Resident Evil 5 Demo Impressions

By Jeremy Yerby | January 26, 2009

It's been a long time coming....

The Resident Evil 5 demo came out today on Xbox Live for those of us who don’t live in the land of the Rising Sun and haven’t been playing the demo for weeks already. I’ve been highly anticipating this game since the early blurry screeshots started showing up in magazines featuring a super-buff Chris Redfield in a world apparently completely consumed with glare and bloom effects. As you know Resident Evil sort of reinvented itself starting with RE4, and in the process, reinvented the whole horror genre. No longer do you steer your characters like tanks while observing them from some of the worst camera angles ever conceived by man. Back when Resident Evil 4 released, we were all chuffed as chips to see the camera move with our character and to have more precise control of our weapon aiming. If you have been playing RE4 lately and still find it entertaining then you should enjoy this game as it is essentially the sharper looking sibling of that game. However, if you were expecting RE5 to reinvent the series all over again then you might be a little let down.

Alot of things have happened since Resident Evil 4 blew us away. Action games have adopted complex cover systems, instant grenade lobs, and many other advancements to refine the way we do virtual battle. In that sense, Resident Evil 5 seems somewhat stuck in the past. The controls will instantly throw you back to RE4, and that’s not to say they are poorly implemented, but they clearly intently stick with the formula from that game rather than branching out into more freely controlled games such as Dead Space and Gears of War 2. Chris can only fire while standing still and aiming. Chris is not easily maneuvered in tight spots and you have a somewhat limited field of view to see hostiles approaching from the side or behind. However, it is my opinion that the developers implemented these limitations on purpose; to not make you feel like an invulnerable superhuman mowing through enemy after enemy. You are supposed to fear these guys; there is supposed to be tension. I think the game accomplishes this, and really, just about ten minutes tinkering with the controls and you should master it. I’ll admit it set me off on my first play through after playing games like Gears, but honestly, this is NOT Gears of War, nor should it be. Resident Evil’s style is tried and true, and it really does work if you can get past that comparison.

The other thing that might set you off is the female companion. Remember Ashley from RE4? Oh boy, how much we all love escorting helpless women through hordes of the undead. Fortunately, your companion is this game is no helpless little girl. Other than the somewhat annoying habit of running into a room and grabbing items before I can get to them, she is pretty helpful in combat and only got in my way a handful of times. She actually sometimes spots enemies before I do, which is definitely welcome. Better still is the ability to put one of your real life friends in to her shoes and play along with you; but the CPU isn’t too shabby. Do beware though that she has an inventory, just like you, and she isn’t made of ammunition. If you don’t share your ammo with her she won’t be able to help you; and if she dies, you cannot continue. This burned me at first because I generally am an inventory hoarder — I always finish games with tons of ammo and other items that I never used because I was always convinced “I’m going to need that later”. Once I sort of let that go in this game and started playing out the scenarios the way I would in real life, i.e. using my weapons and giving ammo to my partner as needed, I started to really enjoy the game.

I found the slum level to be more interesting than the public speaking “huge horde of guys coming from every direction” level, as I enjoy moving through rooms and halls picking them off one at a time much more than being surrounded, but both levels were gorgeous and well designed. I’ll also admit that it took me dying a couple times before I figured out I could hot-swap weapons using the d-pad, and once I realized that, things got much better.

Bottom line here: If you played RE4 and loved it, this game follows that pedigree very well, and introduces a few new things of its own. If you expect this game to be Gears of War or Rainbow Six, well, you will be disappointed as this game is rooted in the Resident Evil style, and if you’re willing to forgive that you’ll find its not really a bad thing. If you start up the demo and you’re not digging it right away, just do what I did and persevere for a few more minutes and you might find yourself cracking a grin just like I did.