Developer: Capcom
Publishers: Capcom
Platforms: PC
Genres: Third-person Shooter / Sci-fi Horror
Release Date: September 14, 2009

Overview

Resident Evil 5 is probably one of Capcom’s best ported games for the PC (Street Fighter IV is most likely decent as well, but I cannot say for sure because I did not play it). The game was out on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox360 back in March, but the PC version was delayed until September, and for a good cause. Capcom worked with a team from Intel to ensure that the playing experience will be the same as its console counterparts and sure enough, they have succeeded.

Resident Evil 5 has a heavy emphasis on partnership and cooperative gameplay. The box art shows this very clearly — Chris and Sheva are standing back-to-back, watching out for each other. Some events in the game will require both players to work together closely to solve a certain puzzle, or just simply to survive the whole ordeal together.

Story/Plot

Resident Evil 5 is a direct sequel to Resident Evil 4. You play as BSAA agents Chris Redfield or Sheva Alomar. They were deployed to Kijuju, a town in Africa, to uncover a terrorist bio-organic weapon threat. When they arrived in Kijuju, Chris and Sheva met up with an informant and things start to go downhill from there on because they were greeted by the locals’ hostile reactions due to a parasite being fed to them. As you battle your way through Kijuju, Chris and Sheva will be working closely together, helping and watching each other’s backs throughout the entire game.

Gameplay

The gameplay is the same as your typical third-person shooter. The camera will be hovering behind the character’s back in an over-the-shoulder perspective. The pace of the game is generally slow, though there are times when the game does move a little faster (those are the more intense parts!). This is because the animation of the characters in the game will cause them to come to a halt. You can’t move when you are: reloading your weapon, switching between weapons, equipping your knife, picking up items, and aiming with your weapon.

Also, climbing ladders or jumping over a low obstacle requires you to hit a key in order to do so, and then the character animation will take over. All these interactions in the game contributes to the slow pace because they give players a sense that they are not “progressing forward”. So if you’re a run-and-gun person, then you are looking at the wrong game.

Quick-Time Event:

Resident Evil 5 is not just going around and shooting whatever Majini that appears on your screen. Capcom added quick-time events to the game, giving it more variety. It’s nothing new though, as we have seen similar things in games like God of War or Dissidia Final Fantasy. However, it is still a nice addition.

The quick-time events are present in both the cinematic and in-game. For those in the cinematic, you just have to get your fingers ready on a few keys and hit the corresponding keys being flashed on the screen. You will not have any control over your characters. However, those in-game ones will happen while you are moving around with your character.

Inventory:

You have an inventory where you will be able to customize your loadout, purchase items and upgrades, and sell your items. If you are playing with another player, you will find out that it is very important to take note of your partner’s loadout. If both of you are holding a pistol and a machine gun, you will notice that you will be fighting for ammo during the game when the Majinis drop them. So it is important to do a little planning before jumping into the next stage.

Weapons:

There is a decent variety of weapons to choose from in Resident Evil 5. There are handguns (HG), shotguns(SG), machine guns (MG), sniper rifles (RIF), magnums (MAG), and more. However, you will find that you will only stick to a few of your favorite ones, though you have to go through a bit of trial and error at the beginning. Despite that, I will say that each weapon’s statistics are quite balanced.

If you search on the web for “the best weapons to use in RE5“, you will be met with different opinions. Different people have their own play style, so they have their own preference in their loadout. Other than the usual weapons, each weapon type have their own “super” weapon that you can unlock after you have fully customized one of the weapon(s) in that type.

Gameplay Modes:

There are three ways you can play the PC version — Singleplayer, 2-player online cooperative, and mercenaries. You will find yourself hardly touching singleplayer because it is more fun to play through the campaign missions with another person, instead of the AI which loves to go on suicide missions, wasting both your first aid sprays and ammo. However, that does not mean that singleplayer is totally useless. After you have unlocked unlimited ammo for your guns, singleplayer is a very good way to do some “farming”, because everything that you pick up will go to your inventory.

Mercenaries mode serves as some sort of mini-game where you have to survive hordes after hordes of Majinis in a given time limit. You can choose to play by yourself, or with another person online. Once again, it is more fun to play with another person.

Multiplay/Co-op:

Playing online with another person may be fun, however it can get extremely frustrating if you or your partner are still new to the game. Resident Evil 5 requires a certain level of understanding from players, because there are some missions in the game which are very confusing for newcomers, especially those with puzzles.

To make things worse, there is no in-game chat. You can’t just simply hit “Y” and type out the things that you want to say. You have to go through a very tedious process of hitting the “Home” key, which will launch the Games For Windows Live interface. From there, you have to select the “Players” tab where previous players that you have played with are recorded chronologically. You have to choose their username which will bring you to their profile page. Then you can finally click on something called “Send Message” where you will be able to PM the person. That is four long steps! The only communication that is in-game, are some of the command keys. But they are very basic commands like “Go!” or “Wait!“.

The game does allow voice-chat in-game, however unlike consoles which the microphone headset is given, you have to go out of your way to buy one. So there are not many people out there who plays this game on the PC with a microphone. Even if one of you do have a microphone, the game sometimes give off a weird sound when it is enabled. So far there are no known patches that Capcom is working on to fix this issue, however it is not really a big deal so it does not really matter whether or not it gets fixed.

So good luck trying to explain anything to your partner.

Visuals

Capcom has, without a doubt, took extra care in the visuals of the game. It is really difficult to find any visual flaws in it.

The textures look really crisp, sharp and real; the explosions are top-notch; even small things like dust particles in a little shack is note-worthy. If you are not busy killing Majinis or collecting loots, you will find yourself admiring the beautifully decorated environments with awesome lighting to give it a finishing touch. Quite a contradicting thing to say about a zombie-filled African town don’t you think?

System Performance

As this is the PC version of the game, it is important to know how well does it run on a computer. Well great news is that you do not need a high end PC to run this game on high settings! With just an average rig, you can enjoy the amazing visuals at a decent frame rate. That may sound good and everything, however there is one bad point to this. You will have to deal with countless “Now Loading” screens.

Each loading screen usually takes up to about 5-10 seconds or more, depending on the processing speed of both players’ computers. Sometimes it is irritating because you have to wait 10 seconds for the game to load a cut scene that you are already planning to skip, and after skipping it you have to wait another 10 seconds for it to load the next part of the mission. I am not really affected this, but there are some people out there who are.

The Verdict

Resident Evil 5 is an amazing and polished game with breathtaking cinematic. The game does suffer from a few problems like amount of loading screens and partner frustration, however they are quite minor and can be easily overlooked when things in the game are running smoothly again. The story will last you around 2 – 5 hours depending on your play style. After completing the story you will find yourself revisiting the campaign over and over again to upgrade and purchase better weapons and unlockables.

There are exclusive contents for the PC version, however they are not good enough for a person who already own the console version of the game to buy it again. For people like me who only have a PC, then you are in for one hell of a ride.

+ Stunning visuals and special effects.
+ The characters are very detailed, and have very natural movements.
+ With a high replay value, the game will offer you hours and hours of fun.
+ Always nice to know that someone is there to cover your ass.
+ The controls are translated well to the mouse & keyboard.

- Can be extremely frustrating when playing with people of different skill levels.
- Have to go through a ton of loading screens.
- The game’s generally slow-paced gameplay may not appeal to some people.

Zotaku’s Rating:

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4 / 5

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