Chris and Sheva sittin' in a tree...
Just finishing up Resident Evil 5, I have two things on my mind, one; I loved the game and story, I thought it holds as well as any Resident Evil game and second; the graphics are just simply amazing! I haven't played a game to date, including Killzone 2 that pays so much attention to detail and atmosphere. The low clouds that wisp on the rooftops of the Kijuju village region and the slick oil spills of the marshlands show how much the developers love Resident Evil and how serious they take the lore and product. From the slight rubs of leather sounds when walking to the heavy breathing after running up stairs, RE5 loves you as much as you love it.
Speaking of loving it, if you're a fan as I am, then you understand the story of Umbrella disguising as a Pharmaceutical company but actually a bio-terrorist group working on "evolving" the human race and creating an army of super humans, they you will probably know that this RE closes the chapter of the game, and it's pretty explicit on that; it would be hard to conjure up a RE6 with the same characters, it would just seem contrived. RE5 takes place in the region of Kijuju in Africa, this is a fictional place with fictional tribes and people, and follows the exploits of BSAA Chris Redfield and local BSAA Sheva Alomar in search of Uroboros, a disease of sort (like Los Plagas in RE4) infecting the land. Intel comes in to Chris via his headset that a bio-weapon trade is happening in the region, while looking for this, Chris and Sheva uncover something even more terrifying- Albert Wesker. I'm not going into spoilers, but a very important person in Chris's life come in to play and plays a large part in the latter game.
Many reviewers and the like want to make the assumption that this is RE 4.5 or that it plays to clumsy or that we've evolved from a slower type shooter to a run and gun style a la Gears of War or even MGS4 in a way. It may not be a fluid as Gears of War or as tight as any FPS, the fact is that it works in it's own context. This means that if the game was any different, the tension and fear wouldn't be there; if Chris had the ability to run and gun as Marcus from Gears of War, the game would loose all it's meaning as a survival horror. It may not be as fluid, that I agree, but when you get three-four hours in, you'll have the clunky controls down easily.
With that, RE5 is a celebrated game, the best game to come out this year and a sure contender for game of the year, also, it closes the story that began more that ten years ago in the mountain region of Raccoon City. It makes me feel kind of old as well, a legendary video game series coming to an end may not be for sure, as Leon and Claire may have business to attend following Tricell or whatever Umbrella calls itself next, all that matters is that Resident Evil is the grand-daddy of all action/survival horror games and that's that.
