Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Ron Burke

For many folks, Resident Evil 5 represents their first foray into the world of the T-Virus, flesh-munching zombies, deep-rooted conspiracies, ammo starvation, narrow escapes, and plot twists at every turn.  Before we get started, let’s get a bit of backstory on the Resident Evil universe. 

The first Resident Evil debuted on the original PlayStation in 1996, but the story starts far earlier in 1960.  Edward Ashford began research on a virus called Progenitor which served as the base for the genetic manipulation prevalent throughout the series.  Teaming up with Ozwell E. Spencer and scientist James Marcus, Ashford forms the Umbrella Corporation as a front for their genetic research.  Injecting fetuses with the new advances in the Progenitor virus, the Code Veronica project takes off, resulting in the blended DNA twins Alexia and Alfred.  James Marcus continues his work, eventually turning to leeches and even his own assistants to use as guinea pigs, perfecting the T-Virus in 1978.  The Umbrella Corporation uses this as a base for their Bio-Weapon Organism research.  Meanwhile, Spencer began research to further adapt the T-Virus into a more destructive strain by testing constantly on a single subject – Lisa Trevor.  Lisa was the survivor of early Progenitor research, showing incredible resiliency against the variety of T-Virus strains.  Absorbing the combined effects of the virus variants, Lisa became a host of incredible power, outgrowing the comfort level of her creators.  Utilizing a string of virii, the Umbrella Corporation sought to create a virus strain that would kill an entire population in a short period of time and intended to use it against Lisa. The NE-α virus was one such strain, but the results were vastly different than they expected.  Rather than killing Lisa, it further mutated her granting her greater strength and a complete immunity to gunfire.  Unable to control her any longer, Umbrella scientist Birkin extracted a sample of the mutated virus from her body and had her killed before she became any stronger.  Further research on this virus resulted in the G-Virus – a variant that doesn’t turn people into zombies, but instead turns them into creatures that continuously mutate and breed.  This strain, if unleashed, would consume the entire world in a matter of days if left unchecked. 

I could literally write another 10 pages of history for Resident Evil here and not fully cover everything.  Suffice it to say that the series has a rich and deep history, the Umbrella Corporation is evil, and there are a great many threads of virus research going on across the world.  Combining the virus with existing diseases (such as Ebola in Africa), fabricated diseases, and other strains of the same virus has resulted in the nuking of a city, the unbridled torture of many, and the death of millions in an attempt to control viral outbreak.  Umbrella and its offshoots have worked hard to create the ultimate biological weapon, and clearly they have succeeded. 

Resident Evil 5 kicks off shortly after the events of Resident Evil 4 (you can’t just make this assumption automatically as there have been several offshoots prior to RE5 even being announced).  Chris Redfield (one of the survivors of the original Resident Evil) has joined the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA for short) and is investigating the outbreak of a virus in the fictional country of Kijuju.  Believing that this outbreak may be linked to a strain of the T-Virus, Chris teams up with a member of the West African branch of the BSAA, a tough female agent named Sheva Alomar, to investigate the source.  Once again we descend into a world of mass viral infection.  If this is your first trip I’ll suggest you hold on – it’s about to get scary.

It seems that everyone and their brother hooked up with Epic to get their hands on the incredible Unreal 3 engine.  It’s been used to create some of the top shelf titles of last year, and continues to amaze in some of the upcoming titles for 2009.  Capcom decided to go a completely different direction and utilized their own Framework MT engine – the same engine behind fellow zombie title, Dead Rising.  Before you make any comparisons between the two graphically, you need to know that Resident Evil 5 stands head and shoulders above anything achieved with Dead Rising.  The game runs at 720p native and sports 2x Quincunx supersampling anti-aliasing to smooth things out.  This results in edge smoothing that rivals almost any title we’ve seen to date.  Given that the engine can handle over 120 million polygons on the screen at the same time and can still apply any level of anti-aliasing is amazing in and of itself.

All of this visual candy comes at a price – Resident Evil 5 doesn’t stay locked at 30 frames per second on the PlayStation 3.  Occasionally I’ve seen the framerate dip down to 25 or thereabouts during heavy action sequences.  The good news is that I never saw it dip below this number.  This means that the game may have the occasional frame stutter but never dips into the unplayable range. 

By now you’ve likely seen the video or downloaded the demo for Resident Evil 5, so you know exactly what it looks like.  Simply put, the character models are second to none, which is surprising given that the game is multiplatform.  I don’t have any hard numbers to share on character poly counts, but given that the game freely transitions from in-game cutscenes to gameplay without a drop in quality is enough to drop my jaw. 

There are only a few areas where the quality of the graphics suffers, and even then only in the tiniest way – the zombies.  Occasionally there are hard angles in the graphics, distorting the otherwise smooth facial animations of the zombie hordes.  It isn’t exactly jarring, unless you compare it to the perfectly smooth presentation of Sheva and Chris.  Additionally, there are a few graphical differences between the PlayStation 3 version and the Xbox 360 version of the game in terms of graphical bells and whistles that you would only notice if you compared them side-by-side.  The 360 version is able to adjust its anti-aliasing on the fly, meaning a less jarring transition than the PS3 version which simply turns it off to keep the framerate stable.  The 360 version also seems to do a better job with some of the water effects in the game, but again – you’ll never notice unless you’ve seen both versions.  I can safely say that you should pick whatever platform suits you – they are almost visually identical.

The Resident Evil series has had some of the worst voice acting ever presented on any platform.  The first game sported such gems as:

“Jill, here's a lock pick. It might be handy if you, the master of unlocking, take it with you.”

“You almost became a Jibble sandwich!”

“It’s Forest! Oh my God!”

“I’m sorry for my lack of manners, I’m not used to escorting men.”

It doesn’t get a whole lot better than this for the first few Resident Evil titles, but I can’t see how it could possibly get worse.  Thankfully, the voice acting in Resident Evil 5 is passable, even good at points.  Voice actor Roger Craig Smith returns in his role as Chris Redfield, and newcomer Karen Dyer does a great job as Sheva Alomar.  I’ll skip the rest of the cast so as not to ruin the storyline, but suffice it to say that you’ll meet up with some characters from your past voiced by such talent as D.C. Douglas, Douglas Rye, and Liam O’Brien.  Couple that with the orchestral score of Kota Suzuki (Onimusha and Devil May Cry fame) and you have an audio experience you can be proud of.  While some of the voice work is still so wooden I had to check for termites, it’s no worse than the usual videogame fare you usually hear.  The soundtrack gets the nod, the voice work gets a shrug.

The Resident Evil controls are diametrically opposed to the usual shooter conventions of most third person action games.  For instance, you cannot move and reload or move and shoot.  If you are planning to pick this game up with the thought of applying your well-honed Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell skills to it, you are in for a surprise.  For those who are used to the Resident Evil control scheme, there are a few upgrades you’ll appreciate.

The game controls much like any other third person action title for the most part.  The left analog handles movement, while the right analog moves the 360 degree camera.  Swinging your knife means holding the L2 button to ready it and then hitting R1 to swing it.  L1 readies your currently equipped gun and R1 fires it.  Reloading is as simple as holding L1 to ready the weapon and then hitting  the X button.  The O button handles context-sensitive partner actions such as buddying up to open a heavy door or push an obstacle.  You’ll use the triangle button to open your inventory, but here is the first change – you are no longer paused at this point.  You’ll have to manage your weapons, ammo, and various items in real time, so learn to be quick!  As I mentioned, you still cannot reload while moving or fire while walking, so be prepared for the usual frustrating deaths that come as a result of that. During one engagement with a chainsaw wielding enemy I found myself pureed into zombie-kibble as I was ‘caught’ while performing the reload animation, unable to move.  To help with this, the game now features a ‘quick-select’ system that allows you to rapidly change between weapons by using the D-pad.  It helps bring the controls closer to real-time. 

A BIG thanks to Capcom for allowing us to skip the cinematics with a simple press of the Select button.  So many developers neglect this request, but Capcom is listening.  *thumbs up*

As is the norm since the days of Shenmue, Resident Evil 5 features quicktime events!  As Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation would say, “Press X to not die”.  Since the game shifts seamlessly from cutscene to action, be prepared to perform quicktime events at any point, including the aforementioned cinematics!  At one point I had to press a button to avoid being killed by a zombie swinging a chain over his head while riding a motorcycle, another point had me using a button to dodge a flying enemy, and all throughout the game you’ll be giving your left analog stick a workout as you shake it back and forth to free yourself from zombies in melee range.  There are even a few puzzle elements in the game that will require a bit of quicktime work, but it isn’t a heavy focus of the game.  Failing usually means death, but the reload time is quick.  I just wish I could walk, chew gum, and load a clip at the same time…

The zombies in the first Resident Evil game were pretty slow.  They had to rely on the element of surprise to kill their prey, slowly shambling to their target at the most pedantic pace possible.  We’ve come a long way since 1996, both in movies and in games.  Zombies now come in all shapes, sizes, and species.  We have plant zombies, flying zombies, dog zombies, zombies that sprout tendrils from their necks when you shoot them in the face, big fat exploding zombies, and plenty of varieties therein.  Since the zombies have also gotten smarter, they can also wield weapons including pipe wrenches, shovels, axes, chainsaws, and even guns.  Don’t think that the game suddenly turns into Halo here – the zombies can, at best, blind fire over cover. 

The game is divided into chapters, with each chapter culminating in some sort of boss battle.  There are sub-bosses that are often just as tough as their main boss counterparts as well.  Most of the time, you’ll be able to take down the bosses without firing too many shots as the boss battles tend to revolve around puzzles.  (**MINOR SPOILER – for example, one sub-boss requires that you have one character lure him into a furnace while the other shuts the doors, incinerating the enemy – END SPOILER**)

Kijuju zombies are nothing if not relentless.  Like previous Resident Evil games, you’ll be pretty starved for ammunition most of the time.  You’ll pick up money and weapons along the way, but precision is truly the key to the game.  Headshots will take out most zombies, but some of them simply explode and turn into other things.  It’s a never-ending balancing act with melee and ammunition, so sometimes pouring lead into your enemies isn’t always the wisest way to proceed.  One boss took every bullet in my machine gun, every round in my pistol, and down to the very last shot from my rifle to take down.  I never felt like I was out of options, but I always felt pressed to be careful with my ammunition. 

There is certainly one area that I have to praise quite a bit – Shevas AI.  Sheva is your ever-present ally, and she is quite good at her job.  She isn’t completely infallible and occasionally misses her targets, just like a human player.  On the other hand, she isn’t a character from The Sims – you won’t have to manager her constantly.  She’ll break boxes and pick up ammunition, use health kits judiciously on you and on herself as appropriate, and she generally keeps herself out of trouble.  The only time I really had any difficulty was a scenario where I was holding a flashlight and she was tasked with keeping me safe.  Occasionally she’d wander off, leaving me to fend for myself.  The zombie horde does a pretty good job keeping you pressed, and their zombie-like behavior seems purposeful instead of a liability of a weak AI.  Capcom put in a good amount of time with the AI, and it shows. 

Always better than any AI is having a human player at your side to join in the adventure.  Resident Evil 5 supports full co-op, allowing you to take control of Chris and Sheva in a split-screen or online mode.  It is drop-in, drop-out co-op so you don’t have to exit the game to restart a multiplayer session.  You can even toggle friendly fire on and off for more challenging experience.  During the single player game you’ll get the chance to boost Sheva up to locations that are otherwise impossible to reach, but playing co-op you get to find out what’s on that roof first hand. Having a human around for the vehicle sections made them a lot easier as well. Just be careful who you pick to back you up – ammo is just as scarce as it is when you are playing solo. 

If there is one thing that hurts Resident Evil 5 it’s a 9 hour run time.  The game is broken into 6 chapters, each roughly an hour long, including cutscenes and sub-chapters.  When you complete the game you’ll unlock a new mode called Mercenary mode that allows you to face off against a zombie horde on 8 different levels.  You’ll fend them off waiting for an extraction team to help you escape.  The team of players that generates the most points via successive cooperative kills gets the most points.  These are submitted to the PSN Leaderboards, giving you the bragging rights that come with it.

The game takes roughly 10 minutes to extract from the Blu-Ray disc and will eat up about 4.8GB of hard drive space.  The beauty is that the game doesn’t load for more than a split second during scene transitions and between levels. 

A big sticking point for many players is trophy support.  Resident Evil 5 supports trophies.  There are the usual ‘completed chapter x’ trophies, but there are the more difficult ones like finding all of the Easter eggs, getting all the alternate costumes, picking up all of the weapons, getting all of the treasure, and even deflecting a crossbow bolt with your knife!  If you are a trophy hunter, you’ll certainly have plenty of replay time to collect them all.

Obviously the cooperative gameplay combined with the incredible graphics are the true draw of Resident Evil 5.  The AI is solid throughout for the most part, and there is very little to complain about other than the usual Resident Evil control conventions.  The game isn’t very long, but the environments and storyline are compelling enough to keep you coming back for more.  If you can handle another round of not being able to move and fire/reload, there is a compelling game in Resident Evil 5.

Gaming Trend Score

90

1. Graphics: 97
2. Audio: 88
3. Controls: 88
4. Gameplay: 92
5. Value/Replay: 85
6. OVERALL:90