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Resident Evil’s Tight Spot
By Edge Staff
February 18, 2009
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If the wait for this game feels distinctly unlike that of RE4, it’s because both games look and feel distinctly alike. Visually, this is evolution at a time when many action games are starting afresh.
Resident Evil 5
Capcom
In-house
PS3/Xbox 360
US Release: Mar 13
UK Release: Mar 13
Origin: Japan
Screenshot Gallery
Perhaps it’s a mark of greatness that multiplayer, a controversial feature arriving so late to Resident Evil, can come so naturally to its players.
In RE5 there’s an umbilical link between Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar that feeds bullets, health and directions to whoever needs them most. Break it and you’re dead – it’s that simple.
If the wait for this game feels distinctly unlike that of RE4, it’s because both games look and feel distinctly alike. Visually, this is evolution at a time when many action games are starting afresh. Most of its human animations – outside of cutscenes, at least – are identical to those of Los Illuminados, and what looked so startlingly new as to look slightly alien then now looks merely familiar.
Indeed, of the first two chapters (some four hours of play), that terrifying crowd scene from the trailers is by far the most effective. Actually one of the very first hostile encounters, it’s established with all the wicked panache of its forebear.
From an endless desert, Redfield rolls into a Third World town the First could barely imagine. Laundry flutters next to crow-pecked carrion, houses seem plugged together at random, and gangs batter man-shaped sacks by the roadside while the women walk on by. It’s an eerily familiar rehearsal.
Capcom has struck a rich vein with its accidental-tourist style of survival horror, and its crime here is cinematic hedonism rather than racism. It’s a trait shared by the movies it resembles, among them Black Hawk Down and the anarchistic voodoo flick The Serpent And The Rainbow.
Though its sympathies lean conspicuously towards Redfield, the coffee-coloured Alomar, and virginal white girls preyed upon in cutscenes, various ethnicities ally themselves to both sides as the game unfolds, most of them victims in one form or other.
Nevertheless, that unmistakable sound is of a righteous bandwagon heading straight for Capcom’s front door, so let’s leave before they collide.
I'm gutted its not really a RE game its more like gears of war, i hate the fact u have this glorified handbag following u around. she always seems to get in my face, if i,m about got an enemy in my sights she shoots him and takes my glory, she ruins the tension, shoots me in the back, repeatedly. she breaks the barrals i like to do that, she picks stuff up i lke to do that. she dies when i'm running away to regroup. when i play i mwish iwas playing RE 4 instead, which is way better. RE 5 is really a step back, i played RE4 a week before i got RE 5 and now i'm playing it a week after i got RE5. And some levels feel rushed and empty, and i hate getting near the end of a level, dying and having to start again, and why did they take away the menu system where certain items took up more room than others, it was a nice touch. i watched the making of and they spent all the money on actors and shit. whay do we need actors,spend money on the game.
what control system did the reviewers use?
I enjoyed the demo alot. I've found that the game was much easier to control if you put it on control setting A, the original setting. Running is alot easier and aiming is much quicker. If you leave it on the default standard Gears of War shooter setting D, it's alot more sluggish.
I thought the demo was a bit sucky. Only played it very briefly as I didn't want to experience too much of it. Dipping right in to the game without having a cinematic explaining why you were there etc al la RE4 didnt seem right. I did find the controls really sluggish and awkward, but it did give me that sense of dread and made me very anxious, probably not as much as Dead Space, but there was still that feeling of fear. I think the full game will be great. The high production values, story and character development will probably make up for the controls. Plus will probably get used to it pretty quick. Pretty much 100% picking this up at launch.
My main concern rests not with the aiming, archaic though it is, and certainly not with the cumbersome inventory system. More, as has been pondered in this preview, will we ever see a return to the tension and scare-tactics of the original games?
As much as i applaud the increased freedom of movement that RE4 ushered in, a part of me years for the deserted corridors, oblique item-based puzzles and a real, breath-taking sense of excitement as you found a new key with which to open all those mysteriously locked doors.
Halcyon days?
I think the scare tactic of previous games provided far less than the extended gathering fear of a castle full of softly chanting monks, or the intense rush of waiting for an elevator locked in a basement with a deadly monster. For me the increased freedom showed how fear could be created without winding the player up, putting them on a ghost train and watching them go.
Although I have to admit, the phrase "itchy, scratchy, tasty" is still among the greatest (and cheesiest) scares in videogame history.
Isn't it a little lazy to rely on the sluggish aiming to build a sense of tension? As for the co-op, it has single handedly put me off this game. It is a monumental atmosphere killer whether your partner is in the same room or via an internet connection. And I guess atmosphere is key to a survival horror game - in fact can we even call RE5 survival horror anymore?
This is a hard one to call until release. It was RE4s mix of perfectly built atmosphere and the
accumulative effect of its imaginative set pieces, each one bettering the last, built on a base of every kind of horror you could imagine that made it the masterpiece it was. The inventory system was an accidental work of genius, creating a turn based play pattern that meant you could drop out and plan the next 10 seconds, making those awkward controls a play style, not a frustration. The whole of RE4 seemed to work like this, an odd combination of elements that worked together beautifully. Playing the RE5 demo it seems apparent that by adding and subtracting from this coherent whole without too much thought has affected the balance and the joins are begining to show. But its hard to tell when only offered fragments, RE4 was a game to be played for extended periods, becoming absorbed into the atmosphere and spurred on by the promise of something bigeer and better around the next corner. If RE5 can maintain this, the play style changes may cease to matter so much. But I cant help shake the feeling the Sheva's atmosphere breaking presence, bobbing around behind me, and the real time inventory, awkward and half finished, might break the game.
I wait in fear...
I hated the first demo level (trapped in house) and didn't mind the second (chainsaw mini-boss), so I'm divided. Personally, I find Uncharted's take on the "thirdperson with companion" far more enjoyable and much more varied - combat is much more "real". I think its lazy to use poor controls as a reason to make a game more "tense and scary". RE5 just isn't anything new. Disappointed with the demo.
I'll buy it, I'm a huge RE fan, so that's just a given.
Never played RE4 though (Gamecube, never owned one)
But that aiming was painfully ponderous. Why can't they have a mode where the the analogue sticks control the aiming point absolutely.
For example:
Stick centered: Aim center
Stick far left: Aim far left.
etc
etc
I mean, it's an analogue stick! Why are we stuck with controls that feel like they are from the dark ages (1997)?
Failing that, how about a bit of snap to target? Quick flick to other targets?
I agree. I blogged about this. Something akin to Goldeneye's easy mode (like auto-aim) or Zelda style Z-targeting would make RE much more enjoyable (and dare I say - "accessible"?) He is a cop right? Trained to use fire-arms and all that...? With current controls, he aims like a grandpa with poor eyesight.
I loved RE4 btw, and also hope the full game is better than its demo!
After playing the demo the word 'lazy' popped into my head. Capcom are too lazy to create cool levels that allow nimble platforming (thus obviating the need for context sensitive dial-up moves), too lazy to create decent A.I. (meaning they could ditch the constantly regenerating waves of baddies), and (worst of all) far too lazy to create a new control scheme (meaning you can finally run-and-gun). Because of the first two points, the latter is necessary for the game to have any kind of tension at all...you're basically forced to stand stock-still in below-par levels, shooting in-your-face dumb adversaries at point-blank range most of the time. Is it panic, or aggravation that this situation engenders? I'm not sure anymore.
Games like Gears and Uncharted put games like RE5 in a very poor light. They've moved with the times, showing that 3rd person games can be agile, cinematic (and not just during the cinematics) and scary, without rooting you to the spot and baffling you with the worst control scheme of 2009. It sure looks pretty though, but surely basic playability isn't too much to ask for these days?
Oh Ye have little faith.
I've every confidence this will turn out just as good as RE4, and will perhaps be more interesting because of the prevalent co-op aspect.
In fairness, I only tried the demo once and died fairly quickly. I don't wanna play anymore until I'm starting the full game and can give it my undivided attention and effort.