If you’re a fan of the survival horror series, or have not
been hiding under a rock for the past couple of years, you’ve
probably heard of the Resident Evil series, namely a sequel to the
fourth installment in game (In idea, and not directly) called
Resident Evil 5.
Boasting as the first Resident Evil game to
take advantage of the new generation software for the Xbox 360, and
Play station 3 respectively, and a release date due for March of
2009, recently a demo version of the game has been made available
on the Xbox Live Marketplace, and with a few hours and some hard
drive space, I decided I’d delve into this next generation
thriller to see what it is that’s being brought to this table
this time around.
The game starts you off as Chris Redfield, a
character with a vaguely similar appearance to others in the
franchise, though I won’t make mention of who, or where.
You’re greeted with two levels each of which seem to be
sampled from the game itself, but the introductions and starting
cut scenes torn from them. Ideally to preserve the surprise
you’ll get when you play the actual game.
After a moment or two familiarizing yourself
with the controls, you’ll quickly notice that this is a game
from the same vein as its predecessors, namely Resident Evil Four,
and Resident Evil outbreak, both of which incorporated a lot of the
same thing you see here. The controls and game play in the former,
the co-op function in the latter.
Partnered next to you, is Sheva Alomar, though
much about her is unknown, she plays the role as your partner, here
to help you, find stuff for you, assist you in attacking,
defending, running away, and ultimately the one person to turn too
if you get into a jam.
Like repeatedly getting cut by a sharp object
one of the locals were friendly enough to break out the moment you
arrived, though majority of them move slow ludicrously slow that
you find yourself wondering if they’d stepped in some sticky
putty before deciding to attack you, or managed to run within 10
feet of you before stepping on a sharp rock and deciding to
walk.
This is still a survival horror game, but it
should be noted that it’s a 2 player survival horror game, no
matter how you split it, as most of the game play and even the HUD
seems understanding of the idea that Sheva is just as important as
you, and the only one who can save you in case things go south,
which they do.
Immediately after a few steps in the first
level and a few flashing button sequences, your found out by the
locals and forced to play a very harsh game a survival, in which
you scammer around and hunt for ammunition while the locals grab
pointy rocks and objects to hit you with because they don’t
like you, following a very graphic cut scene of course.
Now I remain confident in saying that Resident
Evil 4 remains one of the better games made in the past years, and
that Resident Evil outbreak had a really good idea but executed
them horribly, but I also remain confident in saying that when you
put the two of them together it’s not as good as one would
have hoped.
The controls themselves are passable, but
nothing amazing, aiming feels sluggish, and clunky. Bullets are
often quick to fire, but more often then naught you’ll find
yourself mixing up the button to shoot and the button to use your
map several times. Aiming can be a chore because while you’d
expect a situation with zombies and large axe wielding foes nearby,
the character would at least be erratic, but instead he chugs the
gun and himself along and the only way to get him to run is more
like a jog then it is a full out sprint.
More often then naught, you’ll find
yourself frustrated with missing a head shot, or wasting a bullet
because of how annoying the targeting system is, and unlike
Resident Evil 4, it offers a change in control scheme instead of
the controls themselves, though you can toggle with the aiming
speed and axis’s if you wish to do so.
From there, the game really shines, as much
unlike Resident Evil 4, ammo is much scarcer, but the enemies are
far from scarce. At any time you’ll find yourself staring
down twenty to thirty enemies on screen, with only a few handgun
bullets and shotgun shells to share between the two of you. From
which you can easily choose to run away from, or get in close and
melee at the risk of getting killed from a stray blow, or getting
grabbed from the back, or something of the sort.
The game takes a page out of Army of
Two’s book, by enforcing a very careful plan to get you to
use your partner, you can help them get from one side or another,
solve puzzles with their help, or defend them from enemies when you
get grabbed or when they get grabbed. If your on the brink of dying
and can’t heal yourself they’re your best options
towards healing yourself, and running as quickly as you can away
before the creature that previously mauled you has a chance to do
it again.
Though you stand up not an inch away from that
enemy so it isn’t so much saving your patner or getting saved
as it is prolonging in inevitable as while they were picking you
up, the hordes of zombies and other nasty creatures are looming
ever closer.
Of course this only makes things oh-so-much
easier, because they (Your partner) still run out of bullets and
options when you do, and killing the enemies one after another with
the only option to run makes it a bit tough to survive, thusly the
survival aspect of it. Though you or your partner will die very
often, and when one of your goes it’s straight to the
continue scene for the both of you.
Though, most Resident Evil games upwards of
three tried too hard to enforce survival over horror, and replaced
sheer terror with jumpy shock value kind of moments, slammed into
your head with how slow you move, while ignoring the fact that
well, if these are infact well trained soldiers why do they seem as
if they move like they spent all day working out at the gym, and
taking vicadin so they can’t move fast enough to save their
own lives. Either that or they came down off a massive sugar rush,
I’ll let you be the judge of that.
Speed is probably the biggest flaw I see with
this game, as if you overlook the partner aspect, and the nasty
fact that she can block your shots but you can’t shoot her,
the control scheme that you more then often will forget, and the
upwards difficultly that the game is attempting to bring,
you’ll find some value in giving this demo a spin for an hour
or two. The second level sports more of the same goodness found in
the first, and the demo also offers Online and Offline co-op, with
a player controller partner if you choose it. Though the AI
controller partner works all the same.
I look forward to giving a full review of this
game, as soon as it comes out in March of this year.
Dogma Game
Reviews Demo,
Resident Evil, Surival Horror
It seems a little late to be promoting the
Chronicles of Riddick game at this point, but in truth it has been
overlooked by a lot of people simply because games based on movies
tend to suck. This is one of the exceptions. A PC demo has recently
been released for “Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher
Bay” which was released on the X-Box early last year and
later came to PC as a “Developer’s Cut”, which
included extra levels and an audio commentary track among other
things. This demo is approximately 200 MB in size and includes a
brief tutorial along with a level called “The
Mainframe”. If you still haven’t seen the amazing
visuals from this game, give the demo a try. You’ll be blown
away.
Every
so often I see a free app that is just dying to be used as an
iPhone demonstration. The candidate for today is the American
Museum of Natural History app called Cosmic Discoveries.
