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 My man Mark Peachey detailed his RE5 demo impressions when it debuted on Xbox Live last week. What follows is my own take on the RE5 demo. The PS3 version should land on the Store some time today (Feb.2). I played both versions, but I noticed no significant difference between the two. All impressions below are from the single player levels. The African village re-creation looks really fantastic, and I like the general direction of having the player move between blinding daylight and dark, cramped interiors. The usual Capcom attention to detail is present as always, in the heat waves and dust particles. It's not state-of-the-art by any means (take a look at any door texture), but it certainly gets the job done. The look of the game owes everything to its superb art direction and colour palette. Music is appropriately moody, if a little forgettable. Cutscenes such as the one opening the Public Assembly level are well-directed, making heavy use of the handheld camera style. So, the setting is great. Unfortunately it rapidly falls apart as soon as you start shooting things.
A quick mention of RE4 is in order, just so you know where I am coming from. I didn't play through more than the first 45 minutes of that game. The control scheme was a dealbreaker; I simply can't get used to the lack of any walking, or even slow strafing*, while shooting. I know it this scheme has its fans, and if you are one of them, then some of the following criticisms will not necessarily bother you as much as they did me, because RE5 is RE4 in a new setting, with a partner character. Like RE4, you can't move at all while your gun is aiming. The aim button causes you to plant your feet and go into turret mode. When the bad guys get too close, you execute an instant 180º spin, run a few steps, spin again and repeat. This was kind of clunky when RE4 came out, and it's really stupid today. Furthermore, because you can't move while aiming, this fact has forced the developers into some truly contortionist tactics regarding the animation of the enemies. They will shuffle toward you at a ridiculously slow pace. In groups they will walk up to you and dutifully wait until you shoot some of their friends in the face before setting upon you. Sometimes, hilariously, they will sprint up to about 10 feet away from you, then resume the zombie shuffle. Most of these zombies can take 3-6 shots to go down, sometimes even in the head. They will stagger around for several seconds at a time holding their face until they resume their determined, snail-like pace. The new partner character, Sheva, is not very effective. She gets in your way quite often, begs you for your (precious) ammo, and likes to get into situations where you need to help her right away. She definitely helps with the shooting, but between the slow zombies and the fact that she will "spend" your ammo at will, she's just as much of a liability as not having her there at all. I imagine it changes significantly when you have a co-op human partner playing as her as well, although this is only available when playing online. (The PS3 demo allows free co-op online play.) The old Resident Evil contextual items are back: when approaching certain ledges or windows or doors, Chris can move over/through it by pressing the right button. Sometimes he will help Sheva onto a slight fork in the game path. You can't actually tell where these magic "moments" are until you are actually standing on them, which can lead to some frustration. But the biggest offender, by far, are the controls. They are needlessly cumbersome and difficult in ways that are frankly indefensible. To run you hold down a button and move the stick, otherwise Chris walks. There is no reason to walk anywhere. At all. To use your knife, you must combine a chorded 2-button combo with the shoulder buttons (upper left and lower right on both consoles). That 180º spin that you must use so often? No button for that. It's not even mentioned anywhere within the game's pad control scheme: I had to look it up on the net to make sure it was even in there (it's down on the left stick while pushing the same button that also reloads, or opens doors, or runs). I mean, seriously: there's a dedicated button for "show minimap", a dedicated button for "look at Sheva", but for the crucial and oft-used knife attack or 180º spin? Nope. Inventory management is ridiculously clunky and poorly designed, but runs in realtime, so you need to fuck around with it while zombies shamble forward, and sometimes involves a menu structure that is 2 or 3 levels deep. Haven't combined the herbs you picked up? You're probably toast. I set the scheme to type D, which was the least offensive of the bunch, but still a far cry from – I have to say it, a normal new-gen shooter. Dead Space had a control scheme that literally disappeared when I played it; I spent no time thinking about how to do something, just what I wanted to do. The aiming (which I set to "fastest" – there are only 3 settings) was still like moving underwater. Chris literally cannot turn with anything approaching normal human speed. Outside of videogames, I have fired a real gun exactly once, and even so, I feel quite confident that if Chris Redfield were to somehow materialize and come after me in real life, I could fuck that guy up without much of a sweat. All I'd need to do is step around him. My demo experience ended with a giant dude with a chainsaw and a bag on his head. I shot him in the face 5 times then threw a grenade (6 button presses to make that happen, btw) for good measure. He shook his head then killed me. I turned the game off and walked away. It's just not scary. And the controls suck ass. My recommendation would be to play Dead Space or Left 4 Dead instead. They're both a lot scarier, and control beautifully. It's a shame really, after all the talk of "western-friendly controls" being added to RE5, I thought maybe this is one I would enjoy. The designers seem to be hamstrung by their own dogged insistence on outdated control schemes. * It has come to my attention after writing this that apparently you can sort of strafe left-right with one of the control schemes. I was unable to discover this. It's certainly not mentioned anywhere in the game.
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