Resident evil 5

Resident Evil 5 has long been considered one of the bad ones. But here's the thing, I'm a Resident Evil fan. And part of my love for the series comes from its willingness to be kind of bad at times. Much in the same way I enjoyed browsing video stores when I was younger in search of low budget trash that nobody else wanted to rent, I've always been on board with the cheesiness that Resident Evil can delve into. In hindsight, you can scoff at lines about Jill sandwiches, but in my mind that was always part of Resident Evil's schlocky charm.

Now in fairness, gamers in 2009 were playing the first mainline game in the series to follow Resident Evil 4 - a game oft considered the high point in the series. I personally disagree on that stance, but there's no denying that it's a great game with an intense tone. Because I was a little late to the console generation, I didn't actually play Resident Evil until a couple of years after it was released and honestly, I have very little memory of it now in 2023. 

What I do remember of Resident Evil 5 was that it felt like a fairly obvious sequel to Resident Evil 4. It leaned into the more action vibe. It relied on some faraway place rather than a spooky mansion. Yes, it was very much an action game and just barely a survival horror game. But given the success of Resident Evil 4, it wasn't exactly shocking to me that Capcom would steer the ship so far in that direction. I also remember the game as being pretty fun in co-op, as back then my wife would play more games with me. This was before we were parents, so time and energy were much more plentiful. 

I'm actually pretty sure that to this day, Resident Evil 5 is the highest selling title in the series. Which is kind of funny given that it is actually considered one of the worst ones. But I guess there's no accounting for taste. But for whatever reason, it dawned on me this week that I haven't played this one in a at least a decade and since it's so fuzzy in my memory, maybe I should give it another go. 

Chris looks extra buff here. He's like a total action hero guy now. And really, I think some of the complaints about this game have always been that Chris was pretty much turned into the Gears Of War guy or whatever. You meet up with Sheva who will be your co-op partner through the campaign. She's pretty badass, really. And she does a decent job of covering you and throwing healing items your way. If left to her own devices, she'll even break open crates to look for items.

The first really crazy part of the game happens at the midpoint of Chapter 1, where you basically have to wait out an unseen clock until helicopter backup shows up. This amounts to an endess wave of zombies coming at you from all directions, plus a huge dude with an ax who wants to behead you, and it gets pretty overwhelming. It did take me two attempts, but it was exciting nevertheless. 

The whole conceit here by the way is that terrorists in other countries have gotten hold of Umbrella Corps' chemicals and are turning whole villages into zombies to act out their terrorism fantasies. It's pretty b-movie feeling, but with a big budget.

The first real boss of the game plays out like a puzzle. Basically you've got to lure it into an incinerator and get the thing lit up fast enough to take it out. It took me a few tries to get the timing right, but it was actually a damn cool battle - and one where I never used a single bullet, which is interesting for such an action-themed game.

I will say that even though I'm a much bigger fan of the more classic survival horror games in the series, I do appreciate having actual chapters here. It's as if each section is its own isolated level, and that makes playing the game in somewhat bite-sized pieces more manageable when you're able to strip out backtracking and so forth. As a side note, I think that's why I've long championed the two Revelations games. They're basically classic Resident Evil games, but they're also divided up into chapters, which is kind of the best of both worlds.

At any rate, Resident Evil 5 basically beats to the same drum on from Chapter 1. Overall, its intention is to be a pretty big dumb action game set in the Resident Evil universe. And that's fine. The problem is that the action isn't especially great. I often find the controls and the camera to be a bit too clunky to suit a true action game. I can overlook the many flaws of this game if I'm having a good time, but far too often it delves into a somewhat boring flow of just throwing swarms of zombies at you that just doesn't feel particularly interesting.

If you need further proof that Capcom was hoping to ride on the success of the Resident Evil 4 formula, look no further than the chainsaw-wielding boss of Chapter 2. I mean, basically what they tried to do with this game was amp up the action to eleven, move the setting to a different continent, and add in co-op. To some degree, I get it. It probably seemed like a safe bet to stick with a format that received such universal praise, only tweaking it a bit for multiplayer - something that was really important at the time of its release.

In truth, the co-op thing here was both good and bad. As I said earlier, I do have somewhat fond memories of playing this game with my wife years back. So I know it can be fun in co-op as a purely action based shooter. But as a Resident Evil game? I don't know. Revelations 2 later proved how to really pull this mechanic off. 

I guess my biggest issue with trying to play Resident Evil 5 now - at least from a purely mechanical standpoint - is that I don't really play co-op games these days. Approaching this game from a single player campaign perspective puts in a weird spot. You can effectively just hang back and keep tossing Sheva bullets and healing items and she'll take out a lot of the popcorn enemies for you. It feels odd to play a Resident Evil game in a support role, I'll say that much.

At the end of the day, Resident Evil 5 is just not all that compelling. It's got some interesting ideas. It's got some absolutely stunning visuals. But it truly is one of the weaker entries in the series. At least if you're approaching it solo.