Resident Evil 5

THE BAD:

• Annoying enemy characters, and they tend to get more annoying as the game goes on.
  
• One thing that hugely disappointed me about the game is, it's no longer a horror, but much more action-based.
  
• Your partner can get on your nerves sometimes if you are not playing co-op, as Sheva/Chris (depending on who you pick) tends to go missing sometimes.
  
• A lot of the storyline enemy characters are repetitive and boring.

SUMMARY:
The first time I ever played this game was when my cousin brought it around to my house quite a while back when he was staying over. I was planning on picking the game up myself, but since he had it over it was pretty handy that I didn't. The fact that he was there to help me do co-op campaign was probably the main reason I continued to play the campaign because if I did it on my own, I think I would have got frustrated very quickly.

When I first got to play it, I really enjoyed it. The first three chapters of the game are really good in my opinion and definitely the most enjoyable. I played the demo before the game came out, so I was a little experienced with two levels that were in these chapters. As the game goes on, it does tend to drift away from the enjoying part I reckon. It was trying to live up to the hype of the previous Resident Evil games (which were awesome), and that's never an easy task. But that said, I really expected this game to be more horror-based rather than action-based. I'm all for action games don't get me wrong, but where I went wrong was, I played this game hoping for a horror game. I was soon disappointed in knowing it wasn't much like the previous games, but on a different scale with a continued storyline.

The enemy characters in the game are quite good at the beginning. What is good about them is, as you progress through the game, they get tougher. Obviously there are various difficulty levels at the beginning, but they do tend to get tougher throughout the game. Different enemy characters are introduced when you get further into the game, but after a while you find yourself fighting the same dudes all of the times - which tends to get a little boring and repetitive, but you can live with that all of the same. The most difficult character in the game is obviously the boss (Wesker) from a previous Resident Evil game, but a non-boss character? Hmm, I'd probably say probably the spiders that appear later on in the game. They're extremely tough because no matter how much health you have, if they get close enough to you, they're just gonna kill you in one go when they stab you repeatedly in the stomach. The Chainsaw Majini/Guard is also tough. You'll come across this guy a few times, but your first encounter with him is in one of the first few missions. You'll need to consume ammunition to defeat this guy.

I found the weapons in this game rather good, because there is a wider range this time around than any of the other Resident Evil games. What's also a very nice addition is that you can upgrade your weapons with money. So you could have a pretty poor handgun from the start, but once you upgrade it, it becomes really powerful. My favourite weapon on the game would probably be the grenade launcher - once you have ammunition, you're gonna mess up your enemies with this gun as you can get different rounds for the weapon (Acid, Explosive, Nitrogen, Flame, Flash and Electric rounds). The best of all these for me is probably the acid rounds, as the enemies die a painful death with them. My favourite non-launcher gun would be the L Hawk desert eagle. I've always been a desert eagle fan in games, and the L Hawk is no exception. In fact, it'd be one of my favourite desert eagle guns in any shooter I've played. As mentioned above, you can upgrade your weapons and once you upgrade this a good bit, it becomes extremely powerful and takes some enemies out with one shot. The only disappointment about this gun is, it's very hard to find ammunition for it as you'll progress.

The boss fights in this game were pretty well thought out, and come as probably the most exhilarating parts of the game. There are more boss fights than I would have imagined, but you will find yourself fighting a boss every so often, which is good because of the challenge. What's really nice is that the boss fights are quite versatile. You won't find yourself fighting a different boss each time with basically the same theme to it, they're all rather different (except for the Wesker boss fights, they are all quite similar. But it's the same boss so you have to expect it). One thing I noticed when fighting Ricardo Irving was, the boss fight is extremely similar to one of the battles you have in Gears of War 2 with the big sea creature in the water. If you've played this boss fight, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. There isn't really an easy battle with any of the bosses, so expect a good challenge. Although that said, I wasn't exactly playing on a tough difficulty setting!

As much as this review probably seems pretty negative, I'm not really a huge Resident Evil fan. So if you like Resident Evil games quite a bit, you'll more than likely enjoy it more than I did. The only thing I'd say it, do NOT expect this game to be scary - that will be your first and most dramatic mistake playing this game. I expected it to be a horror game like the previous games, and that's where I went wrong and also where I was disappointed. But if you expect it to be action-based and a good shooter, you'd expect about right and won't be filled with disappointment. If you get around to it, I hope you enjoy the gameplay, and I hope you enjoyed this review!