Another FPS/Action game cruising on it's street cred & tired FPS cliche's
Resident Evil 5 The Good: Ran smoothly at 1280 x 1024 with everything maxed except AA and motion blur (both disabled) on my year old gaming notebook. Not too surprising though; given the title was developed for the lesser hardware requirements of console gaming. Good surround sound. Satisfying gameplay at times. AI controlled team mate not too bad compared to many others.
The Bad: 3rd person view only. Your character occupies between 15 and 20% of your screen real estate. Apparently the Devs didn't get the memo PC gaming is moving towards reduced HUD foot prints so we can ACTUALLY VIEW THE GAME. Add your partner on screen and you can kiss 40-50% of your viewable screen good bye. If the game had to be 3rd person……….the camera should have been much further away from your back so your character was smaller on screen. A switchable view from 1st to 3ed person would have been better.
One of the most massive over uses of cuts scenes in 20 ears of gaming experience. I honestly don't know why the Devs didn't simply install a "Play" button at the beginning of the game so we could run it as a DVD movie, and do something constructive during it. Not only were the cut scenes excessive, but the momentary freeze in character motion upon the cut scene end was frequently detrimental to your character's health.
No save game, crouch, prone, or lean. Did anyone mention to the Devs this is the PC version of the game? While this might have been acceptable 10 or 12 years ago; in this day and age of increasingly sophisticated PC gaming………..the absence of all, demonstrates the lack of serious PC development commitment by the Devs. Did I mention your character freezes in place while using his weapons? Nice (NOT!).
Total lack of consistent physics and logic. While your character can jump off of, climb onto, and perform a number of other capable (all canned mini cut scenes) on screen moves, he dares not try them on identical or very similar obstacles in game because the Devs don't think he should. In game physics should be consistent across the entire game world.
One hackneyed FPS/Action cliché after another. Despite several years of experience in his chosen field, your character works for an employer who again sent him into combat against a bunch of the company's own bio genetic experiments gone wrong (again), with exactly 10 rounds of pistol ammo. Note to the Devs: This plot device died at least two Resident Evils ago. STOP USING IT!
I could go on……………but you get the drift.