Resident Evil 5

I've been having a good time lately playing Resident Evil 5, and that's not something I ever really thought might happen.

I played some of the demo on the Xbox 360 back when the game first came out, and fairly quickly wrote it off, or so I thought, due to how the controls felt in the new era of Gears of War and whatnot.

Shawn Elliott's words on the game on the old GFW Radio podcast stuck with me, though, and at some point much later I heard about the DLC expansion Lost In Nightmare that sounded interesting, in that it brought back Jill Valentine and the Mansion from the first RE. I bought the game for a low price on Steam in a sale, and it's sat on the backlog from that point on until just recently when talk of the now newly released Resident Evil 2 remake make me think back on how much I liked that game in its initial incarnation 20+ years ago now.

I felt like playing some RE. Which is maybe not completely unheard of, given the fact that I went back and played a little RE4 on PC sometime last year.

RE5 feels a whole heck of a lot like RE4, only with a co-op buddy along for the ride. I dislike multiplayer, and doubt anyone would be able to or want to play, so I am going through the game solo, but Sheva is a big help and no hindrance at all, so far.

The game's methodical pace and different take on combat from most shooters, which it's tempting to think of RE5 as--it's less that than survival horror--makes for a more laid-back and chill time, even when you are under attack from tens of infected townspeople. They move pretty slowly most of the time, and you are given enough time to run away and regroup a little bit if need be.

I'm not sure if I am making the most effective use of my bullets, though. It seems like the thing to do is to shoot to stagger, then knife where the opportunity presents itself, or punch if possible, though I haven't figured out the rhythm of making that an option yet.

I'm less focused on gaming as a whole these days, which might have the odd effect of making it easier to focus play on one title. I'd like to play through this game and the aforementioned Lost In Nightmare DLC. It's good fun so far.