So after all the time that I said I would not go and buy Resident Evil 5 at launch, I caved like a little kid and bought the game at Gamestop.  It was an impulse moment and the box kept looking at me saying, “you watched all my crappy movies, and bought RE4 twice on the PC and Wii, so why not get me as well”.  So, Resident Evil 5 came home on the 360 and I have to say that so far I am fairly happy with that purchase.

My first thirty with Resident Evil 5 started out in co-op mode, where myself and a friend of mine played some local co-op, which works pretty smoothly, once you figure out how it works.  The co-op is completely drop in-drop out, so you never are stuck with any issues of reboots and fits from the game.  Co-op also seems to be the preferred way to play Resident Evil 5, as the game has been completely designed around Chris and his partner, Sheva.  Playing in local co-op, you will get the screen displayed in an offset, with one player on the top half of the screen to the left, and the second player on the bottom half of the screen to the right.   The screens did not stretch all the way across, which actually got rid of that stretched feeling that I get with local Gears of War 2 co-op.

The game looked great and the sound was top notch, but myself and my wingman ran into two issues that really killed the flow of the game.  The first were the cut-scenes.  While they are nice to watch once, when you see them over and over, they start to feel repetitive.  Cut-scenes pop up so frequently, that they just jar you right out of the game experience, normally right after you have settled into a good chunk of action in the game.  Repetition comes into play due to the second issue, which is the difficulty of the beginning portion of the game.  While I am not a veteran of Resident Evil games, I felt tha tthe beginning of Resident Evil 5 was a pressure test, to see whether you could cope with the enemies in the game.  The first mission has you nearly overrun by enemies, to the point that after a half hour of trying, both of us gave up on playing.  I am sure that the mission can be passed, but it just seemed brutally difficult in that mission with the amount of people you have to kill, while you try to survive.  I passed the mission the next day, but it took a ton of planning.

So far I have finished the first two segments of Resident Evil 5, and I look forward to playing more.  The beginning is difficult, but the co-op works so well that anyone who is remotely interested in co-op should check this game out.  The story is looking pretty good, and it seems to work in a lot of the past fiction into this incarnation of Resident Evil 5.  Look me up if you need a wingman, as I need to earn that “special” Sheva costume, mmmmmm.