Stepping Out of my Gaming Shell
Lately I have been getting out of my gaming shell to a certain degree. Until Resident Evil 5 I never seriously got into a Resident Evil game before. I tried on two separate occasions. The first Resident Evil game I played was Code Veronica on the Dreamcast, where I was introduced to the then series-standard tank controls that did not gel with me whatsoever. After failing to adapt to the controls and getting slaughtered by the first generic zombie multiple times, my frustration hit the boiling point and I went so low as to return the game for a refund at Wal-Mart citing that the disc would not work.
Resident Evil 4 on the Wii I had a chance to try out for roughly 10 minutes and thought “Hell yeah! Intuitive controls; can’t wait to dive into this some more!” Even though I wanted to get more into RE4, I had other games in my backlog I made a priority and I could not fathom playing many other Wii games, which led to me trading in the system and games for Rock Band (I have no regrets over that decision, got way more value out of Rock Band over the Wii).
Come a couple months ago in April and I find myself wanting to give Resident Evil one more shot. I picked up RE5 and almost immediately had a change of heart for the series. The only road block was upon starting Chris and Sheva’s adventure was getting accustomed to not being able to run and shoot simultaneously. That scheme ruined Metal Gear Solid 2 for me. (Sorry stealth fans, but I love to run ‘n gun!) It initially seemed clunky and unintuitive, as watching Chris have such a limited range in slicing with his knife seemed awkward. However, after a few checkpoints I found myself used to this rather unique scheme, and eagerly anticipating the next waves of zombies, excuse me, “infected” to mow down. I am relieved this was not the same Resident Evil I first tried nearly 10 years ago, while I would not be surprised Resident Evil die-hards were miffed with the new action-y approach in gameplay, I discovered it to be a far more enjoyable experience.
Usually I am all over co-op play, especially online co-op, but for some reason I wanted to play RE5 the first time solo (have no fears of the computer AI being a dope as it is surprisingly competent) and savor each moment of the story and surroundings. Whenever I encountered a journal or unlocked a library file I read and each and every page of it to get the most out of the story, and after taking the time to read them it really help flesh out some of the minor details the characters mentioned in cut scenes that the non-hardcore RE player in me would have been clueless about. Ultimately I milked just under 15 hours out of the campaign when friends told me it should have only taken me eight.
Now that I have completed Resident Evil 5, I find that it is one of the few games I instantly want to play through again, and Capcom makes it worth your while too by unlocking a “New Game+” mode to play with bonus features that could be unlocked such as infinite ammo, new costumes, etc. So not only will I rock the “Clubbin’ Sheva” costume and infinite machine gun ammo cheat I unlocked, I will make sure to make the second go around online and at a higher difficulty.
If you were not a fan of the previous Resident Evil games based on its early PSone and Dreamcast days, then you owe it to yourself to at least give RE5 a try. I know I am a couple months late to the party covering this and never really gave RE4 a true attempt when the series had its makeover, but it is never too late to discover one of this year’s best and already a high candidate for my Game of the Year. Now who is up for wanting to tear through RE5 in co-op with me?
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Tags: capcom, RE, RE5, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 5
June 19th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Good to hear someone else enjoying this gem. I’ve heard it get a lot of flak & I just can’t understand it. I’m kind of surprised you got such a good experience out of it single-play, though. The few forays I’ve tried into it haven’t been nearly as fun as the 3 coop run-throughs I’ve done so far. Costumes are fine, but unlocking better weapons with infinite ammo on harder difficulties becomes a real treat. Also, I had a great time laughing my ass off at the b-movie cheesiness of the game. Great review.