Resident Evil 5 (PC) - Part 2

Welcome to the epic finale of my two part Resident Evil 5 article. Usually I'll play a game for an hour or so before I turn it off; long enough to start forming an opinion without going crazy on spoilers. But this time I'll be jumping through all 10 hours of gameplay because there's no way I'm leaving out the boulder punch scene. It's truly a defining moment in video game history, as it's the moment Capcom defined Chris Redfield as being the Incredible Hulk.

Click this link if you want to return to where this all began: Part 1.

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CHAPTER 2-1: STORAGE FACILITY.

Okay so I have to start shooting here, I get that, but shoot what? The oncoming truck or the explosive barrels lining the bridge?

I mean it's clear Sheva means the truck, but... it's a truck; my Beretta doesn't have the stopping power to stop that many tonnes!

I guess I chose poorly. Though it probably didn't help that I was taking screenshots when I was supposed to be pulling the trigger.

That's the first time I've gotten Chris killed so far by the way. They couldn't get me with a zombie ambush and they couldn't get me with a worm boss, so they trapped me on a road and sent a truck after me!

Fortunately the game is really forgiving when it comes to checkpoints, so I basically restarted back on the bridge again. And it even took me back to the shop screen first to make sure I had the right weapons and enough ammo to get through. Capcom have gone for 'one more try' addictive arcade retries this time instead of punishing survival horror defeats, trading tension for momentum.


SOON.

This is cool bit of level design, but not all that common if I remember right: I've just boosted Sheva over to another rooftop that I can't get to, so we'll be separated for a bit until she can get a door open for me from her side. The thing is, I'm playing this single player, so I just have to trust that the AI knows what it's doing over there.

Well, I'm not entirely powerless to help her out I suppose, seeing as I have an MP5 and a good view into the building she's making her way through.

If I was playing Sheva it'd be the AI giving cover right now, but I'd have to finish the whole game to unlock the character select first. Or I could just play in co-op like it's supposed to be played I suppose. It'd have to be online co-op though as the PC game doesn't come with split-screen multiplayer for some reason; it's a shame really as it's a pretty solid version otherwise. It's an MT Framework engine game, built for PC first then ported to consoles, so it's very much at home on a computer (unlike the shitty original PC port of Game Cube game Resident Evil 4, which didn't even come with lighting at first).


SOON.

Well the good news is that Sheva got the door open for me. The bad news though is that there's a guy with a chainsaw out here, and he was able to cut a bloody swathe through Chris's torso in the time it took me to take a screenshot of him.

"You Are Dead".

Still, I hit a checkpoint just before he turned up, and in a street full of explosive barrels and dangerous electrical boxes I'm sure I'll be able to come up with some strategy to deal with him. Preferably from far away. Shame I can't tell Sheva to distract him for me.


LATER.

Well it took a while, but guess what finally turned up. It's a QTE action scene! Press (X) to not die.

I remember these being pretty obnoxious at the time, but the sad thing is that I've seen worse since then and this is actually relatively tame to me now.

Resident Evil 4 (Game Cube)

It's even tame compared to Resident Evil 4 now that I think about it, as that game throws a button mashing boulder run sequence at you near the start and then escalates from there. Run Leon run!

This was a pretty awesome looking game for its time as well. I remember back in the day, watching my brother play it on his Game Cube and thinking 'damn... I really want a jacket like that'. Then I finally got one a couple of weeks ago, happy ending.

Still need a Chris Redfield bike shirt though.


CHAPTER 2-3: SAVANNAH, SOME TIME LATER.

Man, I hate this game.

I didn't used to, back when I was running around shooting zombies in the sunlight, but that seems so long ago now. This is all the fun of a turret level, combined with the pure entertainment of a bullet sponge boss fight, and it 

NEVER  

BLOODY 

ENDS.

Okay I suppose you could say it's pretty much the same as a Star Fox boss fight, complete with weak points to aim at, but just look at how many barrel rolls I'm not doing right now. I can't move at all! All I can do is shoot the monster until he gives up on trying to stomp me!

Then the parasite bits come out of his skin and I shoot them, while also trying to shoot the dudes firing at me in the background, except whoops I was focusing on the wrong thing and got stomped. Back to the start.


CHAPTER 3-1: MARSHLANDS.

And now it's this bit.

Resident Evil 5 has been accused of being a bit racially insensitive, with the Caucasian action hero gunning down hordes of African savages, and it's not hard to see where those complaints are coming from.

Of course it's something like game #16 in a series about going around the world shooting psychopathic mutants, and they've already done the game set in Antarctica, so I don't think there's anything really wrong with giving the continent of Africa a turn. But when I end up in a tribal village being attacked by guys in grass skirts armed with spears I have to think that's maybe pushing things a bit.

These guys were actually workers at the nearby oil refinery, used as test subjects by their employers without their knowledge. It just so happens that one of the side effects of the virus is a desire to strip naked and go LARPing.

To be fair two of the main three BSAA heroes in the game are African, and are shown to be as competent and humourless as Chris. Plus this isn't a 'save the President's daughter' situation, we're here on a mission to save African lives from smuggled bio-weapons. Also something about Irving. Maybe we caught him already, I can't remember.

It's kind of weird how detached I am from the plot, because I am reading all the documents scattered around levels and watching all the cutscenes. These are some damn fine cutscenes in fact, and worthy of my attention. Not surprising really considering the ridiculous amount of work that went into making them. Like filming scenes in live action first as a reference, with the mo-cap actors in full costume:

I have no idea how common this is for modern AAA games, but I'm going to presume that it's not.

I'm also going to presume that someone at Capcom has a live action FMV edit of the entire game story on a disc and we'll never get to see it.


CHAPTER 4-1: CAVES, WAY LATER.

Oh, it appears that the game does have a 'tap the (A) button to escape' QTE sequence. Seems that people loved it so much in RE4 that they just had to bring it back.

TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP

Some AAA gameplay for you right here.

This time though it ends with an incredible 'jump under the closing door' scene, with Sheva and Chris swapping sides mid-jump for absolutely no reason. I love the little touches like this, the ones that remind me that the developers are crazy and I shouldn't be taking any of this too seriously.


CHAPTER 4-2: WORSHIP AREA.

Not that it's easy to take death-ray lasers inside an ancient temple all that seriously. We've come a long way from the Arklay Mountains. No giant murderous statues yet, but you never know.

To get through this bit I have to rush from alcove to alcove, waiting for the laser to pass each time to avoid being cooked. The real trick is to figure out which of these paths is going to take me to the next emblem I need to open up the exit door.

Thankfully quest items do not take up inventory space any more, so backtracking to storage chests is no longer part of the experience, and this is about as close as the game comes to that good old fashioned Resident Evil puzzle solving.


BUT THEN.

Well okay it turns out that an actual mirror puzzle is actually the closest it gets to actual puzzle solving, actually. This is actually a really crucial place in Resident Evil lore that inspired the whole virus business in the first place, so I suppose it could've inspired the Umbrella Corporation's elaborate door locks as well.

I can't remember if this puzzle gets any more complicated in hard mode, but I found it absolutely effortless to get through on normal, even without a co-op partner shouting instructions from the sidelines. Could've done without the spiders maybe, but that's true in most situations.


CHAPTER 5-1: UNDERGROUND GARDEN.

Oh here's something I really should've mentioned earlier: Resident Evil 5 is not a cover shooter at all... except for the rare moments where it is. Well they've been rare so far, but now that the zombies have assault rifles I'm sure that'll change.

I can presumably lean back on any suitable wall in the game to take cover, but I've only noticed the prompt appearing once before, and that was way back in Kijuju docks. It offers no real advantage to me here, seeing as can only start aiming after I pop out, but I guess it's the only way I'll be able to duck behind those crates out there.

The funny thing is, I'll probably be fine standing right out in the open, because the enemies take about as long to get their laser pointer aimed on target as I do. I just need to make sure I'm a little faster (which is hard when I can barely see what my laser's pointed at half the time).

*** ENDING SPOILERS COMING UP NOW: CLICK HERE TO SKIP ***

CHAPTER 6-3: BRIDGE DECK, A FEW HOURS LATER.

Okay I'm skipping way ahead now as I don't want to spoil the whole game for you. Just the ending. Well, some of it anyway.

Turns out that our old friend Albert Wesker is behind everything (again), and this time he's got 'The Matrix' fighting skills and an awesome looking coat that I totally wish I owned. Most importantly though, he has a fantastic voice actor who manages to make lines like "complete global saturation" come off sounding... well, not menacing exactly. He sounds like he's auditioning to be a super villain, using every line he's given as a tool to show just how much of a tool he is.

Well here it is, the famous boulder punching scene. The QTEs are getting more obnoxious as the game goes on and this is an absolute pad murderer. Especially as I've had to repeat it several times, as first I got the buttons wrong, then I was too late, then I was too early... I suppose there's technically gameplay going on here, but this was miserable for me even before the repeated failure.

Oh by the way, did I mention that the last fight takes place in an active volcano? Not down the road from a volcano, or next to a magma flow, I mean right in the crater. We didn't even mean to come here, it was an accident! We were in a plane over the sea, we brought the thing down, and by pure chance we hit a volcano. And that's not even the most unbelievable part of this!

No the most incredible part is that anyone involved in making this game thought that circling around this asshole to shoot him in his weak points would be fun. I don't know, maybe it's better in co-op where players can walk to opposite sides of him, but right now I want to throw this game in a bloody volcano.

Well Sheva just ran out of ammo, so I guess it's all on me now. I wonder if I sell all my grenades I'll have enough to buy a rocket launcher next time around... oh hang on, he's finally gone down! I've actually finished a Resident Evil game all by myself, without a vastly more skilled player carrying me the whole way!

*** ENDING SPOILERS OVER ***

To be honest though, I didn't find normal mode to be all that punishing for the most part. It was the bloody QTE sequences that really got me. Well, them and the instant death crocodiles. I'm not saying I didn't find the game challenging, it was just a challenge that didn't kill me off entirely all that often.

But now I'm finally finished with the game and I can forget about it.

Except I'm not quite done with it yet, as I still haven't got an S grade on every chapter yet. Also I have all those unique treasure items and emblems left to get.

On top of that I haven't upgraded all my guns yet, which will then unlock new guns for me to upgrade. And when they're all maxed out I can unlock infinite ammo for them... just as I soon as I've earned enough points by completing stages. Then when that's done I can help my friends unlock all their bonuses in co-op.

The game might not be the longest in the series, but if you want excuses to replay levels it has got you covered. It's just a shame that some of the rewards are a bit of a let down...

I mean what that fuck is up with these costumes? All the outfits they could've give me, and that's what they went with? There's a couple more and they're not that great either, though Chris's S.T.A.R.S. uniform is cool at least.

Finishing the game also unlocks NEW GAME+, which lets me continue from the start with all the gear you've accumulated. Like I can at any time anyway. In fact it seems I'd have to deliberately sell all my stuff to ever get rid of it.

There's also a few utterly disappointing screen filters like black and white, and sepia, and I've finally unlocked the option to play as Sheva now.

Oh plus finishing the game also unlocked The Mercenaries mode, which is all about keeping kill streaks going and finding extra time.

I figured I'd play the marketplace map for a bit to get a B grade and unlock the next stage, to take a break from S ranking story chapters, but it wasn't until I finished a few rounds that I really grasped the truth of Mercenaries mode: the real Resident Evil 5 starts here. The game laughed at my best scores, handed me D grades, and basically told me to give up and go home. So I guess I will.


CONCLUSION

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I realise this may be a little bit controversial, but honestly... I think Sheva is actually a very good AI sidekick. At least she is on the lower two difficulties I played this on. I've heard complaints about her using up all the ammo and health items, but I found that I usually ran out before she did, and then she'd run over to hand me some extra bullets she'd found for the weapon I was using! And then I'd hit the button to say thanks, because that's the kind of teamwork I appreciate. I guess it's more accurate to say that she's as bad as I am, so we got along just fine. In fact now I want to see her team up with Leon or Barry in a sequel.

Here's some more opinions for you: was Capcom right to shift to a new genre to appeal to a wider audience for the core Resident Evil games? I'm going to say that on a 'making enough money to keep it profitable' level, that it was a sensible step to keep the income increasing to match the skyrocketing cost of competitive AAA development. But it kind of screwed over their fanbase in the process and that's not something a company wants to do if they can help it. When a series you're invested in takes a sharp deliberate turn down a path you don't enjoy, that's almost worse than it not continuing at all, especially if it's got an ongoing story and characters.

Ideally in my magical fantasy world where everyone gets what they want, they should've kept the numbered Resident Evil series as scary survival horrors of some sort, and had the third person action shooter games as a separate spin-off branch, like they did with the Survivor, Chronicles and Outbreak games. Yeah I know that horror games didn't seem so enticing to publishers back before Let's Plays and Twitch, but they could've just spent less money on the games. Horror's supposed to be relatively cheap, right?

But personally I'm happy Resident Evil 5 is what it is and I'm glad it looks like it cost a fortune, because I love the shit out of it. Well, most of it anyway; I'm not keen on the turret levels or the QTEs, and the ending chapter is the opposite of entertainment for me. But going around shooting Majini with a pistol is joy, even moreso in co-op, and I'm really sorry to old school Resident Evil fans for hijacking your franchise like this.

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