Resident Evil 5

Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Genre: Survival Action/3rd Person Shooter
Release Date: 3/13/2009 on XBox360 & PS3
Release Date: 9/18/2009  on PC
Players: 1-2 Players/Multiplayer
Engine: MT Framework-Enhanced with Havok Physics
MSRB: Mature 17+
MSRP: 49.99$

Don't buy it!

The PC port for this game earns the Steamer Badge!

Here is another review of a game that has been on the shelf for 2.5 months already. Were catching up over here at the Ezfactory. Mixing in a little “been out a bit now” with “just came out”. Anyways, the Resident Evil 5 (aka Bio-hazard 5 in Japan) release rides on the back of all that has been previously released as most franchises do.   Capcom has a loyal group of zombie fans who will scoop it up despite it nearly being a carbon copy of 4, which was actually a fun game.   Have you ever gone to a Christmas dinner and felt like you were just served what was left over from Thanksgiving?  Resident Evil 5 is all about leftovers & turkeys!  Tweaked gameplay, slightly smarter AI, improved merc mode, we move from small fictional village in South America to small fictional village in Africa, and well, I’ve seen it all before.   This is another feeble attempt to convince consumers to shell out 50 bucks for this game! (note to self, it worked really well!) (Mercenary mode is where players compete against the clock to try and kill as many enemies as possible and is a lot of fun, but for full price it’s not enough!).  Give me something fresh and new already! Oh wait, why would Capcom do that when droves of Resident Evil fans willingly shell out 50 bones for the same product time after time! This game is great in an arcade setting, but on the PC, we deserve better! Porting to the PC was a bad idea for this title because it’s a horrible gaming experience.  The game lacks a cohesive storyline which presents more like the same mindless dribble we have seen for years now.   Its clunky controls need to be simplified and ridiculous rewards updated, (since when does a mutant dog carry a small pouch of gold!?-seriously!), and graphically, for where we are on that time-line, this game just ain’t cutting the mustard! This title is not polished,  looks rushed and is weak at best!  Nevertheless, let’s break it down.

The game takes place in fictional Kijuju, Africa supposedly 4 years later than RE4. You are dropped into a lawless shithole of a nation where 5 goons are beating the stank out of some guy they have locked up in a burlap sack with cricket paddles, and wooden stakes (alright, that looks like fun, can I have a go?). They stop to give you the evil eye which normally means I’d have to share my ammo with their torso’s but the game won’t allow you to do that. (lucky them) You start out as Chris Redfield, ex-STARS agent and team up with Sheva Alomar. I make use of her inventory and make her my medic. Honestly, as far as programmed sidekicks go, she isn’t half bad and she helps carry the load in all areas. On the Xbox360 & PS3 versions of this game Sheva is also your partner, but at anytime she can be controlled by a 2nd player as part of the games drop in/drop out co-op game play. A feature I really like in console games!

Buyer beware-renders are much nicer than actual in game footage!

The inventory seems odd. I advise you don’t try to access it in-game. It isn’t simple and quick to manipulate and everything around you doesn’t pause, so mobs will easily get to you. There is nothing unique about this process. Standard weapons like gun, rifle, sniper rifle, machine gun, shotguns, rocket launchers, grenades, ect, ect! If your playing the game on the PC like I am, you will need to think about how to evenly distribute the upgrades for these weapons you can purchase for both Chris & Sheva. Upgrades are like accuracy or damage or clip or magazine load amount. One aspect I like about the game is that it is hard! There are 3 difficulty settings with the middle of the 3 being normal. Normal is hard and it will take some time to adjust to the buttons the game calls for in combat settings. Setting it to hard, which I do for every game I play right at the get go, was impossible to play, and that was frustratingly fun! In total, this HUD looks old school to me: Turkey trimmings at Christmas dinner! Burbelflickle!

The Inventory HUD looks ripped out of a game from 10years ago!

The game has some cool bosses. I especially like the chainsaw wielding zombie. The first boss you face is a hulk of an executioner dude wielding an axe hammer wrapped in chains so large it’s pretty cool. Understanding how to defeat your enemies in this game is easy. They all have flaws and they are plain and simple to see. Whether it be a pause they have leaving the opening for you to do your damage, or a fiery furnace to lure them into before you roast them up like a marshmallow under a flame-thrower, the simplicity of this game, whether I like it or not, has sold globally like hot cakes! 5 million units since march of this year in total, and is the best selling release in the 7 titles released under the RE franchise tag. This is before the PC release to boot. If I had my choice on what platform to play this game I’d have to experience the arcade version first and then I’d go to the 360. I would not play this game on the PC, and after those 5million units sold by September of this year, I’d love to see how many were sold on the PC since then.

Chainsaw boss is pretty kick ass!

In summary, zombies are the popular bad guy these days. Everyone likes a zombie, and it’s a great theme right now. In fact, cities are having zombie crawls where people show up to an area dressed as zombies and just hang out and have a good time. Zombiemania! Zombie movie after zombie movie is made and people flock to it. Even zombie costume sales during Halloween were breaking all-time sales records with merchants in 2008-09. People are crazy for zombies-Capcom knows it to! It is hard to argue with 5 million units sold, and on anyone’s score card in this industry that’s a grand slam! No doubt Capcom shareholders are laughing all the way to the bank. There is no denying the game is fun to play (at very limited times) because I try to make every bullet count. However, that same fun teeters on the high-wire with boring and redundant all too quickly. This game rocked 5 years ago and that is an eternity in game years, but the Resident Evil Franchise is a well branded dead horse that still produces. I give this game a 5.0 out of 10 because 5 million units sold is nothing to shake a stick at, but any claims that this game is a masterpiece are totally absurd. The game isn’t a total wash though. It is long, and there are definitely fun parts. You get to kill a lot of rather intelligent zombies, and cool bosses with destructive weaponry. Hence, this game is certainly no Terminator Salvation, but it’s also not “Left for Dead” either, not even close, which is a great game and an example of fresh new zombie ideas fused with awesome gameplay, smooth mechanics,  & insatiable level design. Bottomline:  Don’t buy the PC version of this game.  Go get “Left for Dead 1 or 2″ instead if your looking for some Zombie action on the PC! I didn’t play the Xbox360 or PS3 version of this game, and and this is not a review for those ports.   In addition to 5.0 game score, this game gets the steamer badge for its PC port.  Go put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. evil Zulu warlord on the blow horn!

Capcom's Resident Evil Franchise has long been a focal point game for critics who point at violence in games affecting the development of children. Those arguments are losing ground in 2009.

Get outta my face with that breath!

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Box Art for the PS3: COD MW2

Title: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Infinity Ward
Platforms: PS3/XBox360/PC
Release Date: 11/10/2009
Genre: FPS
ESRB: Mature 17+
MSRP: 59.99$

Game score of 9

Badge o Money: This Game is "Money in the Bank" Good!

CoD: MW2 is one of the best games I have ever played. The First-Person-Shooter genre is my favorite and has been since I played Battlezone in the arcades as a pip squeak in the early 80’s. I have both 360 and PS3 versions and they’re close to identical. The one difference being that I was able to play online, Day 1, with the 360/Xbox Live while the PS3 servers were very temperamental later that night. No biggie, as they are both working now. Graphically, it’s top-notch. About as good as it gets! Would I prefer some more in-depth environmental damage modeling, sure, but the game’s developer, Infinity Ward, has stated they are not interested in including level deformation if it detracts from the single player experience or the intrinsically-designed multiplayer levels. If you want that style of graphical-gameplay capability, there’s always Red Faction Guerrilla or Battlefield: Modern Combat.

Achievement Unlocked-Yes!

My major (i.e. only) graphics complaint is the lack of gore. The game *is* rated M for mature, so it’s not that Infinity Ward was looking to keep it clean for the Teen rating. For a game that is all about graphic violence, mowing down thousands of NPCs, and shooting other online players in the head, why Infinity Ward continues to ignore realistic gore is beyond me. In an effort to not offend the easily-offendable, just include an option to turn on/off the gore, like they did with the controversial “No Russian” single-player mission. I would prefer that headshots and grenades gore the player models, as seen in the Treyarch-developed Call of Duty: World at War. There’s just something satisfying about popping off skullcaps or chucking a grenade into a group of enemies and watching the gibs fly. Oooh, that reminds me, time to take my pills.

The audio is excellent, although, I believe that the only thing more annoying than all the 8-year-old kids online, screeching constant, high-pitched N-bombs through my headset is hearing the “Cover me – I’m reloading!” audio clip 100 times per match. No, I take it back. This game fills me with the desire to punch these kids square in the mouth hard enough to cause irreversible brain damage, then pull a Bob Barker on their parents by having them spayed and neutered. Introducing kids to violence at whatever age is up to the parent, and I can accept that, but to allow them to act like a total douche bag at such an early age further confirms that Mike Judge is a genius and his “Idiocracy” movie is not a fictional comedy, but a visionary documentary. Now, where’d those damned pills go….

"Get up Solider"

Gameplay-wise, it’s got a lot for everyone, as long as everyone loves shooters. There’s an engrossing single player campaign, that is full of silly plot holes, but who cares when you’re in the middle of World War 3? The story is out of a cheesy 80’s action flick with the visuals of current day blockbusters. I’m halfway through the campaign, taking a pause to work on my multiplayer leveling, and I am impressed. It’s great. The campaign could be even sweeter if it included Co-Op, but the great “Special Ops” mode should quell that thirst. I am a bit miffed there were no 4-player Spec-Ops levels though; a 2 vs 2 snowmobile race, with a driver and gunner on each, would have been most epic.

Snowmobile drive by's

This game is really about the online. There are many different game types; like straight deathmatch, capture the flag, search and destroy, headquarters, blah blah blah. They’re all great in their own way. Also included this time around, maybe as a way to interest players from the SOCOM or Gears of War universe, are a few 3rd-person view multiplayer modes. I’m not a fan of them though, as the camera is stiffly-mounted behind the player (giggity!) and not as free-flowing as it is in the Gears series.  There’s also a great Role-Playing element within the multiplayer involving leveling up your player using a points-based system. Depending on how many enemies you kill per match, how you killed them, and other task-specific objectives you complete, you’re awarded points to help you level your character and your weapons earn their own specific awards to specific in-game items or abilites, etc. It’s very engrossing and I’ve already had a few sleepless nights just trying to unlock my character’s next level, earning a new gun or ability/perk, grenade type, or a sweet gun-attachment!

More toys please!

New to Modern Warfare 2 are selectable Kill and Death streaks. Get anywhere from 3 to 25 kills in a row without dying and you can unlock UAVs (to see enemy locations on the maps), predator missile strikes, attack helicopter support, and even a game-ending “nukular” attack. If you die more than 3-4 times in a row (which happens to me frequently), you can unlock the ability to steal your killer’s weapons and perks for a life, gain a short health-boost, or drop a live grenade the next time you’re killed. It helps even out the playing field a bit, but not by much. This game demands some practice. If you only pick it up and play 30 minutes a week, you’re going to get slaughtered online.

This game is all about the online play! Come get some!

Between both the 360 and PS3 version, I’ve logged over 30 hours of online gameplay. I still have a ways to go before I max out my online persona. Even after I hit the highest level, I can still work on completing every gun challenge or choosing to “prestige” and start all over from scratch (with a fancy icon next to my name and an extra custom-weapons slot to use).
It’s tough to complain about the multiplayer portion of this game. There are a few glitches I’ve noticed in the game. Some random teammates in an online match were talking to each other about doing a map glitch to get “outside” of the level. I didn’t see where they were or what they did, but map glitchers are lame. Do that stuff in a private match, not in public and ruin everyone’s fun. Also, there’s a weird glitch that causes you to explode when you are killed if you cook a grenade, then switch to your 2nd weapon rocket launcher. This glitch turns you into a suicide bomber; which is great when bum-rushing an enemy-infested control point in some of the objective-based multiplayer games, but an unintended ability nonetheless. These are the types of issues Infinity Ward will find and fix with frequent updates, so no major worries.

Some folks may not be a fan of paying for DLC, but I am already looking forward to a new map pack. Most of the default maps are great, but there are 2 or 3 I could do without (pretty much because I suck at them). Also, I’d love to see some new weapons added in a DLC. The FAL is great, but I want my G3! Also, the sniper rifle section is lacking some of the basics (where are the Dragunov and R700?)
I could write 15 pages about how great this game is, but if you’ve reached this part of the review, thanks for reading and now go out and buy this game. Now!  You won’t be sorry.
Hit me up on XboxLive or the PSN. My tag is: SinDonor.

Can't this thing go any faster?!

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