Want to know how I felt about RE5 when it was first released? Read about it in my initial blog here!

The previous game before this was Resident Evil: Revelations, it was fucking garbage, read my stream of consciousness here!

Recap: Resident Evil 5 kind of killed the franchise for me back in 2009. I tried to play it again in 2010 but ultimately still had the same issues with the game as I did the year prior. Game was good, but wasn’t the RE game I wanted AT THAT time.

Fast Forward to Now: Resident Evil 5 is a great game, it doesn’t kill the series for me in any way, but I still have the same issues with it as I did then, I have just come to terms with them now.

Resident Evil 5 is a great game. It is tons of fun to play, story is alright by RE standards, memorable moments and the such. Wasn’t surprised by this realization, felt the same way back when it was released, not sure where the disconnect actually occurred in me disappointed by the game. Once again I was captivated by the gameplay and really, really fell deep into the upgrading weapons portion of the game. I beat the game an additional 2 times since I beat it originally a week plus ago, just so I could upgrade more weapons and purchase some unlimited ammo for the weapons I enjoy using. I sit here even now debating on jumping back in to beat in on Professional (only thing holding me back is an AI Sheva, fucking A she is terrible in certain situations, I’ll get to that…). Biggest reason I’m not going to is I want to move on to other games in general, but might pick it back up after a game or two, says a lot about the game to me. Honestly that is the most positive thing about the game, as said the story is alright, Irving was dumb, the Uroburos shit is meh, Wesker is great (sad he won’t be in 6(?)), Josh is pretty great, Spanish lady wasn’t around long enough to really make an impact, overall it’s all alright. Truthfully if the game didn’t have as great of combat as it did, it would be a mediocre game by all means, it really makes up for weak parts.

Can’t really continue to talk about the combat much more so let’s move on to the negative things. First off, Sheva as an AI controlled partner is fine EXCEPT for when she goes full on retarded and becomes absolutely infuriating. I give her an unlimited magnum for the harder difficulties and she is a fucking god damn surgeon throughout the campaign, picking off everyone, no matter the distance, but comes the Wesker/Jill fight and she keeps dying over, and over, and over. Nothing I did pre fight helped, loading her up with health items didn’t remedy the solution either, giving her alternative weapons didn’t help her at all either. Also, does the AI just refuse to acknowledge infinite ammo on weapons? Why must I only give Sheva the magnum for her to fucking use it? I remember people complaining about the game back in the day for shoddy AI, they never went in and tried to change it? Sheva is a fine character, it’s kind of sad that she has been cast aside and forgotten, honestly it was her programming that ruined her. Anyways, just seemed like I kept running into issues with Sheva’s AI from 5-3 on and it just killed momentum of me jumping directly into Professional.

Which leads into my next issue, there isn’t much there…. single player wise at least. I went back and watched the old Zero Punctuation video (first one I ever saw and thus got me addicted to his work before I ever found GB) about RE5 and one of his criticisms of the game was the length, and he is absolutely right. It’s weird, you aren’t in places long enough for them to become memorable and/or fucking awful. I personally would’ve loved to see more of the ancient ruins for a few more chapters (rather than 2), or more of the Marshlands rather than jumping straight into the oil fields extremely quickly. This also lead to me getting burned out after a few playthroughs is that I have seen all the settings and combat scenarios rather recently. And it is weird in a way that the combat scenarios ALWAYS end up playing out the same way for me. Almost feels like there is no randomization that occurs in the enemy AI. Right after you meet Irving, I know that 3 bad guys are going to go for the turret, oh here comes the guy from the ladder, it’s been 30 seconds so there are now 2 guys on the 1^st floor underneath me. Very specific parts of the game that should be tense are ruined after a try or two as I can predict very quickly what the enemy is going to do, takes away from what little horror there is in the game.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the inventory is shit, moving on.

As stated, Resident Evil 5 is a great game. It isn’t the series ending catastrophe that I labeled it back in the day. There are some very troubling problems with the game that after the high of the first replay, began to slowly pick away at me and take away from my enjoyment… a little. RE5 and ME3 have very similar reputations and experiences with me. First playthrough I couldn’t stand the game and was extremely disappoint, months to years later I replay the game (and in both situations, with the previous games directly before it) and I understand what the games truly are, good games with very obvious flaws that no matter how hard I try, I can never get over. And still I could very well see myself throwing the disc back into my PS3 after I finish Rev 2 or after RE6, I don’t know if that would lead to beating the game several more times, maybe even upgrading all the weapons, or if I just play a few chapters and say I’ve had enough.

Regardless, at this point I have moved on to…and I quit playing it, find out why here.

Sheva is a lot easier to wrangle if you just stick her to SMGs and give her all the ammo for those. She's accurate as hell with those and fires short, controlled bursts. It's a pity that you basically have to restrict her to avoid her burning through all her handgun ammo before using something useful, but anyone who thinks her AI as catastrophically, game-breakingly bad is someone I cannot agree with. RE 5 is alright by me, haters be damned. Sure, it goes the whole way and turns Resident Evil into a big dumb action movie, but it's a good big dumb action movie.

Revelations 2 is the only game in the series (sans terrible spinoffs like Survivor, Gaiden and Outbreak) I can't actually comment on, because it ran like garbage on my computer. @yummylee seemed to like it alright.

The game was amazingly fun when playing with a friend in co-op. I spent weeks and weeks playing with my roommate getting the unlocks and so forth. It was great with someone to enjoy it with you. I could not get into when playing with the AI companion though.

@arbitrarywater: It was just weird to me how dominant and OP she was with the magnum for the majority of the game, then that Jill/Wesker fight happens and she was absolutely useless and became a a problem. I didn't break the game for me "catastrophically" but I'm now thinking that the only way I will touch professional is if I find another person to play with, I don't think her AI will cut it.

@dude_dudenstein: Have never put much co op time into the game. I was the lone person out of my group of friends to get the PS3 version so while they all played together, I was left alone. And on this replay I didn't try to find people to play as it is a 6 year old game now.

Realize I'm super late to the party, but just saw this a couple of days ago. Yeah, RE5 is still my second favorite of the series. Glad you didn't revile it as much as last time. Hopefully that means you'll have a good time with Rev2 and RE6. Also, the AI is MUCH better in those games for your companions, and in RE6 you won't have to worry about ammo or giving them guns or anything like that. They do their thing, they don't really die, so you just make sure you don't die. Rev2 is similarly not much of an issue, especially since you're bouncing back and forth between characters at will.

Anyway, hope Rev2 is working out for you!

Resident Evil 5 was actually my first Resident Evil and I think it's a really good game as well.

I wish Sheva was invincible and had an unlimited ammo handgun in single player. I know, I know, it's kinda cheap, but dealing with her can be a pain at some points. The best way to play through RE5 is with a buddy.

Thing that actually really bothered me about 5 was the inventory system. Really missed the attache case from 4 and the organizing mini game. And I never really had a problem with Sheva but I really hate wrangling with A.I partners in any game. Same problem I'm having with Revelation 2 at the moment, its not game breaking I just think its annoying