Hands-On Preview: Resident Evil 5
by Andrew Podolsky on July 19, 2008 at 6:52 pm
The good news about Resident Evil 5 is the same as the bad news: It plays very, very similarly to Resident Evil 4. The stage we played at E3 was just like the Ganado Village at the start of RE4, only with a greater variety of zombies, ultra-sharp environments and lighting, and a few gameplay tweaks like instantaneous weapon changes.
Of course, we have no idea where the story will go this time around, and how many deviations from the “zombie shooting gallery” will occur along the way. What we do know is that the cutscenes that preceded and followed this big action set-piece were stunningly gorgeous, and there seemed to be enough variety in the outdoor, shantyville location to encourage replayability. For example, zombies could come climbing over the fence, break through the windows, or barge in through the door, giving Chris Redfield lots of corners to watch to avoid being overrun.
The helpful A.I. partner in this scene, Sheva, was also a literal life-saver at points. She gave Chris boxes of ammo when he ran out, and saved his bacon from the fire by attacking the huge executioner miniboss who was in the process of throttling him.
This explosion of zombies occurred immediately following the raging crowd scene that we saw in the RE5 trailers. An instigator with a megaphone is riling up the crowd, and the executioner brings his giant gnarly axe down on some poor doomed soul. When the instigator spies Chris and Sheva, he orders the crowd to attack, and they descend with wild abandon.
As you begin to shoot at the approaching crowd, some of them will start to sprout symbiote tentacles from their mouths. Others will only show a flash of alien when you strike with a headshot– a reminder that while they may look human, they’re actually something far scarier.
Strangely, and we’re not sure if this will be in the final game, the instigator with the megaphone actually joined in with the crazed crowd. Of course, being armed only with a megaphone, he was no threat, but we shot him anyways and watched him dissolve like all the others. So much for him being an essential part of the story, right? Much tougher was the executioner, who took what seemed like dozens of shotgun blasts before finally keeling over.
Playing as Chris, I found that you could switch between weapons and items using the D-pad. However, since this was my first and only time playing the game, I often would accidentally equip my health spray when I meant to switch to the shotgun. Also, I noticed that when you pick up items such as ammunition, the game does not pause, but Chris takes the time to duck down and pick up the item. For this reason, you shouldn’t pick up stuff while enemies are right behind you.
This early stage was almost certainly chosen for its similarity to RE4. Whether this reflects the rest of the game remains to be seen. I for one would like to check out the more unconventional aspects of the game, like some of the on-rail sequences. Where is RE5’s version of the mine-cart or heavy-machinery chases?
If you thought Dead Rising was too cartoony, but still liked the horrible feeling of encountering dozens of on-screen undead, Resident Evil 5 will deliver the fright big-time. RE5 is less than 9 months away from release at this point, so we’ll get to play more with Capcom’s freaky little bundle of joy soon enough.
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