Customer Reviews

Resident Evil 5

5 star:		(125)
4 star:		(89)
3 star:		(45)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

Ok, let me get this out of the way, I have played both the 360 and PS3 version through the first couple of chapters. I don't see a difference, both versions look fantastic!! This is an absolutely beautiful game on either system, I purchased the PS 3 version because I am still, and always be a fan of the Dualshock controller, I guess you could call me a dualshock fanboy.
Ok some reviewers hammered home the comparisons to RE 4, and that's fair, apparently Capcom didn't want to stray from what worked for them and RE 4 was a runaway hit. I like that the game "feels" familiar but different at the same time. I played the demo a lot to get a handle on the controls, because we can all agree that they take a bit of adjustment from other 3rd person games. I know for the purity of the game Capcom decided to leave the run and gun aspect out of it, but I can't tell you how many times I wish I could pull a Gears of War tactic out of my a$$ during some of the more intense encounters, but after adjusting to the RE frame of mind I adapted quickly.
The story has enough cheese in it to keep me happy, I am perfectly happy with the story, my level of escapism with the game was just right, I don't need a life altering story to make me love a game.
I can't recommend this game enough, it is perfect for me in many ways. In my opinion it deserves my 5 Star rating.

PSN Id- Kmann_Rocks
add me for some co-op! I am trying to get more friends on PSN!


*EDIT*
I am adding that the inventory/cash system is ridiculous lol. You can literally farm levels for cash, ammo, weapons and treasures over and over and over...
I still love the game though, online co-op is amazing.

My husband and I love this game. It is great if you like to play the campaigns together. What I like is that you can start the game alone but if you have a friend that wants to join in you start at the same level, you do not have to reset the game! It is a must buy if you love to play with a friend at home. Right up there will Resistance (the first one). In addition, it is a fairly long game so you get your money's worth. The only thing is that this game is a little scary for the little ones so I would not recommend it for anyone under 13. Other than that enjoy!

FOR THE FANS OF RESIDENT EVIL 4: This is about the best sequel to RE4 that you could hope for. The graphics are excellent. It has a lot of big guns and intense action, and it adds co-op play to the mix. The controls have been slightly enhanced, as this new installment mirrors some of the tweaks that games such as Gears of War and Dead Space have added to the template RE4 created back in 2005. However, you cannot move and shoot, and you may be a tinge disappointed with the fact that neither Leon or the Merchant return. If that's what you wanted to find out, you can stop reading now.

Are they gone? Good. Now it's just us in the room.

You guys remember Resident Evil. You remember the exploration, the emphasis on limited ammo and weaponry, the 3D characters against static backgrounds with jarring camera angles to heighten tension. You remember the scares, the jumps... the "Survival Horror". And if you remember RE4, then you remember that you've already had to kiss all that goodbye.

You also remember the storyline. You remember the evil, faceless Umbrella corporation. You remember battling with all of their insane Bio-Organic Weapons, monsters, and zombies. You remember how each subsequent installment in the series was crescendoing to a final showdown with Umbrella, all while revealing more and more mysteries about the elusive company. You remember the ending of Code Veronica, which was set up as a lead-in to that aforementioned final confrontation with the next sequel. And you also remember that sequel was RE4, which flushed that whole entire plotline down the toilet in the very opening cut sequence. Let's recap.

RE:CV Ending/Chris Redfield: "It's payback time. We've got to destroy Umbrella. Now, let's finish this once and for all!" - The jet shoots off into the sunset, the credits roll.
RE4 opening: Umbrella went bankrupt and was destroyed, here's something else.

Well, gee. That was pretty anti-climactic. So the whole climax you guys (I'm looking at you, Capcom) have been building towards this whole entire time has already happened? And it all happened off-screen? There seems to be a HUGE gap here. Pretty sloppy. I would go so far as to say that this opening cutscene is the biggest anti-climatic turdbomb in the history of gaming. And what's the deal with this cult and the mind-controlling parasites thing? Why is Leon is being chased by a moving statue? WTF? The whole plot of this game doesn't seem to fit in with the overall flow of the storyline that's been established up until this point. So how's the game? Well, the game is good. Very good, in fact. It's a great action game (emphasis on ACTION), but I'm still scratching my head as to why this game is entitled Resident Evil in the first place.

And so, then we were given "The Umbrella Chronicles" for the Wii, which was basically the half-baked answer we got to the gap between RE:CV and RE4, and it's not even part of the numbered series. And now, after four long years, we finally have RE5. So how is it?

Well guys, it's basically RE4 all over again with a fresh lick of paint and co-op. Even the Plaga-infected villagers, which return as the main enemies here, have the exact same animations that they did in RE4. Now, I have been following this game's development for a long time, and I don't think it should take four years just to make another linear, Go-from-Point(A)-to-Point(B)-and-kill-everything-in-sight, RE4-style game, but I guess I'm wrong. Remember when they said that there would be new enemies in this game? Not Plagas or zombies, but a whole new breed of the dead? What happened to that? What happened to their talk of that heat meter beside your health, that if not lowered with water, your character would start to hallucinate? It just feels like this game is too scared to try anything different from RE4, and I think that it is worse off for it. It just doesn't have an identity of its own, and as much as I've dogged on RE4 in this review, it was much more effective in its execution than RE5 here. There is the co-op, which is definitely how this game is meant to be played. Playing it with a buddy definitely enhances the experience, and will have the two of you strategizing over tactics. And as far as the A.I. goes, I've seen a lot of people complaining about it, but I didn't really have any problems with it at all. Sheva DOES combine herbs and things, but yes, you will have to do most of the item management for both characters, which can prove to be quite the pain, since the item management is in real-time, and you're often surrounded by enemies. You can also quick-select your weapons with the directional pad; a control mechanic lifted straight from Gears of War. Speaking of which...

The standard controls are going to be very confusing for newcomers. You'd think they'd add the ability to move while aiming and shooting. It's kind of awkward that the left analog just sticks and does nothing when you aim, and you have to switch over to the right analog to control your laser sight. It just feels awkward, like something's missing there. Because, well, something IS missing there. I find it baffling that Capcom has emulated the controls/enhancements from the action-heavy Gears of War, yet chose to leave out the most practical use of those controls. The reason that there is no run & gun, according to Capcom themselves, is because it racks up the tension that the series is known for, and that by adding run & gun, RE5 would be straying from its roots. Um... follow along with us, Capcom. This game isn't true to its roots at all. This game is not Survival Horror at all. There's no creepy atmosphere or anything. The whole game takes place outdoors in broad daylight. I didn't even see one door opening sequence. Instead there are a brief trivia lessons in the load times between doorways to the next segment of the level. This is an action game. It's even more action-oriented than RE4. So, Capcom, if Resident Evil is going to be an action game now, then it should BE an action game.

As for the storyline, right off the bat, it's better than RE4's, but that's not saying much. Chris Redfield is now with a new anti-Bioterrorism organization known as the B.S.A.A., which sends him to Africa to bust a bioweapons deal that's going down in the Kijuju region. It is here that he meets up with his partner for this assignment, Sheva Alamor. From there on, there are a lot of twists and blatantly obvious turns. A couple characters from the series past return, a few new ones are introduced, and most all of the original plot threads are brought to a close, culminating with the death of a certain prominent antagonist. The story was kind of up and down for me. In a lot of ways, it felt like a true sequel, notwithstanding a lot of the dumb crap from RE4 tacked on. I was thrilled when Umbrella was briefly re-introduced and explored, as well as the section where Chris and Sheva stumble upon an underground laboratory containing a familiar old B.O.W., which was great to see, and had me pining for the good ol' days of the series' past. As a hardcore fan, that section alone was worth the price tag for me. But a lot of the big reveals, such as Wesker and Spencer's true motives, felt very contrived and cliche. The ending also felt strangely anti-climactic, and by the time it was all over, I was still left with many unanswered questions. What did Wesker ever do with Sherry and Steve? What ever happened to Barry? Last I knew, according to the RE3 Epilogue, he was heading to Europe with Jill and Chris. I'd rather Capcom brought back more of those past characters as opposed to introducing more and more new ones. They just dropped all those plot threads. They could have at least given us something to wrap up those character arcs, like an Epilogue file or something like that.

Overall, I found Resident Evil 5 to be pretty mediocre. Sure, there's a lot of great features and tons of unlockables that give it a lot of replay value, but at the end of the day, this game is pretty forgettable. The gameplay was solid four years ago, but it's 2009 now. The things that were exciting about RE4 then aren't so exciting now. Action games like this have evolved with stuff like Gears of War and Dead Space, leaving RE5's dated gameplay in the dust. It just feels stale. I never got bored like this with the classic Resident Evil games. I still don't understand why people dogged on its controls so much. It takes you, like, ten minutes tops to get accustomed to the "tank"-style controls, and then they're a breeze. They become second nature to you. They never should have changed the formula. However, I also realize that there's a new fanbase now; a new generation of gamers that don't have any patience for the classic titles. The thing is, with a lot of these kids now... the PS2 was, like, their first system. And these PS3s and 360s are like their Super Nintendos. Capcom is taking the series into a new direction for a new fanbase, and for the oldschool RE fans, you can consider RE5 here to be the last hurrah. In other words, this is the de facto ending of the series that wraps up the original storyline before even more fundamental changes are made. Well, it's been fun.

R.I.P.
RESIDENT EVIL
(1996-2009)


UPDATE (2/28/10)
LOST IN NIGHTMARES DLC PACK: Does Capcom read Amazon.com reviews...? It seems as though every cry from the oldschool fans has been addressed in some manner with this tasty new (though very short) little downloadable scenario, which covers a scene that was depicted as a flashback in the original game. It features Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine infiltrating the estate of the infamous Ozwell E. Spencer - the Umbrella Corporation's founder. To me, this feels like the game that RE5 should have been. To start things off, this scenario features a nighttime setting, and actually has some atmosphere going for it that captures that classic Resident Evil feel. In fact, it's almost identical to the original mansion from RE1 and you will have to solve some similar puzzles (if you wanna call them that -- the puzzles are all pretty much mindless fodder). Also, none of that purchasing or upgrading weapons business is to be found here. You start off with a handgun, and just use what little else you happen to find on-site. Ammo is very limited on the higher difficulties. There's also another section further in when you lose ALL of your weapons, and have to resort to using traps instead. This particular section can get pretty tense. The only minor gripes I have are that it's too short, and I could have used some more enemy variety (like Hunters). You really only fight one particular type of enemy, and he's basically the Executioner with a new paint job. But for five bucks, it doesn't lose too much points for this, and it's really a love letter to the long-time fans. This scenario is such a throwback to the original that it even goes to the point of being nonsensical. For instance, you will find the 'Keeper's Diary' from RE1 here, even though that document should have been destroyed long ago along with the original mansion, AND the rest of Raccoon City for that matter. I remember reading another review here on Amazon entitled, "4 / / Itchy Tasty... is gone". It's like they threw that thing in there just for that guy. I mentioned missing the fixed backgrounds, and there's an easter egg that allows you to play with fixed backgrounds in the mansion section (though trying to battle enemies in this mode is nearly impossible now with the RE4/5 precision-aiming setup). I mentioned the absense of Barry in my original review, and while they didn't tie up his character arch or anything, they did throw him into the new "Mercenaries Reunion" mode, along with Rebecca Chambers. I would have liked to have seen them in the actual game, but either way, it's nice to see them again. Speaking of the Merc Reunion mode, though, it's pretty lame that you can't pair the new Reunion characters up with the characters from the original Mercenaries mode. It's its own secluded thing. Anyway, I probably won't be reviewing the "Desperate Escape" DLC, but I felt compelled to speak on this new Lost in Nightmares chapter, which I rate
4 STARS out of 5.

Why couldn't the rest of RE5 have been more like this?

RE5 feels very much like RE4 with a new backdrop and forced co-op. In fact, that is almost exactly what it is, however it is about half as long as its predecessor. There is more stuff to unlock and the realtime inventory system is both nice and infuriating at the same time. The fact that an egg now takes up as much space as rocket launcher is annoying and the fact that melee/bullet proof vest take up inventory slots is also befuddling.

That said, it is fun to actually play and the game is easy enough for most people to get into right away (after readjusting themselves to the control scheme that now feels outdated). I give it a 4 out of 5.

This game had a lot of potential but it fell way short of what i could have been.

First of let me say that the AI is Terrible! At Least in regards to Sheva. She is the stupidest AI character i have ever had to deal with. There was a part in the game when her commander says to Chris that she is a very skilled soldier and I laughed so hard when he said that. She always shoots first and removes the element of supprise you could sometimes have. Also When she shoots she doesn't stop until until she's totally out of ammo. She uses herbs and health spray as soon as i give it to her too.

I want to comment about how you can't mix herbs in her inventory either. You have to move them into your inventory to do it. And given the lack of inventory space(9 slots each) it's really a problem. Did i mention that the body armor you can buy takes up an inventory slot? No? Well it does.

The set up of the levels is in chapters like the last one only you can go back to any one at any given time which mean you can farm the levels for ammo and treasures. I found myself doing this every few chapters because I was low on ammo( Thanks Sheva!). Theres no combining treasure like in 4 WTF???

There one more thing that really pissed me off about this and thats the fact that you can't us a herb or health spray when its on the ground. Like if your about to pick it up but want to use it right away you need to have a free slot open in your inventory to do so. In Resident evil 4 you could just use it without having to pick it up.

The ending also wasn't very exciting, at least in my opinion but i'm not going to spoil it for you.

The reason i gave it 4 stars for fun is becasue of the mercenaries mini game which is awsome. This is probably the only "fun" i had with this game and you know why? No stupid Sheva using all my ammo! Too bad you have to BEAT the game to get it! The no pausing to switch weapons in the inventry adds a level of urgency to it too. If you really have to have this game I would suggest rushing through the story to get to the MERCENARIES!!!


And for you people that are going to say I should play it with a friend or "why don't you get some friends" I didn't want to play it with a friend because it's a survival horror game if i play it with a friend it kind of of ruins that. Not that Capcom didn't do most of that for me already.

The complaint I hear myself repeating with video game design, especially where the game is a disappointment, is that a team of professional game designers couldn't fix a problem I noticed after five minutes of play. Resident Evil 5, the franchise's legendary history aside, epitomizes this complaint.

But, let's begin with the GOOD:
1) The voice acting and story line are top notch. The RE series has always played like a well-paced, taught horror movie, and RE5 is no exception. If there is any superlative I can heap on RE5, this is it.
2) The graphics are a flat-out achievement. Fluid animation, supple coloration, and very few frame-rate slow-downs made for an incredible visual experience.
3) Finally...a game that prides itself on taking advantage of 5.1 surround. The player really feels like he's in the midst of the action. More importantly, the sound design is so distinct that you can actually use the surround speakers to pinpoint the location of your enemies.
4) The online gameplay is incredibly fun. I played this for hours and there were no lags or glitches.

The BAD:
So, as far as the visual and audio design goes, RE5 is astounding. But that leaves the gameplay, and this is where RE5 falls flat. RE5 plugged itself as getting away from a strict classification as a survival-horror game; it wanted to move towards action-adventure. And this is clear from the start in a not-so-subtle way: you are armed from the beginning, ammo packs are plentiful; no scrounging for any weapon you can find like past entries in the series. Enemies don't jump out at the player anymore; their arrival is accompanied by building music.

All of this sounds great, but it's actually not due to the way the game designers chose to let your character interact with their surroundings. As an action game, I expected swarms of zombies (there are) with the characters having the ability to interact with everything arouind them (can't do it), perform awesome melee attacks on zombies (can't do it), and engage in pulse-pounding running and shooting (can't do it). Think Max Payne meets Assassin's Creed meets Dead Space meets GTA4...and you're nowhere close to what RE5 turned out to be.

YOU CANNOT MOVE AND SHOOT OR EVEN MOVE AND RELOAD!!! As a result, the strategy becomes EXTREMELY repetitive: enemies arrive, you run to the opposite side of the map, you pick them off one by one, you pick up the ammo packs they leave behind, and rinse and repeat. Hordes of zombies, but no boarding windows, no melees, but rather run, stop, shoot, run, stop, shoot. It's gets boring quickly. Simply put, RE5 uses a PS1 engine for PS3 technology.

How could the development team not anticipate this problem? How could RE5 plug itself as an action game and then take away the one thing that necessarily accompanies action...movement?

In the end, RE5 is a disappointment. I will not completely dissuade anyone from playing this, but rather suggest that if you're going to pick it up, grab it used after others like me put it up on the Marketplace.

This is not Resident Evil. This is a third-person action shooter. Does it follow in the steps of the Resident Evil storyline? Barely. This game is basically about this group of people harnessing a new virus similar to the one in RE4, and Chris along with his new partner are chosen to stop them. This is about how deep the story gets. You'll run into a couple familiar faces, including your final showdown with Wesker, but really this is a very poorly-done chapter of the Resident Evil series. As a stand-alone game it's great at what it does, but even as a fan of #4, I felt like this game was almost ridiculous at times...and boring at others. At least #4 constantly had you coming to places where you were like "Oh, I love this room" or "Man, I hate this part." This game, not so much. Every area was either just more of the same or ridiculously difficult. Remember the mini-gun and chainsaw guys from #4? [...]

As an old school RE fan I felt like I needed to play this game for closure, but trust me...if you like and appreciate the older games, just respect the fact that Wesker finally gets done in here...don't experience it. I don't want anyone else to be disappointed like I was. Oh, and Sheva...why the hell was she in this game? Couldn't they have brought back Claire or something? I mean, honestly...she does not deserve to be in the same league as Jill after being in this lackluster title...

Let me preface this by saying I've played just about every Resident Evil / Biohazard game, including multiple ports and remakes on various consoles, and even the Famicom predecessor Sweet Home. I was even a contributor to a guide book for Code Veronica, and have a very good minimum-ammo speedrun for several games. I'm quite familiar with Resident Evil's bloodline and style, and have excelled in them. As well, if you look through my history, I almost NEVER give bad reviews for games or review games that aren't marketed towards me.

With that said... I think, had RE5 (and RE4) come out in 2002 or 2003, I would have given it 4 to 5 glowing stars. However, I find RE4 and RE5 are very tedious and frustrating, as the developers adopted a slightly-modified version of the old "mansion crawler" control scheme (RE 1996 ~ RE:0 2002), and plopped it into an action-oriented 3rd person shooter, when the 3rd person shooter market has since evolved to more-precise control schemes.

Having played numerous other modern 3rd person shooters, I feel like I'm fighting the controls more than the enemies. I would be more lenient with the controls in the context of Silent Hill or Fatal Frame (which, ironically, still control better), where your protagonists aren't trained combatants... But in RE4 and RE5, it's so bizarre that battle-hardened elite soldiers like Leon, Chris or Sheva can't do ANYTHING and move at the same time. They can't shoot, they can't swing a melee weapons, they can't charge through an opponent, they can't reload, and they can't even heal without literally locking into position. As an avid shooter, I understand that run-and-gun isn't very effective in real life, but having done numerous defensive shoots I know it's possible with practice and appropriate armaments. I'm not an elite commando, and somehow I can maneuver through our range's Halloween animated zombie target shooting gallery and get high scores with a P.O.S. rental Hi Point or Soviet era C&R pistol. So, I guess I just expect that elite BSAA agents can do AT LEAST as much, especially since they seem fine moving around with guns drawn and trained during cut-scenes - jarring to say the least. This also gives the enemy AI a distinct advantage, except when they're clearly scripted to accommodate for the controls (i.e., infected will run at you with a weapon raised overhead, instantly stop right in front of you, and then execute a slow attack animation that doesn't always match their charging pose) which is just as jarring.

The tired "it's more challenging this way" excuse is a cop-out. Removing 3 buttons from the controller or disabling diagonals would also make a game more challenging, but breaking a game (especially without some context, like the character is injured, untrained, or a cheap 2 channel remote control tank) to make it harder is just bad design. Especially from Capcom, whose development teams all should know better. "The controls are classic" also seems like a cop-out. Code Veronica had similar controls, and I loved the game... But Code Veronica came out in 2000, on the Dreamcast, and such controls were still state-of-the-art or the best they could do with the given system and controllers. Plus, it was still largely a mansion crawler, with emphasis on exploration, puzzle solving, and enemy evasion. The controls worked in that context. RE4 and RE5 are designed to be much more action-oriented (it's nearly impossible to proceed unless you kill EVERYTHING on the map), and should have had control schemes to match this evolution.

It's not all bad. The game is VERY beautiful, and I still appreciate the convoluted Resident Evil storyline (though I hope a reboot comes soon). Co-op is a great idea, though I've found myself hating most of my online partners (but that's not Capcom's fault). The AI partner is at least decent, if a little too exploitable, though sometimes feels like one more level of micromanagement that detracts from the action. I like many of the ideas behind the game, and would have liked it if the control scheme matched the style the developers had put forth (a 3rd person shoot-em-up). Had it been a classic mansion crawler, like it's predecessors, I would have been far more lenient with the controls and enjoyed the game far more. I was frustrated with the game from beginning to end, and have stopped playing it after only one play-through. However, if you can ignore the mismatching control choice, there's a lot else to enjoy about Resident Evil 5. Maybe play it first, before buying it.

Being a huge resident evil 4 fan I thought I would give this game a shot. The graphics are great and the gameplay is similar to re4. It doesn't have the same dark and creepy feeling considering almost everything is in the sun and you always have a partner with you, but it's still enjoyable. You still can not aim and move at the same time which doesn't really make sense anymore. Sheva is an idiot and will die from stupidity a lot. If you have a friend playing her then it is awesome.

Bottom line. It is close enough to re4 to be enjoyable, but it is not as good as re4 was.

You are surrounded by bloodthirsty zombies and their annoying psycho dogs. They are to your right. They are to your left. They are, well, everywhere.

You aim, and..............

"Honey. Can you come help me? I need ammo.......... I need saving............. I need............."

Clunky game, made clunkier by your ball and chain. She looks good, but I wish I had left her in the car. Not sure how many more chapters I can take.