by: Chris Vavra

May 07, 2009

After four long years, Capcom finally delivered on Resident Evil 5, the latest installment in the company’s flagship franchise. Sure, there were other like the semi-memorable Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles for the Wii in 2007, but in terms of the main-line series it’s been 4 years since Resident Evil 4 came along and shocked gamers and reviewers alike with a fresh, new approach that took the archaic controls away and jettisoned most of the puzzles in favor of a more action-oriented approach. Four years later, we have the same basic formula repeated once again, but this time the action ante has been upped and co-op has become a major factor. On paper, not changing the formula seems like a good thing and in some cases it is. However, this game is riddled with minor flaws that wind up undercutting the title, leaving us with the second-weakest title in the main canon next to Resident Evil Zero.

What went wrong? Well, the main problem I have with the game is that many of the contributing elements that made the first RE games so good (even with erratic controls) have vanished. There are some puzzles, sure, but none of them are challenging or worth much thought or consideration. Instead of a puzzle, we get a chainsaw-wielding zombie. Little things like the typewriters, the ink ribbons, and the chests (or weapons seller) are also absent. Not necessarily losses, per se, but they were fun all the same. The briefcase has been jettisoned for a more interactive item control. This option sounds great in theory but in practice it is clunky and you end up getting killed by mistake because you can’t get to the gun you really, really want. All for the sake of realism, right? Fair enough, but getting to said option should have been a lot easier.

Worst of all, though, is that Resident Evil 5 is not a horror game. Oh, sure, it’s creepy at times and there are plenty of unsettling elements, but I never once felt scared. The shock value is absent and most of the monsters you face are more grotesque than scary. Resident Evil 2 and 3 could make the hairs stand on the nape of your neck. RE5 doesn’t. If you enjoyed the horror aspects of past games you aren’t going to get much here. This is an action game from start to finish.

RE5 is more about throwing us into the middle of a firefight with a dozen zombies and seeing what happens. And the firefights you get into are engaging, sure, but the idea of being in a hostile environment where you’re outmanned and outgunned and feeling all alone (so to speak) is gone. This is the antithesis of what the first Resident Evil games were about. The gamer had to preserve what little resources they had and try to survive and attacking only when necessary. Resident Evil 5 does a good job of making the action scenes exciting, but they don’t feel right, given the game’s background.

The plot has recurring protagonist Chris Redfield (in his third major appearance) investigating an arms dealer, Ricardo Irving, selling viruses on the black market in the fictional nation Kijuju. He has a new partner in fellow operative Sheva Alomar. They soon discover that the village is infested with new, intelligent zombies and other horrifying monsters. They travel from the village to a marsh to a cave and eventually to a secret lab. This is nothing that hasn’t already been done before in the series. RE4 took a similar trajectory with its story arc, but RE5 is darker with a brooding, haunted Chris trying to make amends for an incident that occurred in his past (which becomes crucial to the story later). In the end, the writers do take a bit of a cop-out and don’t go as dark and visceral as they could have. Maybe it’s just as well because there would have been a lot of pissed-off fans, but the dramatic payoff at the end would have been so much greater.