Resident Evil 5: What You May Have Heard

Today, I received my thick Gamefly envelope in the mailbox, and instead of seeing a bright shiny copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum shimmering out at me like a batarang shimmers in that crisp Gotham moonlight, within the dusty confines of this particular Gamefly package I only found a dirty, scratchy, remnant of the woes of gaming past. It was labeled Resident Evil 5.

Now don’t get me wrong, Resident Evil 5 was on my queue, but it was a few spaces down, you know, with other games that I wanted to play shoved way out in front of it. I had stacked a barricade of quality games between me and Chris Redfield’s ‘roid muscles, I promise you this. Batman: Arkham Asylum, for instance, it was there in the number one spot.

And Prototype, it was stabbing folks with its little anti-hero-claw-hand-things there at number two. Even Wolverine: Origins was ahead of Resident Evil 5, both of which I only have a morbid curiosity about, but the former of which has Wolverine, so it naturally gets priority.

But for some reason, today, Gamefly said no, let’s not send him something he wants to play, let’s send him Resident Evil 5.

Remember what you heard about Resident Evil 5 back when it came out? That it was racist? That to counter the racism, they gave you a black partner who’s more Halle Berry than, you know, black? Did you hear that this Halle Berry can’t do anything on her own?

You probably read that you have to babysit her constantly, because she always ends up getting shot, or stabbed, or burned in a furnace, instead of just, god forbid, actually assisting you? Do you remember hearing that the controls were broken? That you still move like a tank? That you can’t walk and shoot at the same time?

Did you see screenshots showing that it’s nothing but Resident Evil 4 with slightly prettier graphics and none of the charm?

Well, I remember. I remember hearing all of those things. And guess what? Now I can’t forget. Tonight, when I popped in that disc from Gamefly, I immediately discovered that all of those things people said, they were all true.

Games have moved forward, but Resident Evil has not. It sits in the same backwards, un-evolved world that its creators imagine Africa to be. And there are simply too many good games in the world to waste your time on something that fails in so many ways.

If you must scratch that T-Virus itch (you should really get that looked at), just play Resident Evil 4 again, at least that is tinged with nostalgia. And Spaniards.

I will be putting RE5 back in that big blue mailbox at the end of my block first thing tomorrow morning. And Gamefly? Are you listening? Please, if you have any good left in you, please send me Batman: Arkham Asylum. Or, you know, something else on the top half of my queue.

Adam Dorsey is a writer and filmmaker and gamer. You can follow his gaming articles and funny videos at http://multiplayersingleplayer.wordpress.com

Tags: Resident Evil, gamefly

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Lance Darnell

August 27, 2009

Funny stuff Adam. Can you not take a game of your queue once you put it on? What I loved the most about RE4 was the Mercenaries Mode... I think I played that for weeks. Does RE5 have the same mode? Is it co-op? Or even better online? Online Mercenary mode would be cool! You should really send this into Gamefly... that would be great!

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David Matos

I am a big Resident Evil nerd. I looked up and love the backstory and all that dumb stuff. When it came to RE5, I had ZERO interest in it. I don't know why. Even when it came out and I saw videos of gameplay, still no interest. I was one of the few that enjoyed the older style "tank controls" (REmake, RE0, RE2, RE3, RE:CVX) and it took me awhile to get past and enjoy RE4. I was thinking it over during the summer months "Maybe I should FINALLY see what the hell Wesker has been up to and shit", however things like this article really make me glad I never gave a shit about this game. I'll wait till it hits the bargain bin. P.S. What is Chris on nowadays? He looked NORMAL in RE1 and RE:CVX.

Garret Staus

RE5 is a game I wish I had played after I joined Bitmob, because I'd love to write a review about it (obviously I still could, but it wouldn't be very fresh in my mind). I've heard the complaints you listed echoed on virtually every forum and from many reviews. I can share the sentiment for some of them, but I think people are being wholly too harsh on a game which was -- at least for me and some friends -- a blast to play. Yes, it's scarcely Resident Evil anymore. Yes, the controls initially feel outdated for the first like, ten minutes. Racist overtones? Ugh, don't get me started. Classic example of people reading too much into something. I highly doubt Capcom had some sort of racist agenda in Resident Evil, and I'm equally sure they didn't intend to offend anybody. In poor taste at best, but getting angry about seems a bit thick-skulled. I sat down and played it with a friend numerous times. The AI is hilariously bad sometimes, but not detrimental to your success unless you're playing on the hardest difficulty (in which case, play a friend). It's a game clearly meant for two, but I'll concede those playing with the AI deserve better. It's a game with many faults, yes, but I still managed to have fun with it. In my eyes, that's what a game is all about.

James DeRosa

My roommate got F.E.A.R. 2 for free the same way! They didn't even track it. He's never played it, but... it's a free game. That picture at the top is a riot, by the way.

Adam Dorsey

[quote]Racist overtones? Ugh, don't get me started. Classic example of people reading too much into something. I highly doubt Capcom had some sort of racist agenda in Resident Evil, and I'm equally sure they didn't intend to offend anybody. In poor taste at best, but getting angry about seems a bit thick-skulled.[/quote] I don't think anyone at Capcom had a vendetta against any other race. I'm sure they didn't mean to offend anyone, because ultimately they wanted to sell the game to as many people as possible, obviously. I believe that they didn't think about it. I think someone decided to place the game in Africa, to make the zombies African, and to make the lead protagonist a steroided white man. I think that they did all of that without thinking about themes, or history, or the power of all of that imagery combined. And I think to not think about stuff is unacceptable. Games should be taken seriously, both by the people who play them and the people who make them. I'm not saying we need to think about the social implications of those Boom Blox Animals and the blocky world they inhabit that we're no doubt destroying, but when a developer makes a game with a narrative, I want them to think about what they're doing. With the setting and imagery of Resident Evil 5, they could have said something to the world, about the world. There's nothing wrong with making something that's racially-charged, but when it doesn't go any deeper than that, than I just see ignorance on so many levels of the development. Because they didn't mean to? And to spend years working on something only to produce an end-product that you didn't mean to make? That's unacceptable. I'm glad you had fun with the game. When I put it in, I just found myself demanding more. More from a gameplay perspective, more from a cinematic perspective, and I wanted more done with the narrative and themes. And after a few levels, when everything just felt like work? I stopped playing. These are our franchises, people. These are the games with the big-budgets. These are the games with the guaranteed audience, the guaranteed purchases. And I just feel like someone somewhere isn't trying hard enough. Someone is making a game without thinking about it, on every aspect of this games production, I feel like no one was standing back and thinking about it. And that's unacceptable.