Hello to all the fellow zombies of the living world, 

So as you can guess from the title itself I made some gaming purchases finally and it was high time that I did. It's been December (Mass Effect was my last purchase) since I have got myself any game to play. So I decided to shell out some cash.

Let's see. It was a fine Monday evening. I strolled into the game store expecting to see loads of Resident Evil 5,freshly shipped in. And imagine my surprise when I see only two copies lying on the rack and I am like WTF!! I purchase the copy and while on that I ask the cute-looking cashier girl that where did all the RE5 go? I was expecting a shortage of supply. But she said,they were sold! In a country where gaming isn't THAT popular at all,this made me feel proud of the "change". 

So yeah,I bought Resident Evil 5. So here are the impressions of the games then...

Resident Evil 5 Impressions

Coming at the back of a sequel of the stature of RE4, it was not surprising to see people expecting a lot from RE5. After all,it was THE follow-up to the game that single-handedly revived the survival horror genre and refined many of the shooting mechanics in third-person shooters. So it was no surprise to me as well when I listed RE5 as my second-most anticipated game of 2009 in the list I made earlier this year. Well....to say,that was BEFORE I played the demo. RE5's demo was impressive but not what I was expecting from it. It played too similar to RE4....TOO similar...

And the same goes true for the actual game as well. One cannot call it RE4 2.0, but at times RE5 makes us feel like so. But then being like a game like RE4 isn't a bad thing is it? Well...maybe and maybe not.

To get things straight with, RE5 fails utterly as a survival horror for me. For a series that was renowned for it's thrills and chills seems to have just lost it's "fear" factor (there were signs of it in RE4 as well). Even the light and dark areas indoors and the blurring of vision due to it makes it look like a gimmicky way to create tension in the people. I would rate it as the least scariest game I've played in recent times with only Doom 3 and Left 4 Dead (wasn't supposed to be scary I know) topping that. If you're looking for scares here,then go look somewhere else.

And once again, my chief complaint with RE5 lies in it's control scheme. I know a lot has been said about this already but let me say this that if for even a single moment Capcom though that putting an archaic control scheme that doesn't let you move while shooting and reloading to create fear and tension then they were TOTALLY WRONG. Standing rooted to the spot while you take your aim at the zombies (called "majini" in African native language) might get you tense and adrenaline pumped firstly, but ten minutes later and this cheap trick to increase difficulty and create fear wears down on you. Sure,the game does make sure that there aren't events where this control scheme will make killing a boss totally impossible but nonetheless it's annoying.

So after all that ranting about how terribly RE5 fails as a survival horror,does it mean that RE5 is awful????

The answer is no it's not.

The numerous places where RE5 truly shines is in it's action. Despite the constant efforts of the control scheme to get to your nerves,the on-screen action is too good at times even superceding that of RE4. In fact it would be better to call it an action game than a survival-horror game.

The boss battles are majestic,huge and exciting. Not as kickass as the Jack Krauser or El Gigante Brothers in RE4 but still fantastic.Most of the bosses are the usual expected lot but some of the bosses appear strangely out of place. I don't know but Resident Evil didn't always have over-the-top bosses. Strangely,it seems like it's getting some influence from Capcom's other game Devil May Cry in the boss design section. The inventory system has been revamped a little and I didn't find it to be either particularly helpful or bothersome,so I am not complaining there.

Sheva,the hot,svelte,squadmate of Chris stands as an AI partner throughout the game. Now I found myself drawing comparison's of Sheva's AI to Dom's AI in Gears of War 2. For most of the part,they are closely matched and while Sheva's AI is definitely the brighter amongst the two,she has an annoying habit of shooting with her pistol (even in boss battles) even when she has got better weapons. In situations as those,she becomes a liability. But her ability to revive you is a great boon indeed. 

One of the things I have to praise is it's story. Despite not affecting the series much, I really loved it's connections to the series past and my favorite moment was when Jill Valentine made her comeback. Yes!!!! It would be interesting to have her as the protagonist of RE6!! 

So at the end of the day, RE5 doesn't really move forward the series forward in any revolutionary way like RE4 did. It just brings back the things we loved and hated from RE4 back with few revamps to make an action-heavy RE title whose high production values and amazing graphics (one of the best I've seen in this gen,tied with Gears 2) make it a must-play,but it's annoying control scheme might put many people off. Still if you're a fan of RE,don't miss this one! 

Estimated Score : 8.5/10

That's all for the impressions blog.

C ya

Lightwarrior179