Resident Evil 5

As a standalone game, RE5 hits all the right notes, aesthetically and technically. However, when held up against the franchise's previous titles, the decision to do away with a lot of the puzzle elements, the newly incorporated co-op option, while diluting the fear factor sees a game struggling to come to terms with its identity. The premise is fairly straight forward. A third person shooter, in which the player has to survive hordes of the living dead punctuated by heart stopping boss battles leading up to an epic finale. Sound familiar? Well it should, strip away the exotic milieu, block out the sun and pile on a dark, dense suffocating atmosphere and what you're left with is RE4. Even the stop and shoot mechanics from 2005 is unchanged. Fan boys will cheer at this, but this simply adds to the confusion, as you try to work out if this is a re-imagining of the previous title or a fully fledged action game?

The game follows Chris Redfield who takes over from RE4's Leon Kennedy as the game's protagonist and immediately gets thrust into action, as a field operative for the Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) having left STARS 10 years before. With the action shifting to Kijuju, Africa, it's away with the dark shadows and in with zombies, where he is paired up with a new female sidekick, Sheva Alomar after his previous partner; Jill Valentine mysteriously disappears and is presumed dead following an encounter with their old nemesis, Albert Wesker.

As a straight up action game, RE5 comes into its own during co-operative play, where a friend as the second player adds to the camaraderie and sense of fun. It's clear the game has been developed with co-op play in mind, and unfortunately the single player campaign suffers as a result of this. While the added firepower is invaluable when gunning down the monstrous, weapon wielding Majini, Sheva's AI is sometimes unresponsive and tends to get in the way at the wrong time.

{Resident Evil 5} producer, Masachika Kawata has been quoted as saying, ‘the zombie is a strong character,' which is a gross understatement. The zombies (technically, infected humans) have been re-envisioned and are en ensemble of fleet-footed waves of destruction. They are incredibly strong, agile and come armed to the teeth with all manner of weapons, which include among others chainsaws, crossbows, spears and machetes.

Identity crisis aside, RE5 is a heck of a lot of fun to play and does well to try and clear up questions surrounding the series' convoluted storyline. The inventory system has also been tweaked to ease use and sharing of weapons and other items between players involved in both the single and co-op campaigns. Despite the glowing visual makeover, the decision to stick with the stop and shoot mechanics is a misjudged one and only serves to emphasize the clunky controls. For those gamers willing to endure, finishing the game unlocks the now infamous Mercenaries mode, which has players tackling the game in timed challenges and also features the co-op fun for more undead butchery.