RESIDENT EVIL 5
Xbox 360 version
By: Gustavo Lazo
Issue date: 4/28/09 Section: Entertainment
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Resident Evil 5 is the most gorgeous game on Microsoft's Xbox 360 console since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Its character designs are incredibly smooth in movement with the help of motion-capture technology. Its protagonists, Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar, are right out of Dolce & Gabbana ads. They are beautiful people immersed in gruesome and harrowing situations set in extraordinary, photorealistic representations of African shantytowns, villages, desert roads and mountains. Another African-set game, last year's Far Cry 2, flaunted equally astonishing parts of the continent with its detailed virtual grasslands, desert, and savanna environments. Far Cry 2 had the advantage of being a sandbox title, with nearly 20 square miles to explore according to its designers. Resident Evil 5 is the opposite in its linear path of storytelling and exploration.
The plot? Well, it would seem that Chris Redfield, the beloved Special Forces agent from Resident Evil and Code: Veronica, is sent as part of a U.N.-sponsored task force to apprehend an arms dealer selling, what else, but biological weapons on the African black market. Something goes terribly wrong and now the populace of the fictional nation Kijuju carries inside them a viral infection dubbed Las Plagas and it's up to our heroes to find out the truth. The plot is just as predictable, amusing, and dumb as its predecessors. Watching the awful truth unfold via cut-scenes is usually a treat despite how obtrusive they can be when all you want to do is open a door or pick up a key.
Resident Evil 5 follows a similar control scheme to Resident Evil 4. It makes use of the same over-the-shoulder camera. Its biggest change comes in the form of Sheva, who can be controlled by another player allowing for a cooperative mode with or without an internet connection. Items such as ammunition or gold for purchasing weapons and items can be picked up by either character and stored in a limited, nonsensical three-by-three nine-slot inventory system plaguing an otherwise fun experience.
The inventory system functions in real time, which means you are open to attack when you're browsing for another weapon. Some design choices are baffling, like why a bulletproof vest takes up one of the nine slots available to each character even though you can see your character wearing said vest. Why do several of the same-colored healing herbs take up different inventory slots when you can carry up to five of the same grenade in one slot? Why do you have a limit of only 250 handgun bullets a box when you could just as easily carry 700 and more in one slot?
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