What if RE4 was filled with mediocre ideas, a worse inventory management system, but covered up with a really fun co-op component? You'd get RE5, a game that solidified the downfall as Resident Evil as a horror game to any extent. Resident Evil was no longer the trendsetter of the gaming industry, but rather a trend chaser that with every entry, seemed to completely lose its identity. Atleast the co-op can be really fun, and combat wise, it's still RE4 under all the 7th gen piss filter makeup.

Thankfully, with Resident Evil back on track, RE5 doesn't need to a great "Resident Evil" . It can now be praised as just a fun co-op experience, no strings attached. But there's no doubt this was the beginning of weird age of the Resident Evil franchise. Regardless this is still one of my favorite Co-op games.

BringBackSheva/10

played this with the wonderful @LenaRosalie and it was a delightful time. resident evil 5 is essentially re4's less cool brother who wants to be just like them but ultimately doesn't have the sauce. it starts out promising with the african setting being fairly unique, but after that it quickly takes a dive into boring sepia and brownish mush. probably the biggest difference in the design ethos of 4 and 5 is that 4 defined every action game that would follow, while 5 simply followed the trend of seventh generation blockbuster gaming, complete with clunky cover mechanics and the glorious Piss Filter. even despite this, it's still a good time, even if it feels like a remarkably safe follow up to re4, but then again, what wouldn't be?

also this game is so racist lol

Having now just beat the game, my only thoughts can be surmised as a resounding "eh". I wouldn't say that Resident Evil 5 is a bad game, it's far from the worst experience I've had in a game. But let me be clear, at the end of the day, this game is just okay at best.
I think I can describe the gameplay in just a single sentence. It's just worse RE4. It basically repeat a lot of RE4, and changes some stuff to be worse, and for me, primarily the inventory system. RE4 introduced one of the best inventory systems in any game I played, and removing it in RE5 just felt wrong. As well, the boss fights were a mixed bag, either being pretty decent, to just somewhat annoying. I particularly hated the boss fight in 5-2.
And of course, the most notable thing about RE5 is the Co-Op. And I gotta say, for the portions of the game I was able to play in Co-Op was really fun! I played with some random individual, and it was a genuinely fun experience. We figured out ways of communicating, and were able to stay on the same page even though we couldn't talk to each other directly. It was easily the highlight of my time with the game. However, with that in mind, I can't recommend playing this game alone. The partner AI can be a little weird at times, especially when you're trying to manage inventory. The game is so much better with someone else playing with you.
Resident Evil 5 has one glaring issue with it though that just keeps it from being as good as other Resident Evil titles. There's a lack of overall substance that keeps this game from really being interesting to me. Barely anything really felt remarkable to me, and a lot really blurred together. Which makes it worse when the second half of the game (Specifically 4-1 to 5-3) dragged on for a while. And the game doesn't really have much of a style to substitute for its lack of substance. So aside from a few moments, this game just felt wholly unremarkable.
I don't hate Resident Evil 5, and I don't love it either. I had some fun, but ultimately this game just felt like one of the most average games I've ever played. I'm just glad I was able to punch that boulder.

SHEVA
HURRY
HURRY
SHEVA
COME ON
ROGER
CHRIS
HURRY

It’s really fun until the guys with guns start showing up. The quality of the game dips pretty hard at that point. Additionally, as fun as it is, it’s very similar to 4, for better or worse. I find the writing to be disappointing after 4 as well. Gone is the goofiness of 4; it’s replaced by a much flatter script overall.

I wanna shout out how beautiful this game still is, though. I genuinely like the green filter. It adds a lot of character. It’s clearly made with it in mind. And I also think this has some of the best motion blur in a game. It looks awesome. Things like this draw a lot of ire from gamers, but they can be used well, and I think the implementation here is proof of that.

It’s a great romp, particularly with a friend. Definitely recommend.

Resident Evil 5 reafirma a tese proposta pelo seu predecessor que prega, que nos vídeo games, a continuação de uma série deve se dar através da perpetuação de signos e paralelos dramáticos, não se limitando unicamente melhorias em mecânicas ou mesmo em lógicas de game design já executadas em títulos anteriores. Nesse sentido, os personagens, os cenários, o enredo e as formas de representação mantêm vivo o espírito da série. A tradição absurdista inaugurada pela explosão da bomba sobre Racoon City no terceiro título da saga encontra um novo patamar no quinto título, que, tendo as obras subsequentes como referência, significa um degrau nesse aspecto que viria a ser intensificado nos próximos lançamentos, no entanto, ao invés de representar uma mera extrapolação do gênero de horror, o jogo lança mão da cultura do cinema de ação sem qualquer resquício de pudor, diferente do título anterior(RE4), que se mostra hesitante sobre suas passagens de terror de sobrevivência e ação, não assumindo de forma plena nenhum desses espectros, talvez seja essa a fórmula do seu sucesso, que, no entanto, seu sucessor se recusa a replicar.

Cabe compreender, também, que o jogo existe num contexto de boom de jogos de tiro em terceira pessoa, estilo que, por sinal, Resident Evil 4 foi o predecessor, séries como Gears of wars, GTA, Dead Space, e outros títulos mais genéricos figuravam como alguns dos principais destaques da sétima geração de consoles, e pode-se entender o aprofundamento do caráter de ação da saga como uma consequência de seu tempo, seria estranho caso a série da capcom se recusasse a aproveitar a tendência de design que ela mesmo criou. Entretanto, não se trata apenas de surfar na onda, mas apresentar a joia do gênero e a experiência co-op mais bem lapidada até então na indústria, e aí se encontra a maior virtude da série, que não busca se concentrar em uma única filosofia de jogos, mas expandir suas possibilidades ao longo da infinidade de possibilidades que a linguagem dos vídeo games apresenta, valendo-se das tendências existentes e apresentando-as à sua maneira.

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.

I don't care what anyone says about this game - playing RE5 is a damn good time.

It's cheesy, hilarious, not scary in the slightest, doesn't feel like Resident Evil at all, but somehow, someway, it doesn't matter. You play this game cooperatively with a friend or family member, and you'll have a blast. I mean, it is essentially RE4 co-op. What's not to love?

OK, I get it... I've never played this game solo (and I never will), so I don't know what that single player experience is like at all. I'm sure it is frustrating relying upon an AI partner, and not nearly as fun...so my advice is don't play it solo!

Instead, grab a friend, kick back a few brewskis, punch a couple boulders, and have a great time!

Resident Evil 5 tenta ser bom, no começo ele relembra muito a fórmula clássica da franquia e tenta causar ao mínimo um suspense pra logo em seguida jogar tudo fora e focar só na ação.

O jogo é ok. O inventário tem um design horrível e é totalmente não-funcional, as armas e a loja de armas é muito ruím também, ao ponto de a maioria delas mesmo as mais end games não servirem pra muita coisa (nem a Rocket Launcher é tão útil, visto que eu vi uma tentativa de matar o Wesker usando ela e não teve efeito nenhum).

A história é bem legal, os personagens são bastante carismáticos e também adiciona mais lore a acontecimentos da franquia, explicando coisas que foram ignoradas e ficaram sem explicação em alguns jogos anteriores.

A gameplay é... Divertida. Ao menos até certo ponto, pois em poucas horas o jogo vai ficando enjoativo.

O jogo não é ruím, mas também não é bom, ele tenta se vender como um survival horror, mas se perde muito nesse caminho e acaba ficando totalmente em uma ação que chega a ser hilária de tão esdrúxula.

Uma dica, pra melhorar a experiência eu recomendo jogar em co-op com algum amigo, isso deixa o jogo 5x mais divertido (te amo Sapo por sofrer comigo).

There’s something very darkly funny about the trophy for collecting all treasures being called “they belong in a museum” which is a line from Indiana Jones - a character that famously seemed to disregard various international laws regarding the transport and sale of antiquities - often behaving more like a grave robber than an archaeologist. Either intentionally or not this draws attention to the fact that Chris spends a lot of this game stealing jewels and precious relics from innocent mind controlled villagers so he can sell them on the black market in order to buy better guns to kill said villagers with. I love the idea of someone slipping in that trophy name to draw attention to this and find it darkly funny that someone could potentially manage to select that trophy name without realizing this would be the effect.

Totally agree with everything said about this game re: racism and poorly aged 7th gen trends. It seems very clear that the developers didn’t actually do much research into their setting or try to treat it in a respectful manner. One of the most obvious elements of this is that the game takes place in an unspecified Western African country but everyone is speaking Swahili which isn’t widely spoken in that region. This is like such a basic error that could have been avoided by a simple google search. Decide what real western African country this is going to be loosely based on, do a Google search for what languages are spoken in that country, and then translate enemy dialogue and monster names into one of those languages. Depending on what Western African country the setting is based on they could have even had enemies speaking French or English. Would have probably at least been a bit easier for the devs to get translated if that was a concern. Also would have avoided making one specific group feel singled out by their language being selected as that of the enemies you kill during the game if that was a concern as well.

My first impulse is to assume this sort of thing is just laziness and not feeling the setting deserves serious research but it’s also possible the devs were fully aware of all the inaccuracies in the game but decided to go with them because they would feel more stereotypically African to mainstream audiences. This possibility also makes a lot of sense to me and would explain why the setting feels more like Africa as a monolith as opposed to one of the many distinct and culturally different regions of the continent.

There’s something to be said for the main plot and conflict in this game attempting to be anti-racist by having the plaga and orobouros infections being a result of colonialism, but this ultimately isn’t particularly effective. Despite any potential good intentions on the part of the developers you can’t tell a compellingly anti-racist story without giving the subject matter the respect and research it deserves. If this sort of well researched depth and respectfulness was attempted by the dev team it certainly doesn’t show in the final product.

Still managed to have a fun time with it though mostly due to the presence of my beloved Wesker and the gameplay which is similar to RE4 and fun because of it but overall inferior due to some alterations in enemy behavior and level design. This is overall a much faster paced game than RE4 with movement and controls that feel more in line with typical 7th gen 3rd person shooters. You still can’t move while shooting but you are more agile in this game and generally don’t feel as vulnerable. The slow and at times awkward shooting controls in RE4 are one of the things that makes it unique and keeps it in line with the disempowering survival horror elements of its predecessors despite being much more action oriented. RE5 is a straight up action game on the other hand, and there’s a decent case to be made for calling it a 3rd person cover shooter. There were maybe one or two instances of contextual cover shooting in RE 4 but it’s all over the place here. This is mostly due to the large presence of enemies with guns in RE5’s final 3rd - something that would be unheard of in RE before RE4 decided to introduce a single very rarely implemented enemy with a mini gun. In RE5’s latter levels you’ll end up fighting as many assault rifle wielding Majini as you do ones armed with melee weapons or grenades. This shift overall makes RE5 feel like a typical 7th gen cover shooter but with an RE plot and a few mechanics carried over from RE4. Thankfully it’s pretty good at being just that and a fun time overall. Just probably important for fans to realize that this is the case before playing.

It’s also important to know that this is very much a game designed with co-op in mind and will probably be the most fun if played that way. A lot of the bosses require you and your partner Sheva to coordinate your strategy. For instance one player needs to distract a boss while the other shoots the weak spot on its back. This sort of strategizing is much harder and at times almost impossible when playing solo - I found the boss fight with the flamethrower to be incredibly frustrating for this reason.

That said, solo play works pretty well - significantly more so than I was expecting. Your AI companion is actually pretty smart and good at the game and I encountered only one instance where Sheva’s AI fucked up and caused her to do something really stupid or annoying. The AI companion is also generally good at handling most of the segments of the game where you and your partner are forced to do two different things to defeat a boss or solve a puzzle. There are only a couple instances where this isn’t the case, which are frustrating, but again this happened far less than I was expecting. I still would have preferred playing this game solo or with a mostly inactive companion like Ashley from RE 4 but Sheva is overall well implemented, which is rarely the case for an AI companion as central to gameplay as she is. It’s abundantly clear that the designers wanted to make this an experience where solo play as well as co-op would be excellent. This definitely doesn’t feel like a co-op experience where the option to play solo was lazily tacked on and plainly not the intended way to play the game. Both solo and co-op feel equally valid for RE5. The only thing I really felt was missing about the AI partner in this game was the ability for the player to give them more specific commands. This game definitely could have used the option to tell your AI companion which weapon to use or to ping an enemy for them to concentrate fire on or tell them how much to conserve ammo or healing items in their inventory. Games with AI companions have been giving players these options for decades and I have no idea why they weren’t present here. On the bright side like I said before Sheva is programmed to act like a player that’s legitimately good at RE5 so letting her do her own thing doesn’t cause any major issues - just ocasional annoyances and the need for the player to find work arounds to get her to use a specific weapon in her inventory.

Honestly don’t know who I’d recommend this to. I feel very conflicted about this game. It does a few things really well and I certainly had fun with it but it has some pretty massive flaws, and loses a lot of what made previous Resident Evil games - 4 especially - so charming and unique. RE 5 feels pretty bland and forgettable at times. I can definitely understand all of this compelling quite a few people to never bother trying this one out.

Really interested to see if Capcom tries to remake this game and improve on its flaws. Gameplay, atmosphere, character, and writing can all definitely be improved, but I can’t see how they could possibly fix the issues this game has with racism and lack of respect for its setting and subject matter, which is sort of baked into a lot of the core plot and mechanics of the game.

I will say first off that the co-op mode has certainly saved this game for me. I got to play this over the last week or so with my boyfriend and I had a wonderful time going through this game with him, if it hadn't been me and him I feel like this game would have been miserable. This game is so clearly designed with co-op in mind which is great for me but I can imagine it creates a miserable experience for others. It controls well, the first few chapters are solid and the last few at least have some fun, absurd cutscenes. However, this is about where the compliments end.

The game definitely stagnates towards its conclusion. Boss fights are needlessly convoluted and underexplained, for a game in which the puzzles are basically the equivalent of telling a baby to put the round shape in the round hole it really does not care to give you a guess at how to deal with the penultimate Wesker fight. It does a really strange job of balancing resources and the endless amounts of guns it gives you especially in the latter portion of the game is confusing considering the guns are usually worse than the ones you have already had a chance to upgrade.

I think the latter frustration is what I'm left with here but the early game is legitamately quite fun and I wouldn't dissuade anyone from playing it I'm just glad I got to play through it with my boyfriend!

This is a pretty fun game. Played it with Mr. Troy and we both liked it pretty much the same amount I think. We did have different backgrounds though, as I'm pretty sure this was his first Resident Evil game. I've played quite a few though including 4 and it's remake. This works pretty well as a sequel to that game, but if you're expecting nearly the same quality of that game, you're pretty much just gonna have a bad time. It is significantly more shallow and quite a bit easier due to the insane over-abundance of ammo. I was pretty varied throughout the entire playthrough, trying to use different guns at all times, and by the time of the final boss I had accumulated around 25 Rifle ammo, 100 pistol ammo, 40 shotgun, and around 15 magnum ammo. Troy spent all his money like every sub-chapter on explosive rounds for the grenade launcher though. He pretty much only used that and the stun rod when they both became available and there was a LOT of friendly fire. The strategy was pretty effective though so I can't exactly complain. Next, this game does have some pretty crazy difficulty spikes towards the end. For example, the first Wesker fight took Troy and I an hour, and the final boss had this mashing sequence we had to potentially cheat to get out of and he still had tons and tons of health once we did it the other way. There was also this really slow and frustrating puzzle around halfway through the game that involved lasers and mirrors and if the laser touched you a single time you would die immediately. It got pretty annoying at times.

Overall even though it took us over (RESIDENT EVIL) 5 months to finish, it was a pretty fun time. There's some good moments in the level design, and Troy and I are certain that some of the late game stuff is directly inspired by Twin Snakes. I recommend this game if you like third person shooters and have a friend to play with, but I can't promise the game would be too fun solo.

Troy's Review: https://backloggd.com/u/madeinheathen/review/1513236/