With the recent news of Resident Evil 5's demo reaching 1.3 million downloads in only it's first three days on Xbox Live and 1.8 million downloads after it's first week, I think it's time to start hearing everyone's first impressions and thoughts. Me, being a big survival-horror fan and most of you being Resident Fans as well, I want to hear from you guys - what do you guys think? Impressed, disappointed, undecided?
After playing the demo for a while I have to say I do have mixed emotions on it. The first scenario sucked - it threw you into the heat of the moment and not in a good way. You are bombarded by dozens of "infected" who just keep coming, you barely know the controls and the aiming seems to be a bit sluggish (yes I know you can change it in the options menu). You are basically running around frantically trying to learn the basics of the game while at the same time trying to figure out where to go next and trying to keep the massive mob of infected as far away as possible. This level was not nearly as good as the demo I played at CES, which was both shooting while driving a boat and working through a co-op puzzle to open a gate. At this point, I was quite disappointed - until I played the next scenario...
...which was was much better. In this level you get to actually explore your surroundings and learn the game basics and controls. Also, you get to really test drive the co-op mode of the game by being separated and helping each other get through the current situation.This level seemed to have more depth and more purpose than the previous level and I was really sad when the level ended because I wanted to keep playing.
My only complaint so far is the inventory menu. I understand that the left, right, up, and down on the D-pad acts as a "hot key" or "quick button" for the items in your inventory in the corresponding slots. The issue here, is you can not designate what items go in what spot. Say I always want my herbs to go in the down "hot key" location and I want my secondary weapon in the up "hot key" location - nope, can't do that. (unless there is a way that I couldn't figure out) This is what I consider poor design. That means, every time I am in the heat of the battle or in a tight spot, I have to manually open my inventory, search for the item I am looking for, click it, then from that drop down menu I have to choose my desired action; instead of quickly hitting one button to get the job done. This simple idea of a "hot key" for health or secondary weapons is game design 101.
Other than that one issue, I did like the whole experience. The graphics are gorgeous, I like the fact that both scenarios are in the middle of the day - not many survival horror games can pull off the feeling of dread in the middle of the afternoon. I liked the controls, and I really liked the co-op mode and how the game handled it. Playing Resident Evil co-op was definitely a dream come true (I do not count any of the RE Outbreaks games as serious RE games). This one looks like a buy for me.
Thoughts?
