Resident Evil 5 Preview

The highly anticipated 5th game in the Resident Evil series is set to be released early next month on the March 13 in Europe and March 5 in the USA and Japan.

This time you take up arms as Chris Redford. A member of the Bio terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) who is sent to a disastrous region to investigate strange goings on. In this latest release of the long running series you are not alone and a half African female officer, Sheva, accompanies you in your investigation.

The addition of this second character has allowed for a new co-operative game play element, where friends can pop in and out playing as Sheva. This allows you to battle the infected in a whole new way and according to the developers; with a whole new range of weapons than the standard pistol and shotgun weapons.

You may have noticed that I said infected rather than zombies, this is because after playing the demo these people that you are killing seem to be more human like and smarter than simply blood lusting zombies such as those from the previous games, although this could be because the developers have mentioned that the AI has been programmed act more human like. This makes the game somewhat less "scary" and loses some of its "freaky" panic appeal that may have occurred in the other games as you were being swarmed by a group of zombies with your ammo running out.

The issue of ammo has been lessened in this newest installment with ammunition able to be found in various draws, crates, barrels and even pieces of food throughout the levels meaning that you are less likely to run out if you use it wisely. However because the second character has been added, this means that ammo must be shared and possibly that the extra ammo will be in serious need.

The developers have expressed that the game play will remain the same as that of Resident Evil 4 with you playing the game over the shoulder of the character and, yes, you are still unable to walk and shoot, maybe one of the games fundamental flaws.

Final Thoughts:

On a final note, this game has lost some of the aspects of the atmosphere from RE4 but in the addition of the co-op availability it has added some room for a new fun factor. It remains to be seen if this game has what it takes to deliver to the standard set by the other games in the Resident Evil series.

-Nano2000-