Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5. From GameSpy.com.

Resident Evil sure has come a long way since the original game was released in 1996 for Playstation. In the 13 years the franchise has been around, countless versions of the series has been released, ranging from books and films to collectible figurines and gun replicas.

Now, we have the newest game in the series, Resident Evil 5. Released in March for the Playstation3 and X-Box 360, the game has since sold over 5 million copies worldwide, making it the best selling game in the franchise.

Taking place roughly ten years after the events of the original Resident Evil, Chris Redfield, now a member of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), is sent to Africa to meet up with another BSAA member, Sheva Alomar.

Their mission is to investigate a terrorist bio-organic weapon threat in an African desert area in Kijuju. However, the duo find that there are more surprises lying in wait for them outside from the usual zombies.

Working together. From GameSpy.com.

Teamwork plays a large part in the game. Your partner is usually the only way to get out of any binds that you are in, and game progression also relies heavily on both of you performing certain actions together to, say, unlock a door, or to climb onto a structure. Also, if one of the team dies, the entire game ends, so watching each others backs is crucial.

One thing that’s quite a bit of an annoyance, though, would be the mobility of the characters when they’re attacking. When you’re aiming your weapon or your knife, the game doesn’t allow you to move.

That proves itself as a really big problem when you’re beginning to find yourself swarmed by zombies, and it get even worse if you’re trying to fight a boss. The lack of mobility is the usual cause of death in the game, but maybe that’s the way the developers intended it to be.

Zombie Swarm. From GameSpy.com.

One feature about the game is that some parts of it take place in broad daylight. Despite this, however, the game still manages to keep some of its shock-factor by suddenly dropping several zombies behind you, or having some zombies start shooting at you from some hard-to-spot area.

While the zombies’ aim might not be too good, getting hit by their weapons fire can potentially take off half your health, and in the event of a swarm, remember what I told you about mobility?

Another thing about Resident Evil 5, is that after, or before, each stage, you are allowed to buy weapons, items, and armor from a shop menu. This is a vast improvement over the shop system of Resident Evil 4, where you had to find a wandering merchant that appears in various locations throughout the game.

Unfortunately, the one thing still missing that most people would be wishing for would be the ability to buy ammo from the shop. There is one rather expensive way of circumventing this problem though, but that’s for me to know, and for you to find out.

The inventory system is also different from that of Resident Evil 4. No longer do we have to arrange our items in a way similar to that of Diablo, where each item takes up a certain amount of space.

Inventory. From GameSpy.com.

Each item takes up only one inventory space, but in exchange, we are given a set amount of 9 inventory spaces that we can access while playing. Other items must be organised into those 9 spaces before or after each stage.

Another thing about the inventory system is that we can now organise our items so that we are able to equip them quickly using the D-Pad of the controller. Since the inventory space is a 3 by 3 square box, items placed in inventory spaces 2, 4, 6, and 8 can be quickly equipped in-game without having to visit the inventory menu by pressing up, down, left, or right on the D-Pad as desired. Makes things a heck lot easier, everything considered.

I guess that’s it for this week. Gotta finish up my school work soon. School begins next week…

-Jonathan Tiang