Resident Evil 5: Pure Evil Returns…Next Year

Platform: PlayStation 3/Xbox 360
Release Date: March 13, 2009
Developer: Capcom/Team Takeuchi
Publisher: Capcom
By: Ryan A. Rubis

I realize that I deserve to be violently castrated for this statement — but, as the old adage goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That’s exactly what the new series helm Jun Takeuchi had in mind during the development of Capcom’s latest survival-horror entry, Resident Evil 5. In the wake of former Resident patriarch Shinji Mikami’s unceremonious departure, Capcom has ostensibly taken Mikami’s last piece of work for the series — Resident Evil 4, naturally—infused it with jaw-dropping HD graphics and pumped the action way up. Those are no ordinary puns — Resident Evil 5 is RE4 on steroids, or perhaps more appropriately, injected with the T-virus.

You Are Not Alone in the Dark
So what keeps this game from being Resident Evil 4 Turbo Hyper Fighting HD Remix? For starters, main protagonist Chris Redfield (last seen in Code Veronica dodging the tranny surprise that is Alfred Ashford) isn’t fighting the good fight alone. Sheva Alomar, member of Africa’s branch of the — hold for the acronym — BSAA will be playing the ever-reliable support role this time: the Goose to Tom Cruise’s Maverick, if you will. Unlike the Otacons and Slippys of yore, however, Sheva plays a more active support role, electing to follow Chris around and supplying him with health and ammo. She also plays an active role in blasting zombies away, because apparently a Caucasian man killing African zombies is a racist, but both white and black people killing multi-ethnical zombies is A-okay. Even though there are hardly any Asians in Africa. Well, admittedly, Capcom hasn’t spilled enough of the story to explain why I see Mexicans in the middle of an African jungle, but I’ll let that slide for now.

Capcom’s been showcasing the same E3 build for a couple of weeks now, and honestly, nothing’s really changed much from Resident Evil 4’s formula of controls—the robust, free-looking environmental movement is still present, just tweaked ever so slightly. What has changed is the menu system, so instead of hitting Start and waiting a couple of seconds (even more, if you’re one of the poor sods that played the PS2 port) for Leon to open up his briefcase, we now have the “quick swap” system, so said the Capcom rep, a superimposed inventory screen shows up in real time after you hit a face button. Awesome news—because I’ve always found the ability to pause the game and casually browse the inventory during an intense boss battle off-putting and highly unrealistic. Outbreak apparently had a similar system in place, but nobody really cares for that game so it doesn’t count. Promised but absent on the current build was the ability to aim using the right analog stick, putting an end to a huge control-related niggle many had with RE4 (well, the Wii version already took care of that).

Visceral Visuals
Resident Evil 4 looked superb at the time—in fact, it still does look pretty damn good—but RE5 totally blows it out of the water. Hordes of zombies come at you at once (I’m talking Dead Rising numbers), but even more impressively, every chunk you blow out of the little buggers registers and shows up as damage. Even the environments themselves are destructible, a nice step-up from the untouchable pre-rendered backdrops we played through some ten-odd years ago. One of the levels in the demo build, a suburban ghetto filled with shanties (“Africa? This looks like the Philippines,” I muttered) was bursting with destructible, corrugated-iron houses, minute touches as crack-addled walls, dirty rugs hanging out to dry, and bizarrely, what I assumed was feces smattered on tile floors. Sorry, Wii fans, this level of detail is totally unattainable on the system. Guess Resident Waggle will have to wait.

While zombie AI shouldn’t be that hard to simulate (I mean, seriously, they’re supposed to be brain-dead), RE5’s aforementioned hordes of zombies and critters move and gang up on you at an organic pace much like the previous game’s undead did, while critters like the Ganados and the creepy alien-head bursting dudes have their own parallels here. Ganados, of particular note, have changed from hulking-yet-nimble beasts to aggressive, turban-wearing, Flea Man-type annoyances. Bastards could still kill you with one hit, though. There is thankfully little handholding with Sheva, as she just kind of takes potshots from the side and throws ammo at you. She can fend off on her own too, unlike frail, annoying little Ashley.

Although still a ways to go, Resident Evil 5 is shaping up to be one of the better games of 2009. It’s not looking to be as mind-blowing or as groundbreaking as Resident Evil 4 was, but it’s up there either way, based on how fantastic it’s looking and playing right now.