Resident Evil 5 Review
Stiff controls and archaic gameplay design prove problematic but enjoyable in coop modes, amazing looking and great running game.
Resident Evil 5 features a few different multiplayer modes for the adventurous to get a hold of. The first is co-op of the single player story. You can simply start playing and leave the game open to join, or join an existing. This as you can imagine eliminates the very poor AI problems you face alone, although you sacrifice good aiming and occasionally (depending on your partner) a good inventory list. One of the later missions I had a new player join equipped with a basic pistol and not much ammo, spending $20,000 of my money to help him out he left after 3 failed attempts, leaving me with next to no left over funds up against two chain gun bosses. Mercenaries mode is basically a horde like onslaught of zombies, wave after wave. The focus is to get combos (kills) and survive, along with smashing timers to extend your available time limit.
The open sections in the single player story are used in this mode so you should be familiar with the layouts if you completed the game. You can also use several of the story characters which have different starting load outs along with a set of unlockable outfits and finishing moves which are purely cosmetic. Managing ammo and distance from enemies is a non-stop task here but the pacing and the teamwork makes it just a little more exciting. There is no text chat in game, so you’ll need to use the cumbersome GFWL message system or voice, the characters do have basic “Thanks” and “Come Here” commands though. I definitely had more fun in both coop single player and coop mercenaries modes which leads me to conclude that this game was built around coop and sadly that means badly sacrificing the single player portion. I would not recommend this title to those who strictly stay offline because the game has far too many issues to overcome. If you are willing to play online then it’s a fairly enjoyable experience if you don’t have somebody as inept as the game AI.
Crocodile infested waters are nice traps for red-eyed zombies.
The single player component of RE5 might not be as bad for all gamers as described, especially if you are familiar with the series. If you are already well aware of the design restrictions relating to shooting, moving, opening things then you’ll probably want to forget all of the complaints I made and focus on the graphics and fairly enjoyable story. If you aren’t worried about playing alone with the very dumb AI because you have a coop partner set up already then there is no reason to avoid the game. The bottom line is for me the game is simply not enjoyable playing through alone when I’m constantly in battle with my own character, Chris Redfield, and my AI partner rather than any African “Zombies”. Resident Evil 5 features GFW LIVE, so it has achievements and allows you to play multiplayer via the service although it didn’t seem that many were online.
I will also say that RE5 rarely scared me, mostly due to me being annoyed with the controls – and therefore always knowing that I was very much playing a game. I don’t really recommend RE5 unless you love the slow, strategic, stiff gameplay as described above. I didn’t find the game overly hard, at times the direction and puzzle type scenarios were incredibly simple. The combat was only really tough when you ran out of ammo or failed to reload at the right time. There are other horror third person shooters, like Dead Space, that I believe offer much better fluid gameplay and more scares. Fans of the series will probably love the title because it’s such a great looking game. As a new player I cannot forgive what I consider faulty gameplay mechanics that seem to be in place just to make it harder when there are other techniques that could’ve been used.
Our ratings for Resident Evil 5 on PC out of 100 (Ratings FAQ)
Performance
(Show PC Specs)
CPU: AMD Athlon AM2 5600+ @ 2.9GHz
GPU: Powercolor Radeon x2900xt 512MB
RAM: 4GB DDR2
OS: Windows Vista 32-bit
GPU: Powercolor Radeon x2900xt 512MB
RAM: 4GB DDR2
OS: Windows Vista 32-bit
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