Fun Friday: Not Worth It To Me Edition

While the single player campaign turned out to be pretty darn good, I could not see how it would translate into a multiplayer experience very well. Needless to say, I skipped the $5 DLC and will continue to imagine that this is how it plays.

Fun Friday: Giving In Edition

I've discussed at some length why I hesitate to play Resident Evil 5. However, I broke down and started playing the game today. On one hand, this game creates an absolutely atrocious first impression with frustrating controls combined with an opening sequence that gives the player no time to come to grips with them. Even playing on the easiest difficultly so I am not punished as quickly and so I can try to enjoy the game somewhat, but that initial "boss" with the axe is still ridiculous. On the other, once I finally got past him, I started to get some of the same feelings that I remember Resident Evil 4 evoking.

Yahtzee does have a point about the inventory system; it makes absolutely no sense.

Designed Frustration

Capcom may or may not be aware that some people found the controls in the Resident Evil 5 demo to somewhat cumbersome to say the least, myself included. Either way, they are doing their best to defend it. Producer Jun Takeuchi explained,

We went in knowing that we weren't making a typical third or first person shooter; we were making a Resident Evil game. It was important for us to go with the design choices that would make the best Resident Evil game that we could. When it comes to Resident Evil, we feel that by imposing a restriction on the player you actually increase the tension that they feel while playing.

I really have to disagree here. Tension is not the same as frustration. The entire time I spent with the demo, about an hour, was spent fighting the controls. It had been a few years since I had played Resident Evil 4 but I couldn't get to grips with the controls. It wasn't even the fact that I had to stop to aim; I really think that when they brought the controls from the GameCube controls to the 360 controller, they weren't sure what to do with all of the extra buttons and made the controls overcomplicated.

The other problem I had with the scheme, and the idea that there the same as RE4 so what's the big deal, is that while they updated everything else, the controls stayed the same. There are more enemies and the enemies are smarter and faster but the player feels slow and dumb. It's not really a sound strategy to shoot a couple of zombies in the legs, run to the other side of the room, turn and repeat until they're dead. This tension, it's tedium.

Finally, I just finished plying through Dead Space. That game is tense. And guess what, you can shoot and run at the same time. Look for my thoughts on Dead Space later this week (preview: I loved it).

Resident Evil 5 Rumored to Resides in Haiti

Kotoku is reporting that a very reliable source from within Capcom is confirming that Resident Evil 5 takes place in Haiti, the supposed birthplace of voodoo and zombies. That's what I said.

An Eventful Week

It seems lots of things happened while I was away camping. Instead of going into too much detail I'll just hit up some details.

• Halo 3 pre-orders at 7-11: WTF??!??
• Resident Evil 5 trailer is racist?: No. You only have yourself to blame for feeling that way. Not all black people live in Africa. My first impressions were that they could have been in on a Caribbean Island, like Haiti, as well. Additionally, they are Zombies, not people. Please stop there. Thank you.
• GTAIV delayed! Nooooo!!!: Damn, now what am I going to get my wife on her birthday? Now, was it technological challenges or the PS3? I'm going with technological problems on the PS3.
• Marathon on XBLA makes you sick: No shit, I nearly needed a bucket after only five minutes. Thank god for demos or I would have been a very pissed off camper.