Resident Evil 5

This game is a lot of fun. It's basically RE4 with co-op but since RE4 was goddang immaculate anything in its shadow has big shoes to fill. Luckily, this game managed to meet those lofty expectations.

I played the Steam version of this, with co-op!

It's not without its issues however. To get things started on an awkward note, the, uh, racism, intentional or no, stands out for obvious reasons. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume there was no malice or ill-intent because the game may essentially be doing to an (unnamed?) African country what RE4 did to Spain, but having a white American gunning down swathes of primarily black enemies who dress in tiki masks and attack you with spears is... troubling. It's naive at best.

With how much I loved the attache case in RE4, the menus and inventory in this feel like a step back. It's closer to something like the Outbreak games where you and your partner each only have a 9-slot inventory (with shortcuts on the cardinal directions of the d-pad). Typically this just means you'll need to trade ammo and healing items when necessary, but the decision to scale back something as complex and, honestly, fun as the grid of the attache case was a disappointing one.

For all of my criticisms, the core of this game is kinda just RE4 again. The movement, sound design, gunplay, pace, it's all a continuation of what came before and as a result it's hard to critique. Popping heads and kneecapping enemies feels great. Punching stunned enemies is incredibly satisfying. (Some) enemies still drop ammo and other goodies when they die, which contributes to the excellent Game Feel™. Positioning yourself to aim at hordes of slowly approaching enemies makes combat flow like a lightgun shooter; just like RE4 before it this is an impeccable action game.

Unlike all the other multiplayer games I've played up to this point, I actually played this one in co-op, as it was surely meant to be played. I haven't been able to breeze through this as quickly as I might have wanted to, what with needing to coordinate a schedule with another person, but the end result is an incredibly fun time with a buddy. Running around a map while another person does their own thing is a cool feeling, though I imagine the Outbreak games also would have pulled that off in multiplayer. Periodically Chris and Sheva will be separated and it's really cool to organically have some of those "save your companion" moments when the squadmate in question is another real-life human being. 

Between all of the piggyback jumps and ladder boosts, along with the quicktime events and, well, the fourth chapter, it's hard not to see Uncharted in this game's DNA. RE4 did many of these same things and effectively created a new style of action game, and RE5 builds on and continues many of those same tropes and mechanics. It would have seemed strange to say this at the beginning of my journey, but it's been fascinating to watch Resident Evil turn into something like the Uncharted series, or Half-Life 2 for a contemporary (the boat sequence in Chapter 3 felt very "Water Hazard"). Much like the latter game, every mission has something unique. There's one level that's dark so you need to carry a flashlight to see anything, another that's an on-rails turret sequence, another that's basically the cabin from RE4, and so on. This game is constantly reinventing itself and keeping things fresh.

The side characters in this are fun, Irving especially, but this is largely Chris's story. While Sheva is there for all of it, the personal connection with Wesker and Jill means that she often feels like a third-wheel. Cutscenes are, somewhat surprisingly, very well-directed. It's not that RE4 was bad in that regard, but I feel like you can notice the extra time and production value put into this. The story as a whole is a pretty fun ride.

Because there wasn't an end-of-game clear screen, and because I don't feel like posting the sixteen(!!!) mission completion screens, here's what my records screen looked like right after completing the game.

After we completed the main game we played through the two bonus missions, starting with Lost in Nightmares. Lost in Nightmares was rad. It starts by effectively placing you into the Spencer Mansion from the first game but lets you and a buddy run around in co-op. There's an easter egg to enable fixed camera angles which, when combined with the fact the game is still operated via tank controls, you can essentially turn RE5 into a co-op RE1. It's super cool.

The rest of the mission returns to the behind-the-back third person of RE5, but it was still pretty cool. There was a moody and spooky sequence involving some enemies that reminded me of Lisa Trevor (and reminded my friend of William Birkin) that culminates in an elaborate (and only slightly awkward) two-person puzzle that was a lot of fun to work out. I've included my completion screen below.

After that, we played through Desperate Escape. This mission was a lot less fun with it basically just being one extended combat sequence. It's not terrible, but it's long and, well, much less interesting than Lost in Nightmares.

I haven't played Mercenaries yet, but I'll probably touch that at some point since the friend I played the rest of this with really wants me to play Mercenaries with her.

With the way things have been going a remake of this game seems likely, so here are some thoughts on what I'd like to see in that. For one, they should obviously be mindful of the racist connotations of so much of this game because it, well, isn't great and I doubt they could release something unchanged. Beyond that, something that gives Sheva more of a reason to be there would be appreciated. Sheva feels like a tagalong with how Chris-centric this whole game is so it'd be nice for her to be more involved in the plot. If that's somehow impossible, then maybe it doesn't even need to be co-op. The game as it exists now just feels oddly lopsided in terms of character significance.

I suppose I should wrap this up, I've gone on long enough. RE5 is an incredibly fun time that builds on what RE4 does and moves it into a multiplayer space. While 4 is more impressive due to it having come first, 5 is no slouch either and absolutely deserved the praise and success it received. This is an astoundingly good game.