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Resident Evil 5 Review
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Okay, readers, this one's might be a little prickly. I certainly don't mean to offend anyone, but I have no idea how to talk about this game without addressing a controversy that has sprung up around it that I think is profoundly dumb. First, some background:
The Resident evil series is one of the longest (if not the longest) running series in the Survival horror genre. The story revolves around the nefarious Umbrella Corporation, a globe spanning pharmaceutical company that conducts horrific biological experiments, seemingly for the sheer hell of it. Like any mad scientists worth their salt, they soon create something beyond their control in the form of the T-Virus, a deadly pathogen that transforms everyone exposed to it into a flesh eating zombie. After many games worth of Umbrella losing control of their secret labs and causing deadly zombie outbreaks (presumably due to them being staffed by some of the most inept, butterfingered jackasses in the history of the biological sciences) the federal government finally steps in and shuts the whole operation down. The latest entry in the series picks up the games' story from this point. Since Umbrella was forced to disband, samples of their fine work have apparently fallen into the hands of terrorist groups worldwide. It's up to series mainstay Chris Redfield and a highly specialized group of U.N. peacekeepers called the B.S.A.A. to keep things under control. Chris's latest mission sends him to some undisclosed part of Africa to arrest a man who's been selling Umbrella bioweapons to a local insurgent group, but when he and his partner arrive on the scene, they find the entire village already under the control of parasitic organisms that have made the villagers into mindlessly aggressive berserkers. And here's where the controversy comes in. Being that this is an action/horror game, you will spend most of your time blasting zombies. The problem with this is that given the setting, most of said zombies happen to be black, and our hero Chris is as white as the driven snow. Because of this, many in the gaming press have accused the game of having racist undertones that portray black people as savages.
Personally, I think they're grasping at straws here. Being that the majority of Africans are black, does it not make sense that if Africa were to suffer a zombie plague, most of the zombies would be black as well? Context, people! For the love of God, context! I'll admit that given the history of colonization/slavery/racial stereotyping between Europe and Africa, some of the game's imagery might be a little loaded. Plus, the glossolalial ooga-booga language that the infected speak doesn't help matters. But I really don't think anybody was actively trying to be racist.
Especially since the game was developed by a japanese company. I don't think the japanese have an enormous amount of contact with people of other races day to day, so the developers might not have fully understood how their work might be received.
If you're reading this, though, you're probably here to find out how it plays as opposed to listening to me pontificate, so on to the mechanics. If you liked the last entry in the series, you'll love this one. Its basically just RE4 with some new maps and a far less useless partner character. But hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?
It has the same over-the-shoulder camera, the same basic control scheme, and the same complete inability to move when you shoot. Seriously, I know that it's supposed to make it more tense if you can't dodge, and I know that the games have always controlled that way. But that doesn't mean you can't change things up a little bit. I can't tell you how many times a duck-and-roll function would have saved my life. Also, the partner A.I. can be a little wonky. There are times when your partner will take all the pickups in a room before you can get at them, and she also tends to blow through ammo like its going out of style. Aside from these occasional frustrations, the game is actually quite good. It can be genuinely, intensely scary when you and your partner are trapped in a rickety house surrounded by the ravening undead, a cheap wooden bookshelf your only defense against their relentless pursuit. Plus the graphics are very nice, with detailed character models and some of the best lighting effects I've seen in a game. If you're a fan of the series like me, you should definitely check it out.
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