from things as subtle as level design tweaks that put you in an elevated position watching over your partner sometimes to blatantly obvious actions and quick time events that require you and your partner to hit buttons in synchronicity.
Yeah, the combat is still Resident Evil 4 style, but the addition of Coop moves to actually makes them pretty darn fun. Have your partner shoot the enemy in the knee and then use that opening to deliver a mighty uppercut to see what I’m talking about.
The story is typical Resident Evil, with a tighter connection to previous games – so if you’re into that, great! If not, well, the narrative doesn’t exactly get in the way – you just need to realize that there are big monsters that need to get shot at.
Speaking of big monsters, the boss fights are pretty darn good as well – the extra edge offered through cooperative play make some of them really fun. The often used example of this is the phone with the enemy with a vulnerable spot on its back, so in order to attack it your partner needs to get the monster to focus their attention while you flank and pump some rounds into ‘em.
The only major frustration I had with the game was the fact that even now the game really relies on Quick Time events. The frustrating coop quick time events make things even worse, as if your partner suddenly misses, you have to repeat the entire sequence from scratch – not exactly the best way to promote team bonding if you ask me.
After you beat the game, you get the standard set of unlocks but the highlight for me was the Mercenaries mode, which throws enemies at you and your partner while you try to build a combo meter – I’d honestly be willing to drop 20 bucks just for that.
Overall, if you’ve got a friend to play with, you really should Resident Evil 5 a fair shake – just don’t play it split screen, because the split screen for this game is absolutely abysmal.
