Resident Evil 5 Demo Mini Review

Resident Evil is a long running game series that has its roots back on the original 3D consoles. I admit I have not played Resident’s Evil 1 to 4 but based on the positive things I’ve heard about the series, the demo of the fifth game sounded promising. The first level in the demo is the infamous racist zombie scene from the trailer. You may remember the controversy it sparked showing your white PC shooting black zombies in Africa. The taboo factor has already drawn up attention to the game, but lets face facts here. Resident Evil 5 is not a racist game, but it is a bad game.

The graphics in the game are quite stunning and on par with what we should expect from the Playstation 3 at this point in its life. Sharp visuals with just the right mixing of HDR lighting and no frame rate drops or tearing. The real Achilles heel of RE5 however are the controlls. They’re just awful. It’s an example of how not to make a third person shooter. The story involves you being somewhere in Africa when you run into a village of zombies who execute some guy. Then they spot you and all of a sudden, you have a horde of zombies coming down on you, and you’re trapped. What do you do? Why shoot them of course! Easier said then done. The control scheme is more complex than it needs to be. All sorts of funny button combos just for changing weapons. As usual L1 aims while R1 fires. However, you cannot move while aiming unlike most other third person shooters. Granted it’s a lot like Metal Gear but it just ends up feeling clumsy in the end. The controls are on the sluggish side. You’re given a pistol, a shotgun, and a combat knife. You’ll run out of ammo quickly though. You do have a partner in the game who will help you kill some of the zombies but she gets in the way more often than not. The demo provides no real direction as to where to go or what to do so if you’re like me, you’ll just get confused, killed by zombies, get fed up, and switch it off. RE5 is a good example of a game that looks fantastic but plays like crap.

Score: 6 out of 10