Ahoy,

Been a while since my RE5 review, mostly because I was busy playing Street Fighter 4. First off let me say that, no I am not amazing at the game although at the same time I am pretty good. I played SF2 back on my SNES when I was a kid and took a bit of a break (and by that I mean I didn't play any Street Fighter games for a while) and as I heard about Street Fighter 4 I got perpetually more interested near it's release. As it is a fighting game, I think my previous fighting game knowledge should be said. So to get this out of the way:

SF2, SFA1-3, GGX2#Reload, Marvel vs Capcom 1+2, Soul Calibur1-3, Power Stone(1), Mortal Kombat 1-3, Super Smash Bros(all of them), And a slew of random other games but only those to a substantial amount.

Okay with my somewhat comprehensive knowledge of fighting games I have to say that Street Fighter 4 is a hard game to review. Part of me wants to say "Awesome" and walk away but there is of course a few niggling details.

When it comes down to the combat system itself, I have to say that they would have had a very hard time designing something better then this game. Though some would disagree all of the components of the combat system are put together impeccably. It is in the games pure combat system that really, I can find no flaws. From the focus attack charge time, to the ex maneuvers, to both the supers and the ultras this game clearly was polished for a long time.

Though it is in that polish that one thing is a bit sad to see. And that is the small glimmer of imperfect character balance. Although the characters in Street Fighter 4 are remarkably balanced in comparison to most, if not all previous installments of Street Fighter and in fact possibly the majority of fighting games out there, it is clearly obvious that there is a king of the hill.

I clearly cannot honestly say that the balance is totally out of whack. It is never impossible to win a fight due to character choice. But the choice of some "high tier" characters that make fights clearly unbalanced. The obvious choice being Sagat as with his ability pressure the field, great anti-air and brutally damaging (and easily juggled into) Super and Ultras, he can win fights with considerably less effort, though never so much so as it is impossible to win, but rather that people he fights have to be on the top of their game, even if the person playing Sagat, is not.

Despite that, the balance is still quite good and even low "tier" characters can dominate as the game very heavily relies on skill rather then character choice. Thankfully to help with developing this skill, they created a slew of game modes to help, even if it isn't as many modes as some other fighting games may have.

Obviously the key mode is Arcade mode, as is par for the fighting game course. In which the player fights through a line up of matches against progressively harder randomized opponents until they face their "Rival" which generally has some storyline connection to the character chosen. There isn't much to say about the mode itself, it works well and though the animated cutscenes prior and post the entire affair may have a split reaction, the "Rival" cutscenes are generally quite entertaining and keep the whole game mode a thrilling experience.

A lot however could be said of the boss of the game however. He is by no means the most powerful fighting game boss of all time, and how could he with the non-fear inducing name of "Seth". But due to his ability to do Spinning Piledrivers, Teleport, Shoryuken, and a shopping cart full of random abilities he can definitely annoy most players, even at lower difficulty settings. The design ideology of a boss is understandable as it gives the player one last major hump to overcome along with that feeling of "I did it!" or to quote Chun Li "Yata!". But in a fighting game creating a character that has a clear character advantage imposes something that, in a game with such well balanced characters, is alien to the player and therefore will cause the player to shut down rather then step up.

Unfortunately this same problem can be found in a few of the other game modes, as in Survival, Time Trial and Trials the difficulty curve is surprisingly steep. Although understandable as they are in the "Challenge" section, something about bieng absolutely manhandled (ironically my most common threat was Cammy) and bieng put down in the third or fourth round is somewhat discouraging. Despite this however it doesnt change the fact that all three of the challenge modes do present something helpful to someone trying to get better at the game.

Time trial and Survival both force the player to do something they may not normally do. Playing survival is a good way of learning what is safe and what isn't, as you have to constantly be counting damage done and trying to stay above whatever percentile the game will heal you at the end of the round. Playing time trial inspires the player to implement aggressive tactics in a way that doesn't get them killed. Trials teach the player the basics and (as previously stated) takes a quick difficulty step up and teaches the player some complex combos that, if practiced, can be very useful. With all that is good about these modes it is sad to say that they have more then just the difficulty curve flaw.

Each has their own little issue that stops them from being all too enthralling. In the case of Time Trials, it is the low difficulty of actually finishing before the time limit. Even playing with slow characters I had no problems getting underneath the time limit and with the majority of the challenges not having scoreboards (and the actual scoreboards being filled with Zengief lariat whores) it really doesn't push the player to keep trying to get better times, as most of the trouble beating it is due to the high difficulty curve. And unfortunately the same is true for Survival mode, due to the fact that each an every enemy is a terrible threat, it inspires less of the feeling of most Survival modes in which you are on a killing spree and pushing through hoping to survive as long as possible and rather that you are trying to survive as long as possible while being pounded into the ground. Sadly because of this most of these modes are now purely used as a method of unlocking the many taunts and colors, titles and icons.

Thankfully however the online play is spot on. Though suffering from lag at times, mostly due to user problems, the gameplay online is roughly the equivalent of playing someone next to you, assuming they are either mute or an angry pre-teen who thinks he is going to "pwn" you. This review is post Championship mode so keep that in mind when I say that Ranked mode is essentially worthless.

The Ranked mode is so exploitable through disconnecting, picking your opponents and point boosters that, similar to the leader boards for Survival and Time Trial, all of the high up spots are essentially, cheaters. That being said, Player matches are a great way to have fun without worry of rank, stats (though your pride may get damaged by some of the better players) and Championship mode is essentially how ranked matches should have worked.

Championship mode added both Replays and the titular Championship matches. The Championship matches are "tournaments" in which the player is bracketed up with the other players who have made it so far in a tournament and therefore the matches are relatively "fair" even if you may unfortunately get paired in the first bracket with a less skilled person or someone who can pound your face in, just like a real tournament.

To avoid the above situation they have added Grade Points(GP) which determine what level of tournament you can enter. Free is for everyone, while G3 is the lowest graded match followed by G2 and G1 and so on as the GP goes up. The higher the level, the worse penalty for losing (as in G3 tournaments you literally always gain points, even if you lose). This does drive the player to keep fighting as they want to come back from losing a tournament, or press on to the next round hoping to beat their previous best Championship Point total.

Championship Points (CP) on the other hand are purely per tournament and don't go with you between tournaments. Every round you win gains CP (Your previous CP total + The person you beat's total + The person you beat's GP). This system encourages trying to get matched up to high GP players to push up your CP so that it is high enough for you to be able to post your replay.

Replays are unfortunately, not as polished as Championship mode. the system that determines whether or not you can save a replay is quite random in that in order to post a replay it has to be the top 5000 or so CP, has to be a finals match and must be higher then your previous CP best. this unfortunately means that even if you had a great fight you want to save you have to have beaten your CP and been in a finals match. I understand limiting uploads to stop server overflow but the ability to save any replay, and vote on any replay should have been included (in both versions).

Though quite a few confusing design choices throughout the different game modes and options, the game itself cannot be beaten mechanic wise. The game, as a fighting game really is unparalleled in polish and fun. The characters are varied, the moves are both recognizable and easy to pull off on their own to entice newer players but at the same time the ability to counter and combo allow advanced players to become nuanced in the games fine play style.

Really no matter how much I tear down the negative aspects, every time I come away from the game, even if I am preturbed about getting beat down, I always had fun playing the game and that is what matters.

I am pretty sure as I have just bought this game, have played most of the recent ones and that is seems to have spread the fan base a bit that I am required both by state and federal law to review it.

First things first, I like it. No I am going to say I love it, I am not going to say it is the ectasy of five thousand games put in one and I am definately not going to start a new religeon based on it glory. But I went through it, I enjoyed it, then I went through it again.

Now it is indeed a pretty game, graphics look sharp, characters are generally well rendered and animated and so on and so forth. But any game with a budget can do that now a days so frankly my love needs to be earned another way. They try to do this by making me reminisce to Resident Evil 4.

Essentially, if you have played the previous installment in the series, you'll have a good idea of whats to come. Go through an environment, shoot some people in the knee and follow with the requisite melee attack, then scour the area for money and items to upgrade your shotguns capability to splatter (somewhat) zombie brains across the multiple enemies.

The enemy characters in mind, I have to say there is none of that so called racism in this game... If it is there believe me it is because your looking for it... And if your looking for something in anything, you'll find it even if it isn't there. That bieng said the enemies are varied and generally are satisfying with one possible problem. The enemies that use machine guns. Not the minigunners or rocket launching enemys because they are sparse, few between and usually give you some means of getting at them in a safe way. The enemys with machine guns however force you into a cover battle, gears of war style which is definately this games weak point.

Fighting crazy melee enemies or sniping enemys generally work fine, but trying to aim a sight at an enemy pretty far away after jumping around a corner is not very effective. It usually end with you hopping around the corner, spending a few seconds aiming then getting pelted with bullets until you blindfire and hit them or slip around the corner, getting ready to repeat it. Now this is not an unnecessarily a bad feature to implement but the means in which it is implemented is the cause for frustration. Fortunately the AI partner has a decent aim, though that is one of it's few beneficial points.

Your AI partner is irratic, and unhelpful at higher difficultys. It tears through ammo, health packs and has an aversion to grenades. And with these issues it also has an undying hatred for its partner, causing it to completely ignore you when your bieng grabbed or in dying status... even if they are standing nearby. Thankfully however there is online play, and it is quite good.

Once I replace my partner with a person of even amateur skill I immediately sigh in relief. The online play is good, with little to no lag in the many sessions I have been in online. Though the split screen play is totally lag free it also oddly shrinks everything and puts a large border around the two screens. They just as easily could have stacked them on top of eachother and it would have worked just as well and not have made the screens so itty bitty. That aside both versions of multiplayer are fully satisfying. Not only allowing fantastic co-operative play but adding a bit of competition in there with statistics for each character displayed at the end of each section. Unfortunately the death scores are together, which means if your going for a high ranking run and your friend dies a few times, you may start to look at them unfavorably.

One thing that Resident Evil fans won't look at unfavorably however is the story. It nicely ties up a lot of the what and why's of the series, however it didn't set it up for a sequal as nicely as the other Resident Evils but I am sure they'll find a way. The story itself isn't amazing, but it is what you would expect from Resident Evil, and unless you take it seriously, and I mean really dead seriously, you will enjoy its story as it serves to take you through a multitude of environments.

Thankfully this multitude of environments will ease multiple playthroughs, as the game isn't exactly what you would call "long." With all of the unlockables this game was clearly designed with multiple playthroughs in mind and in this respect it does a good job... Not an amazing one as on you third run through you'll surely go "oh not this part again." at a few of the more agitating sections. However there are also plenty of sections which when you come back with better equipment you smile at the monster your supposed to run from and whip out a massive magnum with unlimited ammo and proceed to perforate the pest and pick up a treasure you didn't get your first way through.

So essentially, if you dug Resident Evil 4, you'll prolly like this installment. If you hated the control scheme, well then your still out of luck. If you expected massive changed, well gameplay wise Resident evil 1-3, 0, Code Vironica and so on kept the same thing goign for a while, so Capcom probably are going to keep their much beloved Resident Evil 4 system similar for a while. The game has high production value and has replayability, the music is clearly not really memorable as I didn't even think to post about it in this review. In general, a good game, not amazing, not genre defining, but good and with some solid Co-Op.