So, Resident Evil 5 is pretty good!

[Llyranor]

To get things out of the way first, you can't move and shoot at the same time. The controls are exactly as in RE4 (supposedly, never played it), only there are additional controls to allow the L analog to move/strafe, and the R analog to aim. The controls are what they are, and if you hated them in the demo and don't think you could adapt or get used to them, they haven't changed in the full game, so make of that what you will.

 

I find the controls to be fine myself. It took a little getting used to, but that quickly got out of the way. While it's true that there are other ways they could have make the game more tense/difficult, this is how they chose to do it with this game, and I think they pulled it off. It's a design choice, and you may agree with it or not, but it's pretty much fundamental to the whole experience of this specific game.

 

With that aside, the game has been pretty awesome. Nick and me had a 12-hr marathon yesterday, up to chapter 6. Good action, good adventure, good tension, good variety in scenarios, and hasn't felt repetitive in the least. Item management has been pretty nice; ammo has run pretty scarce quite often, with us having to make do with what we had. I'm not sure if it's necessarily 'survival horror', but it's certainly 'survival'. Presentation is quite nice, graphics on a HDTV are very cool (nice art direction, and cool-looking and varied locales), music is nice (though not THAT memorable). Gameplay itself has been excellent. Having to decide between shooting and running away has been pretty important during the game, actually. Level design has been excellent as well, lots of objects that can be exploited against the enemy.

 

Co-op has been very well done. Game design has taken it into account, and the scenarios are pretty neatly executed. I can see how someone playing singleplayer with an AI partner could find it annoying to babysit, but it's an absolute blast in co-op (splitscreen or online).

 

The major downside (or upside) to the game is that we found out the cattle prod could shock the other player. Well, the rest is history.

[Nick_i_am]

Hey, Llyranor, remember when I had to push buttons to make you not dead?

[Kaftan Barlast]

I thought RE5 us very much an average game wrapped in extremely pretty graphics. Everything kind of works but theres nothing that stands out except the gorgeous graphics.

 

The biggest flaw is the controls, you get used to it but you still move way too slowly for comfort. Its no wonder they had to implement a shortcut for tunring 180degrees since you move too slowly to do it "manually". This slowness makes the game harder in the wrong way, by crippling the player. When you get swamped by several zombies or a big bad man turns up behind you, you wont be able to move quickly enough to avoid getting hit. I would much have preferred if they gave you good fast control but made the enemies do more damage. The melee attack is also way too clumsy, it should be assigned to a single button and work quicker.

 

 

 

..and please, enough with the ***ing quicktime events already!! RE5 is extra horrific in that in not only uses them extensively in the cutscenes, but also all over the actual game. In fact, the end boss is nothing but a single, big, horrible quicktime clickfeast. I want to play a game damnit, not play "push X not to die"

[Azure79]

I found the slow 180 turns extremely annoying in the previous RE games and earlier Tomb Raider games. Its the main reason I never finished any of them back then. I don't think I could stomach it in a modern game. I don't think making the control clunky to challenge the player is a legitimate form of game design. Give the player spot on controls and make the enemies and environment challenging please.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Yeah, the controls are ****, even they're meant to be that way, but its a blast to play in co-op.

[Kaftan Barlast]

My hands always hurt when we've played RE5 because I subconsciously press the buttons really hard in a futile effort to make the idiot bastard character MOOOOOVEEEE DAMNIT!!!! This game better be released on the PC, that way someone could mod it to be playable

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

In any case Dead Space plays better. And has less QTEs. And has more interesting gameplay.

 

EDIT: And a better story. And better written dialog.

Edited March 15, 2009 by WILL THE ALMIGHTY

[Llyranor]

Too bad it's a boring singleplayer game.

[Calax]

http://g4tv.com/xplay/reviews/1944/Residen...l-5-Review.html

 

I know I'm doing a sin, but they're the only place I've seen talk about RE5. Short rundown of their review, Control scheme needs updating badly, AI is an idiot, often firing willy nilly when not in cover mode using all the ammo, and when in cover mode they do nothing. Inventory is done in realtime meaning that if you need to heal or something you're screwed because while you're healing your enemies will be eating your brains. But with a partner it's actually much funner than solo, mainly because the game becomes co-op rather than singleplayer with captain idiot as your teammate.

[Pidesco]

Too bad it's a boring singleplayer game.

 

For enjoyable co-op all that is required is a game that isn't broken. Even that Big Rigs game would be fun if it had co-op.

[mkreku]

I played this in split-screen co-op tonight and I wasn't horribly impressed. We switched to party mode in Burnout Paradise instead.

[Gorgon]

In any case Dead Space plays better. And has less QTEs. And has more interesting gameplay.

 

EDIT: And a better story. And better written dialog.

What exactly is good about the story and dialogue in Deadspace. 'Better' is a relative term. It plays well, but dialogue, story... There is no attempt to relate to the main character at all, you get com messages and annoying cutscenes. There are some good bossfights and some areas of variation, such as spacewalking, but the rank and file enemy encounters get pretty 'cut and paste' after a while.

Edited March 16, 2009 by Gorgon

[Krookie]

In any case Dead Space plays better. And has less QTEs. And has more interesting gameplay.

 

EDIT: And a better story. And better written dialog.

What exactly is good about the story and dialogue in Deadspace. 'Better' is a relative term. It plays well, but dialogue, story... There is no attempt to relate to the main character at all, you get com messages and annoying cutscenes.

 

Story was pretty good I thought. A lot better if you followed the viral site(s) before the release

[Kaftan Barlast]

I actually prefer RE5 over Dead Space. I think RE5 wins because of its straightforwardness. At the end of the day its always more satisfying to blow some dudes head off with a shotgun, than to cut the arms of yet another generic spacemonster with some bizarre laser-thingammabob.

Edited March 16, 2009 by Kaftan Barlast

[Morgoth]

The demo was pretty dull and boring, so I won't touch the full version.

 

Edit: But I found a copy of Resident Evil for the DS. Hehehehe!

Edited March 16, 2009 by Morgoth

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I actually prefer RE5 over Dead Space. I think RE5 wins because of its straightforwardness. At the end of the day its always more satisfying to blow some dudes head off with a shotgun, than to cut the arms of yet another generic spacemonster with some bizarre laser-thingammabob.

I have to agree with that, Dead Space did lack a sense of satisfying death scenes (excluding your own deaths, which were sometimes brutal).

[Nick_i_am]

'isn't broken' - 'Big Rigs'

 

lol

 

It's not actually true though, boring coop is still boring and, as such, you don't see us playing Army of 2, Conflict or Mercs 2, none of which are 'broken'.

[Llyranor]

In all fairness, I wouldn't have much interest in RE5 either if it was singleplayer only.

 

Having playing a good amount of Mercs-mode, I've gotten pretty used to the controls. I'll even go ahead and say that they work *well* for this specific game. My deaths don't usually occur due to the controls. Rather, they're due to Nick's incompetence.

[Nick_i_am]

Or rather, your own inability to FREAKING RUN AWAY FROM REAPERS YOU FLAMING IDIOT.