Co-op Day #5 — Resident Evil 5

My day with Milla Jovo... Coxxorz and Resident Evil 5

Every few months or so Coxxorz and I get together for a day of Xbox 360 Co-op goodness. We wait for a game to come around and then wait for an appropriate day. This time around we had the day but not the game.

We discovered two co-op games available in our two week quest:

1. One old game for purchase, Mercenaries 2: World in flames
2. One new game for rent, Resident Evil 5

Guess which one we picked?

You're wrong! We chose both! Ha, ha, fooled you! Although, technically, we did mostly end up playing Resident Evil 5.

All did not start well with us and Resident Evil 5. In fact the first Majini (bad guy) we encountered almost killed us both. And he was weak ass. It reminded me of the time Stormblade and I tried Baldur's Gate and the first rat we encountered wiped out our entire party. But we persevered (in Resident Evil 5) and survived . With little health and no ammo left but we survived.

Our second encounter was with a few Majini. Specifically a giant massive MOB of a few Majini. At least forty and they kept spawning. We saw the image on the left a lot. A lot. We did take some of the Majini with us and I did earn my first achievement of the game, Lifeguard: Save partner 10 times when DYING is displayed. There is another achievement for saving your partner which I earned shortly after that. A Friend in Need: Save partner 10 times when HELP is displayed. Coxxorz also earned one of these achievements.

After our fourth attempt (dying well) we realized that perhaps, perhaps, there might be a different approach to this problem. A standard play straight out of the Herd of Cats’ playbook. Yes, you know it well. Run away screaming like little girls.

It worked! Our characters ran through a massive door and barred it behind them. A frustrating experience that almost had us ripping the DVDs out of our 360s. Again we persevered.

Starring Coxxorz as Chris RedfieldThere are no Zombies in Resident Evil 5. I know, I also found this weird until we realized they just called them a different name. Majini. So, all’s good. Majini equals Zombie. Except for a few minor differences:

• they carry weapons: knives, scythes, axes, clubs, torches
• they use guns. Machine gun turrets count as guns
• they are fast
• things can grow out of their decapitated necks or burst out of their backs and continue to attack you (sometimes they fly)
• they drive vehicles! Motorbikes, trucks, boats. And use guns at the same time!
• they carry (and use) chainsaws while running and leaping 10 ft gaps
• they throw dynamite and grenades and Molotov cocktails and use crossbows to shoot flaming arrows at you from long distances

Other than that though, just like zombies.

Starring Blackwalt as Sheva AlomarResident Evil 5 is a strange game in some ways. It has stellar production values, amazing style teamed with some really whacked out game play choices.

Everything looks great. The graphics are amazing, the loading screens are professional, themed and look great. The cut scenes are extremely well done, movie quality level.

And then you have to hit "Exit" to start your game. What? Exit? Yes. It's on the same level as Microsoft's Select Start to Shut down.

It wasn't intuitive and we had to double check before continuing. There are a lot of things in Resident Evil 5 that weren't intuitive. I understand that sometimes game developers want their own control scheme but in the case of Resident Evil 5, change was not for the best.

There are several odd game play choices that take away from the game:

• You can not shoot and move at the same time. You can't. You must enter aiming mode to be able to shoot. This freezes you in one location. LT to enter aiming mode and then RT to shoot. So two buttons to shoot and swinging around in aiming mode is at a different speed than normal swinging around
• You can't reload while moving. Or stab.
• Two buttons to reload. LT and A. Two buttons to stab. LB and RT.
• Extremely limited inventory – nine slots only. Maybe a game play choice but it pissed us off a lot. Each weapon needed two slots (out of nine) one for the weapon, one for the ammo. Up to a point and then the ammo needed two separate slots.
• Very limited ammo
• No jumping. Ever. Or crouching. Ever. Unless they want you to. Then they tell you with an on screen message as a quick time event. Press X to jump. Sometimes its tricky to line up correctly and activate the message.

Basically there were a lot of small issues that seemed to take away from the game as a whole.

Now I don't want you to think that I disliked this game. I really started to like it and it grew on me. Most comments I read online suggested it was a game meant to be played cooperatively with another person, not single player. So that's how we played it. (Army of Two was the same way, a much better game when played co-op.) An additional disclaimer. This is the first Resident Evil game I have played. Pretty sure it was the same for Coxxorz but not positive. I am a fan of the movies, not the game series. Odd I know but consider the source.

The game was fairly standard action fare (albeit with non standard controls) but mixed in a fair amount of puzzle solving and item hunting. There were extras all over the place and you had to look for them. Coxxorz was in his element, "Oh! Shiny!" This additional hunting and scavenging was necessary just to maintain ammo levels. There was never enough ammo and almost always one of was down to what was left in our clip. I started carrying a stun baton as it never ran out of ammo (Achievement: Cattle Prod: Defeat 30 enemies with the Stun rod). Coxxorz became one with his knife (Achievement: A Cut Above: Defeat 5 enemies with the Knife).

I'll call you ShottyA tip we picked up from online and used was each character should use a different weapon type so you don't compete for the same type of ammo. When Coxxorz stumbled across a shotgun he yelled "shotgun" and dove out of the way as my charcter came barrelling from across the map. My shotgun! "I'm gonna hug you and squeeze you and kiss you and call you Shotty." It was a Ithaca M37 12-gauge shotgun btw and since RE5 allowed you to upgrade your weapons, I did. It was a pretty effective shotgun by the time I stumbled on the Benelli M3 Super 90 and had to debate whether to replace it or not (Not yet).

Coxxorz used some kind of machine gun.

Resident Evil 5 has standard action fare where you wandered around looking for stuff and Majini to kill, puzzle sequences where you wandered around aimlesslyThis may have been my fault until you figured out what to do to get into the next room or trigger the next attack, fixed sequences where you manned turrets and fired at a monster boss (once from a boat and once from a humvee), on-a-rail sequences where you rode on a humvee and shot at chasing motorcycles and trucks with turrets, and several quick time event sequences where you hit A repeatedly to run, hit X to jump, hit A repeatedly to run, hit X to jump, hit A repeatedly to run, hit X to jump, hold LT and RT simultaneously to grab. In one chapter you had to drive everywhere in a swamp boat.

A good variety and well paced. I normally hate quick time events but found that they worked here. The variety in game play kept you interested and kept the game fun.

There was one extremely entertaining swamp map where we faced off against Bad Ass Crocodiles. I share it with you here in a unique way.

Awesome: bad ass crocodiles chasing you through the swamp
Awesomer: a cutscene showing two bad ass crocodiles leaping out of the water to snap up a hanging Delta Team member
Awesomest: zapping a bad guy off a ladder into the water with your Stun Baton to have him disappear in a swirl of bad ass crocodiles.
Priceless: watching a bad ass crocodile leap out of the water onto a raft and swallow Coxxorz whole while I watched. It was as sweet as it sounds.

Coxxorz versus the Volcano Bad Ass Crocodile

I figured I couldn't make the image quality any worse by drawing coloured
lines all over the place. It may actually have improved the images.

So here's the thing: These satellite quality images were taken during game play with one hand holding a blackberry trying to take a timed photo when Coxxorz yelled "now". My other hand was moving the raft by spinning the Left Stick rapidly one handed on a vibrating controller. This was not your daddy's tripod.

Synopsis:

It does seem like I am dissing Resident Evil 5 but if you liked previous Resident Evil games you will like this game for the story alone. I based my score on how I felt after our game day. After playing Army of Two for the day I scoured Ebay and UsedOttawa for a good deal to pick it up and finish it. With Resident Evil 5 I have yet to do a single search. I found that I want to finish the game, preferably with Coxxorz in a co-op setting but I don't find myself rushing out to buy it. I did find it on UsedOttawa for $30 (I just looked now! For the story! Honest!) but I have other games to play first. It did turn out to be a good choice for a Co-op Day but not a game worthy of a $69.99 purchase. I do find myself surprisingly interested in the $30 price though... where was that link again?

Official HoC review score:



It gained a half paw for having co-op