We were recently invited to Capcom's offices in London to get some hands on time with the forthcoming Resident Evil 5 on Xbox 360. Whilst there we were privy to some more of the game beyond what we'd already seen and played in the marketplace demo. For those of you who have played the demo you’ll be very pleased to know that you’re not thrown amongst the chaos fumbling for your controls, no, you are indeed eased into the game by subtly being taught the controls while moving through, and it is almost seamless, I couldn’t tell you where the tutorial section had ended.
If I could mention any new major feature that had been introduced other than aesthetics and setting, I would have to emphasise the co-op reliability. Survival is not only just you saving yourself, but you saving your ally, if any one of you dies then the game ends and you go back to the last checkpoint, embarrassingly yet predictably I was the one dying the most.
Co-op elements involve you doing the expected, like healing your teammate at critical situations, and throwing a kick or a thump at the infected when your friend is in trouble. There are also points that reminded me of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, like giving Sheva a leg up on high points and sharing particular items in your inventory, which has very limited space by the way, but its all part of the desperation for survival.
I recall someone mentioning that the designers of Resident Evil 5 wanted to give the game’s setting a similar feel to the movie Black Hawk Down; originally I thought it was an odd base of inspiration, but after playing it I definitely sensed that. They’ve captured the African setting perfectly, almost desolate shanty towns to begin with (similar to the movie) and then kept on the edge of your seat with action oriented scenes and unexpected infected zombie attacks (not very similar to the movie).
I’m not so sure if the whole game is set inside desert themed, deprived African landscapes, as we did play a good three hours which had us work through a whole chapter and a bit, and I didn’t see any indication of a change of background. This really didn’t bother me though, as the game was instead kept fresh by a variety in level designs, objective types and survival situations, there wasn’t a moment where I felt the experience was getting repetitive, even know we were essentially just shooting and running away from infected beings.
The differences between the two characters are very minimal; one doesn’t run faster than the other, one isn’t tougher than the other. The only differences I witnessed were the special melee movements; Sheva with her powerful kick, and Chris with his almighty punch. The story is revolved around Chris Redfield and while Sheva certainly has a character and a part in the story, Chris Redfield is the centre of attention here. The cinematic scenes which portray their characters are fantastically produced; they are completely ‘cinematic’ in every sense of the word. The point at which we ended the session was a perfect example of this, and could have been a brilliant ending to the demo. I would love to tell you all about it, but I don’t want to ruin the experience. What I will say though is that it includes bikes, and back-to-back interactive face offs.
There had been much anticipation for this day, yet there was also some curiosity. If I was told to give one criteria for this generation of gaming I would probably say ‘offering movie-like experiences’, this meant less cheesy boss battles unless it was a platformer. I was pleased to know there were no boss battles of the sorts I was thinking of, instead there are tougher enemies which we will call in this context ‘major baddies’, because it’s well suited. An example of a ‘major baddie’ would be an infected being with a chainsaw, he’s a major baddie because he has an unusual lethal melee weapon and he has quite a lot more health than any normal infected zombie-like being. Some of these enemies are introduced with a cinematic, but these are more of a word of warning if anything.
An element I have steered clear from until now, as I’m proving it as less of an issue but something I feel obliged to cover, and that is the control set. First things first, there are no Gear’s of War like control choices, I talked to one of the staff to clarify this and they felt it was unnecessary and that it gave the wrong representation for what Resident Evil was all about, and that’s survival. The restrained controls impose the elements of survival and force you to play the game in a different way. If you had a problem with the demo’s setup, then unfortunately if you buy this game nothing would have changed except the inclusion of a painless introduction to an initially hard to handle control scheme.
Now that’s out the way, that doesn’t reinstate the controls are perfect. There are a few bizarre button choices here and there, such as having the ‘A’ button for sprinting but also using the ‘A’ button and ‘back’ to have an automatic backwards turn, mix this together and you have yourself running forward then wanting to turn slightly and end up turning 180 degrees instead, it is an awkward learning curve.
Moving on, multiplayer, if you’re looking to play this game alone then you’re removing a large portion of the gameplay value here seeing as there are a hell of a lot of co-op moments. This obviously won’t stop you playing on your own, but it means instead you’ll be relying on the AI, which is never as engaging as playing with a good mate. It’s much more satisfying to pick up a sniper rifle and blow off the heads of infected from a distance, and once again saving your friend from certain death, that will never get old and it’s a benefit you won’t experience fully without a human player. Strategically allocating weapons and items between you is also part of the strategy introduced here, another inclusion that will lose its effect in the lonesome singleplayer. It may seem like a abandoning of the classic singleplayer mode, but to me – and I expect many others – I’m glad another game is daring at the now rare co-op options.
Multiplayer exists in the form of three types of co-op, Xbox LIVE, System link and the long missed split-screen experience.
As always, time seems to fly when you’re having fun, but had we played anymore we probably would have ruined the experience when we actually bought the game. I was impressed, and I think everyone else felt the same way, although them all being huge fans of the series anyway probably will give you nothing to go by, but it’s more than raised my interest levels from the just hazy memories of frustration during the early PlayStation years, happy days.
Resident Evil 5 will be coming to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 March 13th of this year.
Preview By: Lee Burton
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