Recently I had a chance to play the Japanese Resident Evil 5 demo – a demo of a game that I've been very much craving for after I got every unlockable in Resident Evil 4. Recently however the game totally vanished from my focus. Maybe it's because of all the videos I've seen that made the game look more like a remake of RE4 than a completely new title (an rightly so...to a degree), or maybe because the game is in development for so long (and games which are too long in development have a nasty habit of turning crappy). I don't really know, but it made me approach the game differently – more like a normal gamer and not a hardcore Resident Evil fan.
I will admit – the first impression was surprisingly underwhelming; the game felt like RE4, played like RE4 but lacked the atmosphere from the forth game and my initial RE5 experience was uninspiring. Maybe it's the setting – the concept of an African village seemed great, but the execution isn't. There is no sense of dread and terror – it feels and looks more like Call of Duty 4, which is not good for a Resident Evil game. Also the heavy HDR effects (you go into a house from under the bright sun and you can't see until your eyes get used to the new environment) that were supposed to make the game more intense are not implemented in the demo. The graphics are great, but there are some really bland textures (not many though) and there is terrible screen tearing that is really, really distracting. The explosions kick ass though. The framerate is fluid, which is great, but the animations, although obviously having a lot more frames than the ones from RE4 seem recycled from the previous game and are rather stiff and unnatural. Especially the zombie death sequences – most look like there were taken straight from RE4 – there are no physics involved and there are silly problems like clipping and poor collision detection. Honestly, in this day and age it should look a lot better. All the problems are probably due to the fact that this demo is a fairly early build of the game, but then I'm a bit baffled why Capcom decided to release that and not something more polished. Hopefully the North American demo that should be released at the beginning of 2009 will be something different (yeah.... right).
After playing the demo five or six time I finally got a good hang of the outdated controls (yes, they are almost identical to RE4, so I shouldn't really need practice, but I guess I got spoiled by „today's standards") and the game became more enjoyable. The fights can get intense, the general mechanics are still great and the infected enemies are more persistent than ever before. Still the game doesn't feel as well prepared and fresh like no.4 and I really doubt, that now, when Mikami-san „has left the building" we'll be as impressed as with Resident Evil 4.
The game is a good action game, and I'm sure that it will feature a lot of memorable moments, but the demo doesn't let you feel that.
I also have a problem with Sheva – the A.I. character that accompanies you (and according to all sources will do so through most of the game) – even though most of the time she's rather helpful and able there are moments when I can't help but clench my teeth because they annoy the hell out of me. Those moments include taking ammo to weapons that she doesn't have (and I do), often standing in my line of fire (and completely blocking my view) and getting ripped to shreds by the enemies in some really silly situations.
Something that I really hate in games (*Cough* Silent Hill: the Room Cough*) is the necessity to babysit an A.I. character. If that happens in RE5 (and there is a strong chance it will, because it always does) the game for me will be broken beyond repair. I do however see great multiplayer potential in this (only online though, the split screen is a disaster).
To sum up – even though I did enjoy the time spent with the demo I'm not as impressed as I should be (especially with all the hype the game gets). I really hope that the full game will have more to offer than what the demo suggest because the game could be a disappointment – and we really wouldn't like that, now would we?
But hey, at least the main menu is really cool.
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