TOP Well, with
the game’s
shoulder-view
camera we’ll be
doing plenty of
that, thanks.
ABOVE Wesker’s
sunglasses
shenanigans
reach boiling
point in Resi 5.In the absence of really knowing
what kind of game it is, Resident Evil 5
eventually unfurls into a hell of a lot
of fun, provided you have a friend by
your side.
It was an astonishing success
for the time, too; the best-selling
Resident Evil game of all time, and the
best-selling game in Capcom’s history
until it was supplanted by Monster
Hunter World last year. Capcom got
huge mileage out of using its bits and
pieces for subsequent games in the
series, even if you believe that the
returns and quality diminished.
It’s not like Capcom had lost its
horror touch in Resident Evil 5, its
priorities had simply changed. The
excellent Lost In Nightmares DLC,
set in the original game’s Spencer
Mansion, teases what could’ve been
had Capcom decided to take the more
traditional horror route. It takes us
back to the horror, joyous jump-scares
and puzzle-solving of the PlayStation
era, even at one point taking away
all your weapons and forcing you to
outwit the creatures chasing you.
At the time, it reassured us that the
creepy DNA was still there at Capcom,
it’s just lying dormant.
Now, with the Resident Evil 2 remake
reaffirming that the series is well and
truly out of its action game era, it’s
easier to appreciate Resident Evil 5 as
its own oddball entity: a transitional
game that may seem ungainly when
looked at through the lens of horror
or action, but remains one of the best
co-op campaigns gaming can offer. QMore Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 103button made this process a bit easier,
but what was pioneering in 2004 felt
limiting by 2009.
Ancient evil
In those five years, consoles had
surged deep into the next generation
(the Xbox 360 came out just ten
months after Resident Evil 4 for the
GameCube). Games like Uncharted and
Gears Of War introduced proper cover
mechanics, evasive manoeuvres and
the ability to turn on your heel and
run away simply by pointing down on
the control stick. Different games, of
course, and you could charitably make
the case that the constricting feel
of Resident Evil 5 is one of the last
sinewy threads that keeps it hanging
onto its horror roots. But really it
looked like Capcom had overestimated
the shelf life of mechanics that were
half a decade old.
The limitations became more
evident the further you progressed in
the game, as it morphs from crowd-
control zombie shooter to all-out
shooter. The swarming mobs
that Resident Evil 5 is perhaps
most associated with eventually
makes way for gunfights with
AK-armed Uroboros militia that the
controls don’t quite feel designed for.
The fact that a cling-to-cover
button only appears in the final third
of the game speaks to an uncertainty
in its direction. It’s as if Capcom,
sensing the zeitgeist of the time,
scrambled to make the game work as
a full-on shooter and added it in at
the last moment. During this late part
of the game, as Chris and Sheva enter
the obligatory secret Umbrella lab,
you pretty much witness the series’
mutation into an action game, which- for better or worse – would define it
for the rest of the generation.
Resident Evil 5 is best enjoyed
without the baggage of expecting it
to be one kind of RE game or another.
The fact that random players can
jump in and join you as Sheva in
tribal gear and warpaint, armed with
a bow-and-arrow, or ‘Heavy Metal’
Chris Redfield, wafts away any
air of self-seriousness the game
establishes early on. The showdown
with Wesker at the end, where
he’s throwing missiles at you with
his bare hands before chasing you
around inside a bubbling volcano,
is a primal scream of absurdity,
culminating in Chris Redfield
bashing a giant boulder with his
bare fists in a quick-time event.