Resident Evil 5 (PS3/X360, 2009)

With the recent announcement of Resident Evil 6, I finally had the pressure on to get the platinum trophy on Resident Evil 5. This game has been something I've played with friends off and on for 2 and a half years now. Sometimes when I go for the platinum, it's a grind, sometimes it's for the sake of getting a platinum, but for the greatest of games it's all about wanting the platinum, to say you have fully experienced a game you love. Now, for those of you who don't know what a platinum is, games have recently, started a system of hidden rewards for doing things you may not try to do. I believe the purpose of this has been to make games more replay-able, and for me it has worked very well. Xbox 360 started off with Achievements and later the Playstation modified the format into trophies, which I personally enjoy more based on small details. The platinum trophy, only comes when you get EVERY trophy in the game (with the exception of post released downloadable content, cause I don't want that crap). Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that I wanted to squeeze every bit of life out of this game, and now I can say that I have.

Resident Evil 5 has been judged by many for being too action oriented for a series that defined the term survival horror. Fundamentally, the way of the old Resident Evil games was that you would find hardly any ammo, and the controls were horrible, leaving you totally horrified and vulnerable whenever zombies came at you. It really worked well and allowed for a lot of strategic gameplay, but it makes it hard to play those games in this day and age, based on how smooth controls have come. Resident Evil 4 changed everything and added more action and removed a lot of the horror, where you found yourself fighting giants and sea monsters...seriously! However it was universally praised for being an amazing game. The best of 2005 in fact, according to many.

Resident Evil 5, improved the gameplay making it less stressful, but still slightly impaired leaving you feeling claustrophobic at times and made a crucial error in making this game entirely coop. So much so, that if you are playing without a friend, you have a terribly controlled computer partner. This kills all scares completely as you are no longer walking through terror all alone. Because of that complaint this is a genuinely hated game by many...except for me. I love playing games with coop. Especially when it is split screen couch coop. Sure, the horror atmosphere is gone, but this is one of the best coop experiences that I have ever played. It has individual characters who are actually important to the story and it is fully built for it. That is what has made me play through this game so many times. Seriously, I've probably gone through the whole game about 6 times, because various different friends would want to play it with me.

My favorite thing this game had going for it, however, was it's unforgiving, matrix knock-off lead villain. Albert Whiskers...

Errrr... Albert Wesker.

This guy is so cool it's kinda funny. He can kick your ass, and you really don't stand a chance against him, because he keeps injecting himself with viruses to make him half mutated but not fully mutated (cause he's special). This makes him absurdly powerful, and half of the time, from the moment he shows up, you are
 trying to figure out how you could ever beat him. It's amazing to me that Capcom went with the weakness that they did for him, and I think it's flat out comedic gold. See those sunglasses he's wearing? Just kill the lights in the room you fight him in at the end of the game, and he'll walk around looking for you. This gives you a chance to hit him with a rocket launcher from behind. Seriously funny stuff! Kahn's weakness was his thirst for revenge. Wesker's weakness was the need to look super cool.

At this point, it's impossible to talk about Resident Evil 5 without mentioning the whole racism scandal. Let me see if you can figure this out. The game takes place in Africa... where people are being infected with a zombie-like virus on a grand scale. You're a white guy who's the member of a special ops team, who was sent in to stop it... do you see where this is going? I ask you, how could anyone argue with the fact that most of the infected would be black? Especially since a lot of the time, you are stumbling onto infected pockets of them who are more tribal. Don't get me wrong, the other half of the zombies, look like Saddam Hussein stand ins, but no one complained about that.

I figure the only way to get around that is to have your main character be a black person too, and that's what they did. Her name is Sheva, and quite honestly, she's treated very well by the story. You are also helped by an agent named Josh who is a black man. He too is a bad dude who saves you at times. I think the talk of this game being racist, is mostly coming from people who are looking for something to fight about. This is NOT a black person killing simulator!!! There is a really fun and interesting narrative, and quite frankly, I like it a lot more than Resident Evil 4, which I find nearly unplayable because of the left joystick aiming. 

If you like playing games with friends, that feature a storyline, look no further, and try to overlook the fact that it barely feels like Resident Evil 1-3 anymore. It's still a good game, if you can overlook the lack of being able to move and shoot at the same time.