First Thoughts: Resident Evil 5

So after much wailing and gnashing of teeth I was able to come up with a plan to buy Resident Evil 5. I hit Gamestop last night for their midnight release and played it until 3 in the morning. A few thoughts on the game:

-Would it be freakin possible to break the game data that needs to be installed into smaller chapter sized chunks, ala Metal Gear Solid or run the install concurrently with the introductory cutscene? The 1GB data install before you can play the game took 15 minutes to install. I understand it's necessary for the proper running of the game but c'mon. 15 minutes is 14 and a half too long.

-I have a love/hate relationship with the new parter system. For those who don't know, your main character Chris Redfield (from RE:1 and Code:Veronica) has a partner in the field that can be controlled via AI or an online or offline human partner. I love it because it adds a new dyanmic to the game which is much more in depth than the partner stuff from RE4 (mainly because Sheva is also a highly trained agent and can hold her own). I hate it however because you have limited control options over her. You can tell her to either go on the offensive or cover you. In either case you have to control her inventory because she won't always pick up ammo for herself. Also with her around it makes it hard to accomplish certain trophies/achievements such as 'kill 5 enemies with your knife'. Well, I can't do that if my partner is popping shots into the zombie I'm trying to stab. You literally have to disarm her to do it.

-Speaking of trophies, they are all fairly acheiveable and the counter ones (kill x zombies with y) add up whether or not you die after doing it. Most of the harder ones are ones where you have to get all the weapons fully upgraded and that's just hard because of the game time involved. You also have to play through at least twice, once on Easy/Medium/Hard to unlock Extreme difficulty and then beat the game on that. I've found no word if beating it on hard will satisfy the beat it on easy or medium trophies.

-The graphic and lighting effect are top notch (as they should be). The first part of the game is played in an African village with blazing sun beating down on you. When you go from shadow to light you are momentarily blinded as your "eyes" adjust.

-The new zombies, dubbed the Manjini, are similar in speed to the Ganados of RE4 but with even more erratic movement making them harder to hit. Their "zombie" biological agent appears to be some sort of worm. Later you have to fight a sub-boss composed of nothing but worms. It's a very interesting fight.

-Many of the improvements from RE4 are still there. Over the shoulder camera, context specific button presses (i.e. near a window, press square to jump out. Near a fence press square to jump over). The big change is that inventory management is done in real time like RE: Outbreak (the online one). Also like RE: Outbreak, your inventory is limited to 9 different things which you can switch from a larger inventory between chapters or when continuing.

-One thing that continues to vex me is there is no dodge or 'jump back' feature (to my knowledge, I've yet to look at the instruction manual). If there really isn't one, seriously why not? You have a Special Ops. trained agent and the best he can do for evasion is to do a quick turn and run? Also, WHY IN THE HELL CAN'T HE WALK WHEN HIS KNIFE OR GUN IS DRAWN!!! Capcom, if you're going to move more toward realism then please, please remove this last gameplay mechanism tie to the 1st Resident Evil.

-The story so far is really good, with one minor gripe. They revealed that a major character from games past is now dead. I have two thoughts. If it relates to nothing, then it was way too early. My other thought is that it may relate to this mysterious hooded figure you see in the beginning who is apparently working for the bad guy, and yes Wesker shows up again. Maybe you'll finally be able to kill his smug sunglass wearing ass?

So yeah, all that in two hours of playing :) I can't wait for the rest, too bad I have to finish all my 'projects' this weekend :(