If you loved the previous resident evil and hate change, than buy this game. Oh and its not scary.
User Rating: 7.5 | Resident Evil 5 (Collector's Edition) PS3
Resident evil 5 really is a great game, but at times it feels like its stuck in the past, while in other aspects, the game has changed too much. lets start with visuals, which are the first thing that will slap you in the face when you play it. The visuals are fantastic, they have a very next-gen feel, with very detailed visuals, with motion blur and fluid animations. However the visuals are hampered by a few occasions of slow-down and frequent screen tearing. Lighting is great, but is kinda blurry. Small flecks of dirt on an other-wise fantastic looking game. Controls will slap you in the face, but not in a friendly way, its more of a back-handed slap but only the hand has a chain-mail glove on.......and its covered in barb-wire. They feel dated, slow, clunky, inaccurate and bogged down. Now im certain some of you will be fine with them, but only the hard-core resident evil 4 fan base will be happy with them because bad controls are bad controls regardless if they are kept that way on purpose or not. The simple ability to strafe, or at least be able to move and shoot are mandatory in this day and age. It is unacceptable. This is by far the games biggest down-fall. Music is well......unmemorable, I just played the games 10 or so hour single-player, and yet, I cant remember it at all, thats not generally a good thing but at least they didnt annoy me. Sound-effects are ripped directly from resident evil 4 where the controls came from, only now you have an annoying partner that shouts randomn annoying things like "now, shoot!" as if I needed to be reminded to do that! But that aside, the voice acting is actually ok, however the lines of dialogue that the voice actors were provided are bad, but more cheesy horror movie bad rather than just horrible movie bad. Now this is coming from someone who wanted to be scared. The scrares in this game are laughable at best, mostly because they are non-existant. Now when I go to see a horror movie, I expect at least a few moments that make me jump, you know, little moments that stick with you and haunt your dreams. Its EXTREMELY disappointing to play a franchise that was built to scare and not much else, be ripped apart into a generic, bad controling action game. When resident evil came out, it scared the crap out of me and thats why it was fantastic. It had bad acting, bad story, bad controls but through it all, it was awsome. You know why? Because it scared you! Resident evil 5, a full 4 games later and it is plagued by the same issues it has had since the 90's. Bad acting, bad story, bad controls but it under-cuts itself, it now dosent scare you. Its a sad day. The last big change in gameplay is that its co-op......now this is generaly thought of as a good thing in games now-a-days, but not when it ruins the game, which it does. Your partner is annoying, un-useful, intrusive, stupid (AI) and actually makes the game harder. And lastly, she makes the game less-scary. Now I'll explain my alagations. Annoying: she takes things off the floor that you wanted to grab, except gold, which is the only thing I want her to pick up. She wastes health packs by using them when ever you get hurt even a little bit. Un-useful: she rarely helps you promptly, often taking her 20 seconds to get to you because she walks in zig-zags (I dont know why) and previously mentioned, she uses health like an idiot. Intrusive: she frequently walks into crowds of enemies, gets hurt, than walks back to you for help, or better yet, she gets herself killed, which ends with a game-over screen. Stupid: well ive mentioned enough in this category already.Makes the game harder: imagine the annoying (keep ashley safe) missions in resident evil 4, only now she wastes your ammo, health, walks in front of your gun (absorbing your bullets) and frequently killing herself, and it spans the entire game. Fun hmmm? Now I seem to be bashing resident evil 5, and in reality, Iam. And really its the games fault for having so many faults. The game is about 10-15 hours long depending on how storied you are with resident evil games. However if you shoot all the symbols, upgrade all your guns, and collect everything, your looking at about 20 hours, which is great, add to that unlockable modes and online co-op and if this is your kinda game, it has plenty of things for you to do. It pains me to give this game a 7.5, because certain people (me included) will really enjoy this game inspite of its issues. However, if you fit into the following bracket, the game is far more appealing. If you dont want to be scared, you like resident evil 4 controls on your current-gen games, you can play online (because online your partner is a human) and you are fine with a game devoid of a good story or acting. I love resident evil 4, its a game close to my heart, however its unacceptable to pull controls from a 3 year old game and paste them to a current-gen game. Resident evil 5 has its issues, from dated controls (which some people will forgive) to bad story (which some people wont care about) to bad AI (which if you play online dosent matter) to slow-down and screen tearing (which some people will forgive because the game looks so fantastic) there are a ton of issues with resident evil 5, but to each problem there is a solution, to some they will take the problems to heart and it will ruin their experience and to others, the issues dont effect them. To each his own. Im forgiving. But maybe you arn't.
