Looking good!

I downloaded and tried out the Resident Evil 5 demo on Monday night and I have to say that it looks utterly gorgeous. If a survival horror can be described as gorgeous that is. The environments are stunning and exceptionally realistic and the main characters are as life like as any perfect looking humans would, I guess, look. Capcom have pulled out all the stops here.

Memories of the awesome RE4 came flooding back to me as I set off running down the dusty, winding track. The gameplay of the demo feels identical to RE4, I played through the Game Cube version, and as soon as I started to move around and aim there was a feeling of natural familiarity. Great to see the over the shoulder camera, that refreshed RE4 so much, is in full use in RE5. Claustrophobia here I come!

If you're familiar with Resident Evil you'll recognise lots of the series usual items. The herbs are here to collect and combine as you wish and the dead zombies melt away revealing piles of gold and ammo. Breaking open boxes with your knife is staple RE stuff and it’s here too. So is standing still to shoot. Yes it's still in there! I guess it's part of RE lore but come on! Running and shooting at the same time would have been a nice improvement Capcom.

After playing through both the demo levels of Resident Evil 5 my opinion of the game and my desire to play the full version has changed. It's gone from my "must have" list to my "maybe" list. Despite the hot and dusty setting of the game I've been left feeling a bit cold and disappointed.

It could be all the expectation and hype that’s been surrounding the game, though I haven’t been too wrapped up in that, or it could just be that what I’ve played so far isn’t a great leap from RE4. Improved visuals notwithstanding. It could also be that Dead Space took survival horror to a new level whereas Resident Evil appears to have stood still. Maybe reading some RE5 reviews will put the game back to "must have". Or maybe not.


Resident Evil going stale and rotten? Sounds like it should pull up a chair next to Gameov3r