Resident Evil 5

Let me preface the following review by coming out and stating that I am no die hard Resident Evil fan and do not pretend to be. With that said, much has been made about a rift between developers and fans of the franchise resulting from obvious changes in game. Subsequently, the Resident Evil faithful followers may be disappointed with the latest addition to the canon. However, fans of games like Gears of War, Left 4 Dead, Army of Two, Dead Space, et al should enjoy Resident Evil 5 despite being a slower paced game in parts.

“These aren’t like any zombies I’ve ever seen,” so utters our protagonist Chris Redfield early on in the story. Yet, these zombies are zombies I recognize. They are not the living dead so to say. Rather, they are just some unfortunate souls infected by Las Plagas, one hell of an annoying species of parasite. Yep, the baddies return from Resident Evil 4 with a few different makeovers.

Gone are the mountains, mines, and castles of Spain. Resident Evil 5 introduces gamers to fresh and diverse African environment. While Resident Evil 5 trades off some jumps and game defining creepiness for a brighter scene. The new locale definitely highlights the beautiful graphics this game contains; Resident Evil 5 is visually stunning when it tries.
I played the first three Resident Evil games in passing before I picked up RE4 and played till completion. The game is quite similar to RE4 with some minor tweaks. The one major overhaul is the introduction of co-op play. Those familiar with the earlier games know how annoying the portions of the games where you have to deal with a partner or victim, always a girl, can be. I can only imagine how brutal playing RE5 alone would be, since the entire game is based around co-op play. Thus, I have only played the game with one friend so far who has been willingly to log long hours into the game with me. So no AI partner for me.
My loyal partner and I ran through the veteran difficulty in around 18 hours. Slow yes, a few certain portions of the game found the two of us trying to be too clever (or often to stubborn) to look for the easy solution to the various situations. I juts began a run through on amateur, and with an upgraded and larger arsenal, I was able to breeze through the first half in merely 2 hours.

Tips and Achievements:

I will provide you some basic advice to hopefully make your journey a little less frustrating and quicker if so desired.

Partner dying? Low on health? Out of ammo? Got some fancy and hard earned treasure? Then run for the checkpoint. Several times throughout the game, especially on harder difficulty levels, a horde of parasite infested African zombies will be pursuing your in cramped corners or shooting you with arrows from every angle under the sun. Often times you are not supposed to fight or simply will not be well armed enough to fight the homicidal mass during your first run through. So run away and save yourself, your partner, and your treasure.

Heads. Shoot their heads. It’s the only way to make them go down for good. Or, I forgot, I suppose you could stomp on them. It conserves ammo too.

Want to buy a gun? WAIT! Most of the guns can be found throughout the game for free. For example there is a machine gun in a silver case during your first big fight scene after the execution. When you leave the building run straight till you cant go straight. Hang a right and bam, a much needed gun. Want more gun locations? Leave a message in the comments and I’ll post whatever gun you are looking for, if its out there and I’ve found it.
Achievements? Yea I like them too. Here’s some advice to help you get closer to those 1000 gamerscore points.

Have all the guns but not the achievement for it? Well its because you don’t have all the guns. Upgrade your shit. Upgrading the first gun in each class all the way will give you one more gun for each class.

Treasure? I’m still looking too. One tip is when you are cruising around on the boat; you might want to search all over the lagoon. On sunken ships and the like. You may even find a new weapon.

EGGS. You need a white one, a brown one, a rotten one, and a golden one. The only golden on I know of is in the lagoon level above. Go to the area in the middle. It is like a mini chicken farm. Watch the chickens and wait. One should do its cocka doodle do and out comes the golden egg.

Egg in your face. Find a rotten egg. Play on amateur. Throw said egg in a zombies face.
Arrows bothering you. Move closer to enemy with primitive weapon. Upon enemy’s firing of arrow you bat it away with your knife (be sure to aim your knife at the arrow). Achievement worth like 60 points. It is a good one.

Shoot barrels

Throw a flash grade at the spider things.

First level after the execution there is a power transmitter in the air to the left. Gather some zombies around it. Shoot it. Achievement.

On the back of a truck with a turret? Should a zombie driving a truck, 30 points.
There are more, but that’s what I’ve got.

I forgot knock one of the mutant brain dogs down (yes I know their real name, I am not a noob) walk up to it. Press x. Stab it in the heart. Get an achievement.

Keep an eye out for emblems. They are bright blue. One can be found in the lagoon portion in an unmarked hut. Up in the ceiling. Another is found looking down upon getting in the elevator before the part you are given acid rounds to survive in. I’ve only got three. You find more please leave their locations in the comments and I will do the same upon finding more.

Beating Wesker. On veteran we were extremely low on ammo so we had to shoot the orange thing on the back, wait through whirly mutant tornado, Sheva shoots orange thing on chest while Chris runs behind the evildoer and presses x to restrain the boss. Sheva proceeds to shoot the orange things. Repeat. Repeat. Death

Grab a friend and grab Resident Evil 5. Put away any prejudices or any bias and pick this title up. After all, they say happiness is best when shared, and well what constitutes happiness more than slaying zombies? No response? Enough said.