Well I just finished with the fifth installment to the series that capitalized on flesh eating zombie antics. Resident Evil 5 deals with Chris Redfield and his new partner in crime, uhhhhh.... give me a minute I have already forgotten her name. Unnecessary sexy female character alert! Her name is Sheva Alomar, apparently she is from somewhere in the world, maybe Africa. Before I get into my rant about this game, let me be clear about this whole racism thing that people have about this game: DEAL WITH IT!! Videos games for most if not all gamers are creating for the user to have fun with, if you have some sick twisted screwed up love for shooting African zombies, well that is just weird and I will ostracize you from my life by simply unfriending you on xboxlive. Done and done. Now I do hate when white people shoot white zombies in the rest of the Resident Evil series, but I do not have the need to constantly capitalize on the nonsense of racial inequality. I for one do not believe there are different races of humans there is only homosapien! Alright now I am done.
Chris and Sheva are part of the BSAA, a sort of Biological anti-terrorist task force, and they are in some part of Africa trying to figure out what has happened to the people in a local town. Well, true to most zombie games, all hell breaks loose. Said partners must avoid zombie hordes, navigate terrain while avoiding zombies on motorcycles and fight pretty awesome looking monsters while trying to find the head honcho behind this whole fiasco. This game looks great, design wise, monster design wise and general action wise. But it is unfortunately not as good as Resident Evil 4 for the Gamecube. RE5 is basically RE4 only add a partner and put those two in Africa. I must say that I am disappointed in this 5th installment in the series, the game opens with Chris' inner dialogue questioning whether it is worth it to save the world and then ends with him realizing that is worth, but no inner dialogue throughout the entire game! Basically the story is above a pile of dog poo. This story ties in with the first Resident Evil which people will be thrilled about. As Chris, besides trying to find a way to save the day, is also looking for his missing partner Jill Valentine, who might show herself (hint hint wink wink, say no more).
It really annoys the pants off of me when one of the main themes about a game is shoved into your face very poorly. It is even worse when the one theme is partnership, and all they do to re-evaluate it is by saying they are partners! Classic case of dog poo on paper writing.
Well I will say this though, the multi-player replay value of this game is quite excellent. Nothing makes you feel better then fully upgrading your favorite weapon, turning on unlimited ammo and just going to town with your best friend as the hot girl speaking to you in a really deep voice. Mercenaries is the same as the RE4 version, but it is much harder when not playing with a companion.
All in all this is a so-so game, the replay value is worth the buy, but the sucky story, that ends with emphasis on predictability, does not warrant Capcom the salvation they still need to find in this new generation of gaming. Yes the visuals are amazing and the action can be intense, but I miss the days of video's making me cry. Hopefully that day will come again.