A good game that could have been great.
Let's talk about the story first. Now, if you have played past RE games, you should know by now that they are notorious for heavy handed dialogue and horrible voice acting. So it may surprise you to find out that this game almost manages to lose those two traditions. The dialogue is, at times, predictable and cheesy, but for the most part it remains grounded, and at times even impressed me with how much it pulled me into the gravity of the overall situation. You play as Chris Redfield, who fans will recognize from past RE games, who has just arrived in Africa to prevent the sale of some B.O.W.'s (Bio weapons) and take down the dealer. What follows is a 9-12 hour journey through many different areas of Africa. Along the way you will encounter a myriad of characters, both new and old, and the narrative does a good job of moving the story along. In the end, you will probably care what's going on. Unless of course you are me (an unsympathetic jerk).
But what would a sub-par story be without gameplay to back it up? When thinking about how Resi 5 plays, just copy and paste RE4, except add a few different control schemes that give you the ability to strafe while walking. This is both a good and a bad thing at the same time. It's a good thing because it also carries over the tension of not knowing if your back is covered, and the constant fear of where enemies are coming from. It's bad in the sense that the control scheme can feel dated at times. However, the controls ultimately become a love or hate situation. If you can accept the controls for what they are, then you will probably come to like them and see them as an addition to the tension element, and if you can't then this game becomes a merciless grind through 9-12 hours of hell.
Of course, what good would controls be without people to shoot? Believe it or not, I liked the enemy AI. They weren't Rhode scholars, but they weren't supposed to be either. The majority of enemies are supposed to be crazed villagers who want to bash in your skull with a broken bottle. They are fast, agile, and they most definitely come at you without mercy. I never felt like the enemies were going soft on me like I sometimes did in RE4. Furthermore, conventions of the last game won't work here. For instance, in RE4 I would often bottleneck all of my enemies through a door to consolidate ammo. In this game, that leads to one or more of the little scamps sneaking in through a window to surprise me. You will have to keep moving and be good shot to survive in this game.
However, there are two sides to every coin, and while there is good enemy AI, the partner AI is merely passable. Sure, she manages to cover your back and she is a dead shot with pretty much every gun, but Sheva has her drawbacks. Close quarters combat is one of them. Throughout the game you will encounter enemies that are shorter than you, and when they manage to get right next to her, it takes Sheva a decade or two to aim at them and take them out. I usually had to do it for her. Furthermore, she tends to gobble up ammunition. Though she is a fantastic shooter, she doesn't always aim for the head, and she rarely if ever uses melee attacks on stunned foes. However, I don't agree with the accusations that she gobbles up healing items. She is actually programmed to use them to their max effectiveness. For instance, if she has a green herb in her inventory, she will use it the second that you fall down just far enough to get the full effect of the herb. Similarly, I've found that she usually waits to pop the stronger healing items as well.
However, you'll find that sometimes Sheva can be really useful. Or at least, she won't get in your way enough for her to destroy the experience. As for coop... I haven't tried it yet. That will probably come as a part 2 of this review in my blog. However, by now you should know that the Resident Evil 5 coop is some of the best on the market, and if you intend to always play coop, whether local or online, then you should definitely get this game.
Once you beat the 9-12 hour campaign (give or take depending on how you play), the game really gets going. You can then play mercs mode, which is a faithful translation of the RE4 mercenaries mode. And trust me, it hasn't lost any of its potency. This mode is still an intense thrill ride where you have to balance killing as many foes in the allotted time limit with staying alive and exploring for the time extenders. Overall it is an insanely intense and rewarding experience that will keep you coming back for more.
But that's not all. The game also encourages you to come back to the single player campaign to earn trophies, collect BSAA emblems, and complete the game on tougher settings. To give you an example of how much this game promotes replay, I checked my % completion after beating the single player for the first time, and it said 25%. I'd say those are pretty good numbers.
Graphically, this game is beyond stunning. The character models are brilliantly designed, and are complimented by a slew of fantastic animations. There is a pretty intense fixation with detail, as everything has an animation to it, and they are all fantastic, from using a healing item, to collecting ammo, to jumping, etc. The environments are varied and well-detailed, from shanty towns to underground laboratories, this game doesn't disappoint in the visuals department. Also, this game boasts some of the best cutscenes I have ever seen (dwarfing MGS4 as my previous CS favorite) with great action choreography and great camera work.
So should you buy this game? Well that depends. Whereas RE4 was an easy game to recommend, as it had only one flaw (the controls) which was easily overlooked, this one has several. In the end, it comes down to whether or not you can take the good with the bad. Can you endure sometimes-annoying partner AI, some weirdly action-oriented gimmicks in chapter 5, and some dated controls? If so, then you will be rewarded with one of the most intense, enjoyable, and long-lasting experiences that this generation has to offer. If only it didn't have what few problems it did, it would have been so much better than just plain "good."