User Review : Resident Evil 5

Badass-ness in the Motherland: A Review of Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition

Resident Evil 5 is like the world's most powerful magnum, the S&W M500. It can take down an elephant with one bullet, but it could also backlash and kill the user. Mind you, the S&W M500 is available for virtual purchase in RE5.
That's a weak analogy though, so let's go for something more cliche, like RE5 is a double-edged sword. What I mean by this is that RE5 is a wonderful game. It's loaded with adventure, terrifying moments, and addictive gameplay, but is suffers from poor design that Capcom could have easily evaded if they really believed in intuitive controls.

I want to get all the negatives out of the way because once past this, RE5 is absolutely phenomenal. I don't plan on spoiling any of the storyline, but in all seriousness, RE5's story is like the rest of them. However, instead of a having dumbass blonde chick who is of no absolute use in RE4, Chris Redfield (the muscle exploding protagonist) has to save Jill (from the first game) from Wesler (the antagonist), all the while having a beautiful African, gun wielding, badass cop, Sheva, help him with the zombie cleaning. Wesler wants to employ project Uroburos which will create a distortion in the balance of power of the world, blah blah blah, Chris has to eventually save the day. That's all for the plot.

So, for the juicy stuff. The largest issue I find with the game, as said above, are the character controls. The game does not allow the player to load his weapon while in motion. Humanity's future soundly sleeps on Chris Redfield's shoulders, so Capcom thought it fit to have the player simply stop in a middle of raging zombies to load his weapon just so you could fuck with humanity. No but seriously, you're immobile while loading your weapon. What's worst is when a hoard of zombies are approaching and you run out of bullets in which you automatically begin reloading because you're too occupied with smashing the R1 button. When you're frantic about living, I don't think many people pay attention as to how much ammo remains in the clip.
For the next issue, you cannot move backwards and shoot. I don't think there needs to be anymore explanation for that one. You cannot move and throw a grenade. You cannot heal yourself and move. That one is rough. Lastly, there's no dodging movement of any sort. Oh! You can't jump either. I didn't really find jumping a big issue because I never felt the need to jump in the game, but just a heads-up. These issues with control are primal. I really hope Capcom fixes this with RE6. When the video game industry is smothered with first-person shooters that actually allow the player to do all of these commands, playing RE5 is like degenerating one's concept of basic motor coordination: and we all know RE5 is about evolution and creating the superior human race bullshit.

Now, a shift from the negative into the positive. First, RE5 looks really good. For a multiplatform game, RE5 looks very nice on the PS3. There aren't many instances of screen tears or crazy lag. It's quite solid. Textures are detailed and environments are obviously disgusting, oozing with strange bodily fluids, intense chiaroscuro, and really conjures a sense of stank. Also, the script was written in English (majority of Capcom's AAA titles are in English now) so the lip synchronization is on-point.
Chris Redfield as a character is generic and cool. He's a cool guy and is like-able. I don't think anyone plays RE games for the story or the character development, so it's safe to say that there is no character development. There are the traditional good guys and bad guys and they never cross the lines.

As a last note, RE5 has sunny, bright environments that are actually terrifying. Never have I been so afraid of African shanty towns. People with corn rows that leer at you and watch you hold a woman of their own kind close to you. Oh my gosh! Could this be the reason many individuals found RE5 offensive and racist!? Or maybe because they yell things that in any normal setting, most Americans who have humor would laugh at, but the instance they have a protogenitor (or whatever the fuck it's called) virus in their system, shit gets scary. Or maybe because it's a white guy shooting black people. That's probably the most resounding reason I can think of, but there are white Africans too and Sheva and Josh (an African army soldier) shoot the Africans too.

Well to bring this review to closure, RE5 is pure fun once you get past the limitations of the controls. On top of that, Gold Edition allows you to change costumes (there are some badass costumes), go online for 4 player insanity, and play lost missions.

And on top of all of this, you don't have to do it alone. You can grab your girl-friend or your best friend, or someone you picked up off the street and play through the horrors that is the motherland.