subject: How The Video Game Resident Evil 5 Stacks Up [print this page] The Resident Evil series is one of the most beloved and celebrated series in video games. The first game was a massive step forward (despite the crappy voice acting) for video games, especially in the survival horror genre. It was unique that your mission (throughout most of the games, anyway) was never to save a princess, or the world. Instead your mission was to simply survive, and nothing more. With a cast of characters that has changed up throughout the years, almost every fan has one character or another they can relate to. The game puts the player in the shoes of a survivor who is trying to survive an onslaught of zombies and mutants unleashed by the nefarious Umbrella Corporation.
Resident Evil 5 takes the series in a new direction. First of all, you are no longer taking on zombies. Instead you are fighting a parasite that takes control of humans. Second of all, the game is co-op based, with a secondary character. You play as Chris Redfield, a survivor of the first game. He is now at work in Africa on a mission. He is quickly partnered with a woman named Sheva as the village they are working because infected with a breed of parasite that turns the human into a zombie slave.
The game features the great gameplay of Resident Evil 4, and the loading screens help tell the story of the Umbrella Corporation. However, the game itself is not perfect. A major problem comes from the co-op gameplay. While this is a great system if you have an actual second player to work with, it is not so fun when you are doing a single player campaign. While the computer's AI is good, it still has some massive flaws. The AI does not instill any sense of ammo conservation in the secondary character, which means you almost always have to give that character your spare ammo.
Another problem with the game is that it just is not scary. While the game packs some great moments, at no point does the game become scary. The game has too much of a "been there, done that" attitude. While many argue that the series has not been scary since Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, the new setting and enemy type offered true potential for scares. However, Resident Evil 5 is still a fantastic game and should be picked up by fans of the series.
