kinda funny that they didnt learn a single lesson from re4 other than "do this again" lol.

pretty damn solid co-op game, but just like RE4 it gets worse and worse as it morphs more and more into a generic military shooter. but this time it:
- has co-op (pretty fun and clearly the highlight here by far, although i hear it's really boring/borderline unplayable in singleplayer, so this might be something you only bother with if you've got a friend who also has it)
- turns into call of gears of war way earlier than re4 does--whereas the island section of re4 (also unanimously the worst section) set the mood for the next 6 or 7 years of shooters, re5 takes inspiration from everything taking inspiration from re4 but still in the intentionally clunky tank control framework, that works perfectly for the early sections and works less and less as the game goes on
- has a worse inventory system
- has even worse & bullet spongy boss fights. we had to just rocket launcher like 3 of them to get past em lol
- is buggier than even kane & lynch 2 on PC (it was mostly fine, just really really clunky UI, but our last 2 sessions bugged out a ton and the final one crashed to desktop several times in multiple different spots)
- is also really, really, racist, to a point where its almost kinda mindboggling how something this racist got pushed to production lol. like i'm talking minstrelsy, 1930s mickey mouse levels of racist, at points. much ink has been spilled about this, but yeah, it is very racist (do they ever even say where they're supposed to be any more specific than just "Africa", a giant continent with like a third of the entire world's population living in it???)

there's a lot of things to complain about here, but in all honesty, most of this, gameplay-wise, is quite literally just "re4 but co-op and slightly worse in a bunch of aspects. and also racist". on co-op the gameplay is still fun to execute for the vast majority of its time, and really only starts to get bad enough to consider bad in a few particularly egregious sections in the last couple of chapters. can imagine this is absolutely dogshit with an AI partner though, lol

(played with @JunKami)

Personally the most bored I've been while playing a RE game. I cannot talk about RE6 as this was the last straw for me, but think about everything you like about RE4, and imagine a game that doesn't do anything to improve on that formula, but worse, sometimes it managed to make a few steps back:

Core gameplay is the same, visual are worse, barely looks like an horror game thanks to the generic pìss filter, co-op was unnecesary and broke immersion, partner's AI is braindead and vastly inferior to Ashley (at least you could put her in the Trash where she belongs), weapon shop has no charm, it just appears at the end of each chapter out of nowhere, the inventory system is barely put together and extremely limited, the gore is abysmal, might as well not be there, most weapons feel generic, the turret sections ruin the pace of the game, they happen during some bosses too, which are mid at best, the stupid quick time events during cutscenes are still here for some reason.

Seriously, I'm struggling to find something I could call an improvement over RE4, I guess a prompt for attacking downed enemies? I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel here, since this is something one could do in the previous game as well w/out a prompt. Let's be honest here for a minute, the few people who overhype this thing like there is no tomorrow aren't exactly RE fans, they're mostly meatheads coming from CoD or whatever other game looking for some couch co-op in an era where every videogame was a carbon copy online FPS, heck even the developers themselves admitted they wanted the Call of Duty audience so, yeah... good for them. Now they're gonna remake this and who knows wth they'll cook, not looking forward to it. For any actual RE fan, you'll most definitely have more fun playing the previous game.

Looking back at this game in 2024, we will probably see it in a different light. Nowadays, the name Resident Evil has a different meaning. We have first person games in the mainline series, we have lame spin offs like raccoon city, even the remakes have changed the way the games play. I think people were perhaps too harsh on the game when it came out. The criticisms of it being too action orientated and not a real Resi game were never really thrown at Resi 4, so I was kinda surprised how angry people were about the action oriented approach of Resi 5. Plus the coop play and AI character was really not that bad. Yes Sheva was a greedy bitch and would use all the ammo and eat any egg as soon as she saw it, but she was pretty effective in combat. Don't get me started on the boulder scene. Cheesy dialogue and lame cute scenes are peak Resi, so the more the better for me, Jill Sandwich anyone? Resi 5 does have a different feel when we compare it to the original resident evil, but so do 3 and 4 and I have enjoyed them all. Now, I'm not going to run through what Resi 5 is, as most people probably know by now. I really would encourage you to play it. The issues with the game have been overblown and most importantly it's fun to play. Popping zombies with headshots. Hacking snakes with your dagger. Sheva going ape-shit on a group of enemies with her shotgun. I had so many memorable moments playing through this. A great game, particularly if you have a friend to play through it with. Stupid fun and one that should not be taken too seriously.