The fifth instalment in the Resident Evil franchise differs considerably from its predecessors in a number of ways. First of all, whilst the game is still played in third-person, the game no longer requres you to move through a series of static pre-rendered screens, but rather adopts the standard moving viewpoint as used in games like Tomb Raider. Secondly, though the game is still nominally the same, in that it requires you to kill hordes of zombies, defeat bosses and solve puzzles in order to progress the story forward, it is now much much more action-based, more closely resembling the Halo/Gears of War generic modern thrid person shooters than the old Alone In The Dark- style gameplay that the Resident Evil series is better known for. Thirdly, the game has move to a very different setting, now taking place in Africa.

The end result is that the game isnt really Resident Evil any more, which will disappoint a lot of long-term fans. The action-based gameplay is briefly entertaining, but it just feels too repetitive to hold the attention for all that long. The game does look technically stunning, with highly detailed visuals and excellent character-model animation, but the art direction is almost non-existent: whereas the original games felt very stylised, 5 just blends in with the dull, bland, brown and grey colour palatte presentation of much of the rest of the mainstream console shooter competition.

The story is average, and the game isnt hugely immersive, although the 2 player co-op mode is fun (although youd be better off playing it online, as splitscreen mode is rather frustrating on a pc). The single-player game requires you to play co-operatively with AI companions, and these work ok, (much better than in say, the abysmal Daikatana), but you can only give them a handful of commands, and its hardly innovatively done. The game is very much made for consoles, and it shows, with the PC port feeling fairly shoddily done overall.

All in all, Resident Evil 5 is little more than a straighforward console shooter with the RE name tagged on. The action-centered gameplay, combined with the lacklustre story and change in setting, all adds up to mean that the game just doesnt feel like Resident Evil any more, and can be played through pretty much on autopilot. File under "generic" and "disappointing".