Resident Evil 5 Demo Out on Xbox Marketplace Today

The Game Room
1

Don’t bother. It’s horrible.

Sadly, the fears are real. The controls are gimped.

This kind of stuff could pass before games like Call of Duty and Halo, but it’s inexcusable now. Having bad controls adding to part of the horror environment is no longer attractive.

Put specifically, here are the problems.

Depending on your control scheme, (Type A being the “best”, I’d say) the left thumbstick is walk and the right one adjusts your viewpoint. That part is just fine. In order to do anything with a weapon, you have to (for Type A, again) hold a trigger and hit X. That part isn’t so bad, but you can’t move while you’re swinging a machete and you can’t move when shooting a gun. It’s so common sense to be able to move and execute an action now in gaming that every I’me I pull out the machete, I look skywards because I’m still pushing forward on the right thumbstick… This is only part of the problem. The enemy comes at you very slowly, which means that you can just stand there and pump lead into them until they fall. However, if you run out of bullets and have to reload, you can keep hitting the trigger to fire before you realize you have to hit a separate button (well, buttons. Right trigger and A will reload). In close combat, the enemy, who moves slower than two bricks mating, will inevitably grab you. Wiggle the thumbsticks to get out. I’m cool with that, however, if you’re surrounded by people that wish to do you harm, doesn’t it follow that the people around you will by…you know…harming you? They don’t. They stand in the parented “Bruce Lee Enemy Circle” around you until you shake the star-nosed assassin off of you.

So, you get your ass whooped and you’re incapacitated. Your partner, who is still upright, picks you up off the dirt and gives you a little shot of (presumably) morphine (mmmmmmm) so you can start fighting again. Two more problems. The “Bruce Lee Enemy Circle” forms around you and nobody hits you until you’re done with the healing animation and you can’t even switch weapons when you’re in this animation, which is lame.

I’ve thrown the controller down in disgust once, which is very rare for me. I left the room, grabbed something to nibble and picked the controller back up. “Maybe all this Halo and Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto has spoiled me. Maybe I can’t appreciate the Resident Evil missionary controller scheme.”

I unpause the game and a giant dude kicks down the door. He’s holding a massive axe and executed some dude in the opening cinmatic.

“Oh. Fuck. Me.”

I shoot him with a shotgun. He stops. He looks at me and starts slowly moving towards me.

“Fuck”, I think. “I know how this goes.”

{Did I mention that I have grenades? I didn’t? Well, I have grenades. Well, not really, because I don’t know how to throw them. I’d think that a grenade or maybe two would empty out a room teeming with third-world peasant zombie-types, right? Yes, in my dreams, it does.)

So I shoot this giant guy with an axe (really, in extremely undernourished Africa, there’s a guy that grows to 8 feet tall? Manute Bol was tall, but he couldn’t bench press a Yugo with his cock like this maniac could probably do.)

Well, shit. He finally went down because I somehow got him pinned in the corner between trying to sta-no, I don’t want to stab him, I want to shoot him. That’s a different button combination again. Well, crap, I looked the wrong way, but it’s amazing how a combat machete to the throat of an African villager doesn’t…you know…fucking kill them instantly.

Bah. That’s my glowing review. I wish this were a disc so I could eject it and put it back in its case forcibly, just to make an empty point to it.

2

That sounds almost exactly like the RE4 control and play style. I’ll have to play it when I get home from work tonight (my brother is downloading it now) to confirm.

In which case, I’ll probably love it. :wink:

3

Is there going to be a demo for the PS3?

I’m not too worried about the control scheme, I’m more worried about if the forced co-op is going to make the game frustrating. Because lord knows having the girl follow you around in RE4 was annoying as hell. Is the AI competent?

4

I’m excited regardless.

5

The demo is incredibly short. It’s hard to tell.

Also, the Type A is the Resident Evil 4 control scheme, unfortunately, it’s complete garbage.

6

Did you think it was complete garbage in RE4? Or is it just not implemented as well in the new demo?

7

Didn’t play that one (at least I don’t think I did).

Wait, is that the Resident Evil where you’re the blond emo-looking guy and you start off in that Eastern-Europe village?

There, I checked Wikipedia and yes, I did play that game. The controls are badly implemented, even with bad controls brought over from the previous one.

Wow, I can’t believe it was that long ago that game came out.

8

Have you played Gears of War? Because when I played that at my friend’s house, I found the controls were clunky and I hated it. But I had absolutely no problems adjusting to the RE4’s controls and I finished the game. I guess it could be personal preference.

9

Yep. Gears was okay, but Gears 1’s problem is that you stuck to walls more than you wanted to. The problem with Gears is that they DIDN’T release a demo to iron out their flaws. They’re reaping a lot of bad benefits.

I would HAPPILY take Gears’ control responsiveness over the lump of crap that Capcom has foisted upon us.

10

I thought terrible controls to the point of being unplayable was the entire point of the Resident Evil series. :wink:

(Really the first one that I found that I could play at all was RE4 on the Wii; that turned it into a great shooter…)

11

Upon reflection, I remember how bad the controls were, but they (seemed) to be from limitations. This is done purely by choice. There are two reasons I can think of: laziness and trying to ratchet up the suspense with crappy controls. Either way is inexcusable, especially with so many great games out there now.

12

Honestly, other than the new inventory system (which doesn’t pause the game–I know, it adds to the survival aspect, but I rather liked using my inventory as an “oh shit” button), I like the way this game feels. It must be a personal preference thing, but I’ve never been great at the controls of games like GoW and CoD, while I’m a fairly decent headshot in RE4 (and now 5). About the only thing I wish they’d thrown in the demo, was a level without gobs o’ mobs running after you, or at least provided more ammo. Course, I’ve only played each of the two single player levels once (beat the first one, failed the second one).

And for the record, so far, the second player is actually kinda decent, AI-wise, though she does sometimes block my view of my shots when following me.

13

I played the demo for a while last night. I thought it was pretty awesome, but it reminded me of another demo - Dead Space. Hey, game companies, making your demo impossibly hard doesn’t do anything to sell the game - it just makes me think that you cranked the difficulty way up instead of intelligently designing challenge. I lived about 2 minutes in the first RE5 level until that thing with the hammer appeared, and I made it all the way through the second stage until the chainsaw guy got me with a one-hit kill.

This is not the way to sell games. I was planning on buying Dead Space THE NEXT DAY, but when I played the demo - take two steps, die, repeat - I decided instead to never buy it.

14

For what it’s worth, I didn’t actually find Dead Space to be particularly hard. You might want to give it a shot, I really enjoyed that game.

As for designing challenge… well, simply put, it’s harder than simply cranking up the difficulty, and also requires finding devs who are creative (harder than you’d think), it takes more time to do it right, more time means more money. Game companies are lazy

15

Hopefully, Capcom will make a few tweaks and changes, although I fear it’s way too late in the development life of this game.

That and I’m being flamed by a bunch of fanboys in the Capcom forums for saying that the control scheme is wretched.

16

Bump to see if there were any other opinions.

17

I tried the demo last night. The controls were too wonky for me to deal with so many mobs on screen at one time. I found it hard to deal out headshots even with the laser sight. I don’t like holding A down to run. I remember RE4 taking quite a while for the controls to gel for me so I will give this one a shot but right now they aren’t very good.

The graphics and sound are fucking badass though. No doubt there.

18

No doubt. The graphics look very nice, but I can’t help but wonder how the series could get potentially resurrected if the franchise went to a top-flight designer.

19

The teams at Capcom are top flight designers.

I wrote up my thoughts on the demo in a preview at my site. Basically, I loved it and here’s why:

The demo is split up into two levels, Assembly Place and Shanty Town. Each gives a decent overview of what players can expect from the game, though Shanty Town feels more “open” in its level design. And while RE5 may bring back fond memories of RE4, the new cooperative play style of the game is a true revolution. The AI controlling Sheva is smart, but not indestructible, and the two characters work well together.

For example, once your health drops down too far, the screen begins to flash and the word “DYING” appears in place of the health bar. If your partner is quick enough, they can restore a minute bit of health by keeping your character from collapsing. Weapons, ammo and other items can also be traded at will. Such teamwork is required for some of the demo’s more advanced challenges.

One of these challenges is a section of the Shanty Town level that requires Chris to help Sheva jump from one building to another so she can work her way down to the ground floor to break the lock on the other side of the door. But Chris has to do more than just wait for her at the door. He has to match her pace down the stairs and cover her with rifle fire to keep the villagers from overwhelming her.

The level then introduces one of the demo’s two bosses: the Chainsaw Majini. The Chainsaw Majini is tough (and resembles Jason Vorhees more than a little bit) and requires precise teamwork to kill because his chainsaw is a one-hit kill machine. Playing cat and mouse, laying down cover fire and utilizing the complementary weapon loadouts that Chris and Sheva have are required for victory.

The demo also gives players the chance to take on the Majini in the online co-op mode and it is even better than pairing with an AI partner. The game plays smooth as silk with another person online and the possibilities for teamwork and strategy seem endless when the world of Resident Evil 5 is stretched before you online.

20

It seems that Capcom is selectively good. Street Fighter? Good. Mega Man remakes? Good. Resident Evil? Not so much. Capcom has been a good designer, oh, during the halcyon Nintendo days, but these days? I wouldn’t put them up with Bungie, VALVe, Blizzard, or BioWare. I wouldn’t even put them with Epic, who may be the Best of the Worst. I assume the Japanese audience would have a wildly different take on this as well. In any case, let’s look at Capcom’s IP (per Wikipedia):
Mega Man
Street Fighter
Onimusha
Devil May Cry
Resident Evil
Captain Commando
Strider
Breath of Fire
Darkstalkers
Final Fight
Marvel Vs. Capcom
SNK Vs. Capcom
Disney games

There are more, but those would (arguably) be the biggest ones, probably none bigger than the money maker that Disney games tend to be. I see a lot of ports over from previous games and not much innovation. Huge in the NES days, big in the SNES days, had a brief fizzle with the Dreamcast, and Devil May Cry (which I never really cared for) and Resident Evil (which has always been plagued with bad controls) sprinkled in there.