Resident Evil 5 (Classics) previews

I have recently finished playing through the demo. I have played both stages 3–4 times through each, I'm also a long time fan of the series.

Visually the game is quite stunning, the detail is amazing and the game still runs smoothly even when your character and partner plus 5–6 zombies are all on the screen at once.

The game still maintains an eerie atmosphere that you would expect from an RE series… However my main gripe is that the controls of the game need some SERIOUS work, it is very awkward to control your character, and it feels quite cumbersome in the fact that you cannot move and reload at the same time and cannot move while holding your gun up to aim. There has been no advancement in terms of controls since RE4. This personally disappoints me as it detracts from what could be fast paced game play and slows things down, in a counter to this, the zombies now slow down to a crawl and they draw near you, presumably to give you time to try move your tank of a character around to face and shoot them.

I'm going to hold off on this title until after release and see how the finished product turns out, however I really cannot imagine them re-inventing the control system this close to release.

Over all I think this game will have a great story and be fun to play but will be held back from being something great by this issue.

After playing the demo, I believe that Resident Evil 5 will be one of the many great games lined up for 09. Judging by the demo, the gameplay is intense, just like all the other Resident Evils. The plot looks awesome, the gameplay is more refined, and you still get to play as Chris from the previous Resident Evil. My only problem would be is that there are still no actual zombies…

Despite that, this game is a must-try, at least try out the demo, because this game is smoking!

Throughout recent times, game (and movie) sequels can be frought with high anticipation and a huge amount of hype, only to disappoint when they don't live up to expectations upon final release. It's an unfortunate fact, but it's one that lingered in the back of my mind when I downloaded the demo version of RE5 on Xbox Live.

On loading up and playing the demo today I can say however that my worries in this regard were happily put to rest. RE5 looks to be a great game, and Capcom should be congratulated for bringing what I deem a successful fifth game to the series. The gameplay and cut-scene graphics are amazing, players and enemies alike are rendered very well with lots of gore true to the style of the RE franchise.

The ability to play the game co-operatively is a welcome addition, as the extra pair of hands (or extra gun) is very handy in those mass zombie attack / boss monster tight spots. You can also share weapons, ammo and health freely between you, which allows for a new dimension in strategic gameplay. Enemies also drop gold (I assume to buy weapon upgrades later), and ammo when dispatched, keeping your gun loaded just enough for those nasty encounters with the horde.

My only issue with this game is that its controls are a bit complex and frustrating to use in the middle of a fight, and may need some getting used to should they make it to the final game. Also having played all of this game's predeces­sors, to me RE is becoming less and less scary (the original scared the sh*t out of me), but maybe that's because I've grown old and insensitive to blood, guts and flesh eating corpes over the years.

Having played the demo, I can confidently say that RE5 feels like it will be awesome. While we don't know much about how good the story will be or whether it will live up to what RE4 was and keep you at the edge of your seat, the action is there and it feels very similar to RE4 – with better graphics.

My one big gripe that stops me from giving this game a perfect 5 stars is the controls. They feel down-right clunky, it is similar to Gears of War where you run, stop, shoot, run, stop, shoot, run, stop, shoot. Only, it doesn't work as well in this case since Gears was designed so you take on enemies at a distance, RE is more ‘in-the-action’ and these controls simply don't work well. The controls are also very inconsistent, while walking, you strafe left/right when pushing the directionals, when running, you turn left/right and stuff like that. These kinds of control quirks is stuff you would expect in RE4 when the gameplay system was new and innovative, the controls should have been revised more cleverly the second time around.

Another concern is that (as mentioned earlier) the game feels almost identical to RE4 (with better graphics), this is both good and bad. RE4 was a truly epic game and the formula worked well, it is quite dated now though and RE5's similarity to RE4 can both make or break the game. I expect it will always be compared directly to RE4 because of its identical gameplay, whereas, you'd never compare RE3 & RE4 that way since they were very different games. RE4 was both epic and different which made it a hit, RE5 might be epic, but it's just not different enough and has a lot to live up to because of RE4's success. Finally, I guess I'm a Leon fan and will greatly miss playing as him.

I don't think these issues will stop this from being a really amazing game though and I have high expectations of this title. Despite the clunky controls and recycled gameplay, I would still highly recommend this one to everyone and believe it will become a classic of the current console generation.