‘Resident Evil 5’ cool, but clunky game

• By MILES THORPE
• 2theadvocate.com staff
• Published: Oct 26, 2009

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Previous “Resident Evil” games focused on scaring the player. They used dark rooms and classic scare tactics to keep the player on his toes. With “Resident Evil 5,” the scare and fear tactics are removed and there is more action-packed zombie gallery shooting. The controls for the game, however, are not very compatible with its ‘action-packed’ theme.

You play the game as Chris Redfield, a member of an anti-terrorism group who is sent in to an African country to investigate biological weapons sales. As the game progresses, plot points change, and you begin to search for different things in each mission area through which you progress.

As your first mission gets under way, you gain a partner, Sheva Olimar. She is there to help fight, open big doors and heal you when needed. She’s not too good at the fighting parts, though, as the AI for the game doesn’t use her shooting skills very well. When you get hurt badly or incapacitated, she does come to the rescue for a jolt of health to get you back in the fight.

The game attempts to make things creepy, but nothing really startled me. Many things were gross or unexpected, but nothing in the that-was-so-scary-I-won’t-sleep-tonight category. For some, this may be a good thing, as maybe Capcom wanted a more “Gears of War” feel to the gameplay. Unfortunately, for those looking for the scary or creepy atmosphere, it sadly isn’t here.

Graphically, the game is stunning. In fact, they are the highlight of the title. Rippling muscles on the main character, flowing hair on his partner, gushing blood popping from the exploding heads of zombies and demon dogs, all have gorgeous gory detail in them.

With that said, the gameplay became clunky after I got my first few guns, and it never got better. You have a very limited amount of inventory room, and you must equip your partner, Sheva, as well with ammo and supplies. This became cumbersome after the first two missions that I played through, and I didn’t look forward to more inventory management as the game went on.

Fortunately, the game does have a co-op mode for two players wanting to play through the game together, one as Chris and the other as Sheva. This is always a welcome addition for me, as there are way too few games that allow a multiplayer cooperation mode.

“Resident Evil 5” looks great and plays out a lot like a late night zombie-killing movie. The dialogue is fairly skimpy and the blood is plentiful, but inventory issues are what really brought the overall fun factor of the game down for me.