If you want to get the gist of the Resident Evil 5 demo, here it is: It's Resident Evil 4 with a slight boost in resolution. 

Capcom released the Resident Evil 5 demo on January 26th exclusively on Xbox LIVE - yes, nowadays even demos are sought as exclusives.  If you've been following the coverage of the game thus far, the sights are familiar: The demo features two smallish areas in the same run down African shanty town we're used to seeing. 

While one might take my aforementioned synopsis as rather cynical, it is meant in an entirely disspassionate sense - if you enjoyed Resident Evil 4 as I did, then you're likely going to enjoy Resident Evil 5 judging from the brief time I've spent with it.  That said, some Resident Evil mechanics in this generation of gaming feel awkward and dated by comparison.  You'll still have to stop dead in your tracks to aim and shoot, control is responsive but purposely convoluted, and there's a ridiculously foolish inventory system that requires cumbersome navigation just to switch a weapon.  It's Resident Evil, in other words. 

But after adjusting my expectations and growing accustomed to the wonky control scheme, the old familiar charms of Resident Evil became apparent.

There's something inherently solid about Resident Evil 5.  Despite the rather slow pace of your character, the game moves along methodically and with purpose, having the confidence to set its own tone and pace.  Even the visuals appear to back this up, with a subdued colour palette washing over very impressive texture work and high polygon environments.  Every nook and cranny is seamless, with nary a tear or glitch anywhere.  The same can be said for your enemies which animate very well, occasionally, spastically breaking into a frenzy.  Unleashing a few rounds here and there results in satisfying reactions, if not mildly underpowered - shooting an infected in the face results in merely a flinch, but what a flinch it is.

All of this is expected, really.  So too are the typical elements of resource management; red herbs, green herbs, ammunition and currency are splayed about the levels, often requiring the dismantling of a crate or two to reveal.  But the real innovation in this edition to the series is your co-op partner Sheva.  Either AI controlled or by a friend online or off, Sheva accompanies you throughout the demo.  In a few instances you were required to help her progress so that she can, in turn, help you progress, offering a decidedly different mechanic than the series has ever really seen.

There are, of course, more mundane aspects to this partnership.  You can, for instance, open up the menu system for the two of you, and give Sheva supplies or request them from her.  For that matter, you can actively direct her to resources in real time if you feel she would be better served by them.  More compelling, however, are the more action oriented scenarios and commands.  During the first level you can command Sheva to push a bookcase in front of a door, helping to slow the pace of marauding hordes.  In the meantime, you can do the same to an exposed window or start looking for ammunition.  In the second level, you'll vault Sheva from one rooftop to another, where she drops to the exposed floor below.  As she's assaulted, you'll have to snipe infected villagers from the other building, clearing a path for her and to the locked door below you.

Clearly it's these co-op elements that will spice-up the now familiar gameplay conventions of Resident Evil.  Moreover, playing with a real live person in scenarios specifically designed for co-op play sounds like good fun and a significant value adding feature.  Still, it remains to be seen whether the tried and true but old and clunky mechanics will hold up with most gamers these days.  Regardless, the Resident Evil faithful will hardly be deterred.

Resident Evil 5 is due for release March 13 on Xbox 360 and PS3.

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