Capcom blew everyone away four years ago when they released Resident Evil 4. A massive departure from the established survival-horror nature of the series, Resident Evil 4 breathed new life into third person shooters with high intensity action and mind-blowing visuals. Though it was not any sort of gameplay revolution, Resident Evil 4 heavily influenced many of the big name shooters that followed, particularly Gears of War.

Resident Evil 4’s big splash meant that Resident Evil 5 would be subject to lofty expectations. It’s pretty obvious that Resident Evil 5 couldn’t possibly hit with the same level of impact as the last game, but Capcom has erred on the side of caution, playing it safe with the design and structure of its latest game by sticking closely to the formula of Resident Evil 4. You still get a fantastic looking, action-packed gameplay experience, but it comes with a distinct feeling of age.

After Umbrella was dissolved by the US government, many of its bio-weapons fell into the hands of terrorist groups. A group called the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance was formed to investigate and mop up any remaining bio-weapon threats. One of the group’s founding members, Chris Redfield, is sent to the fictional African country of Kijuju to investigate a rumoured weapons deal. He teams up with local BSAA agent Sheva Alomar, but the mission goes awry, and the situation turns out to be far worse than they expected.

While Resident Evil 4 made great efforts to pry itself away from the original evil bio-chemical corporation plot of the early games of the series, Resident Evil 5 attempts to marry concepts from earlier games in the series with those introduced in the last game. The game is very much Chris’ story, so it makes sense to wrap up the loose threads from his other appearances in the series, but you also get a few bits of fan service thrown in, like old friends and enemies showing up to impress or distress.

Presentation seems to be the part of Resident Evil 5 that has improved the most since the series’ last appearance. The obvious extra power of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 makes for a vastly superior looking game, with ridiculously impressive levels of details on character models and environments and some amazing light, shadow, smoke and particle effects. Character and enemy design seems to have improved too, with some truly grotesque looking entities to encounter. It’s not all perfect though – some of the canned animations from Resident Evil 4 have been recycled and look tacky, and the game is subject to some extreme degrees of screen ripping, exacerbated when one’s Xbox is set to 1080P.

The main component of Resident Evil 5’s presentation that really sticks out is the leap in quality of the game’s real time cutscenes. It seems like the team from Capcom has taken a few pages out of Kojima Productions’ book when it comes to the production and direction of such scenes, by bringing the same level of impressive choreography/motion capture, awesome music and explosive action, but retaining the vital element of brevity to keep the audience glued to their screens. The script and voice acting performances have improved, but there’s the odd nod to the cheesiness of the older games, particularly in the character of Irving.

Resident Evil 5 sticks with the gameplay style introduced in Resident Evil 4. While this system was excellent in 2005, some parts of it seem very dated today. Third person shooters have made some big steps in the four years between Resident Evil games, but Capcom seems to have ignored them in favour of staying with what worked previously. Control seems to be the biggest point of contention, since Chris and Sheva are not able to move while shooting, but other aspects such as environmental interactivity also seem to be limited – one would think a knee high fence or container would be nothing to a HGH-abusing gorilla like Chris. In spite of the aged feeling and many annoyances, the game still seems overwhelmingly fun.

Slower control isn’t such a problem when dealing with Resident Evil 5’s enemies, who are slower than traditional third person shooter cannon fodder, but faster compared to previous Resident Evil foes. The majority of the Kijuju natives are called Majini due to their being infected with the Las Plagas parasite from the fourth game. The Majini infection seems to be there for convenience rather than plot related reasons since they make good foes; they’re more aggressive than the Ganados, come in greater numbers, and bear significantly more threatening firepower. The variety of Majini is also greater, with your standard villager type, military types and the super fat ones, which can stand quite a beating. Other enemies include zombie dogs and mutant bats, along with a few appearances from a Resident Evil 2 favourite.

The inventory system has been altered again, this time encompassing a nine panel grid, with each item, regardless of size, occupying one panel. You can never expand the inventory, which gets a bit annoying when you want to carry more than two weapons and your armour upgrades. The most irritating part of the new inventory is its real time nature – you are at the mercy of your enemies when you need to heal or trade items with Sheva. It can be alleviated to an extent by setting items in slots which can be quickly selected with the D-Pad, but it will be responsible for a few unwarranted deaths. The merchant from the fourth game has been replaced with a start of chapter shop which serves essentially the same purpose. Weapons and items can be bought and upgraded here (though ammo must still be found), and your loadout can be personalised. Weapon upgrades seem far more exhaustive than Resident Evil 4, but can get a bit ridiculous – a semi-automatic pistol with a 50+ round clip would look very strange.

Stage design is another aspect of Resident Evil 5 which seems a bit dated. Levels are generally small, tightly knit linear paths with load screens separating each area. Some areas are significantly larger and benefit greatly from the size – particularly the swampy type area in the middle of the game. Puzzles are significantly downplayed once again, with most just consisting of finding a few scattered emblem pieces and reassembling them at a specific door. The bosses seem to represent the more challenging puzzler side of the game, with some confusing patterns and very specific methods of attack required to defeat them. Some rail shooter sections and quick time events are thrown in to mix things up without throwing off the pace of the game.

What really sets Resident Evil 5 apart from its predecessors is the inclusion of Sheva as Chris’ inseparable partner. Though certainly not the first time players have had company in a Resident Evil game, Sheva puts everyone else to shame. It seems like she is a direct response to player criticisms directed at Ashley in the last game; while Ashley was a wimp and needed constant supervision from Leon, Sheva is perfectly capable of handling herself in any situation, and even saving the player’s bacon every now and then. She’s not perfect by any means, however; Sheva often goes head first into a firefight, wasting ammo and healing items and occasionally getting herself killed by traps (which triggers a game over condition), and she has a tendency to only stick to one weapon (she never uses grenades, either). Fortunately, most problems with Sheva are alleviated when she is controlled by another player, either on the same console with split-screen or separately via system link or Xbox Live.

It seems like implementing Sheva as an AI and/or human controlled companion has commanded the lion’s share of Capcom’s developmental resources and prevented them from expanding the game in other areas. It’s nice to be able to play through the entire game with a friend or having someone else there to kill enemies, but it eliminates a lot of the scary atmosphere and feelings of loneliness and helplessness which defined the series to this point. It’s fortunate that Sheva is so well implemented and seldom problematic, but one cannot help but think what we could have had in her place.

Players are in for about 10 hours of supremely satisfying gameplay in Resident Evil 5. It’s a very difficult game to put down once you’re into it – my initial playthrough was conducted in a single marathon session. There’s plenty to go back for after the first run – a new game plus option lets you run through the game with your existing equipment, which is almost necessary for tackling the top difficulty levels. There’s a set of emblems to hunt for, which unlock new costumes and other stuff. The most exciting extra mode is Mercenaries, a series mainstay which allows you to compete in a series of time based challenges. Up to 10 characters can be unlocked, and the mode is playable with friends, both online and off.

It might seem like we’ve been a bit down on Resident Evil 5 due to the slightly dated nature of the game mechanics and stage design and a general lack of progression compared to the last game in the series. Most of the developmental focus seems to have been directed at making the game pretty and developing a good cooperative system and AI companion, rather than pushing the series’ gameplay further forward. There is still an insanely good game here – it’s just that we expected Capcom to do more.