I finally got a chance to play the Resident Evil 5 demo, which has been out a week on X360 for Live Gold members (i.e. not me). I tried out both the 360 and PS3 versions last night. I noticed no significant difference between the two. All impressions below are from the single player levels.

The African village re-creation looks really fantastic, and I like the general direction of having the player move between blinding daylight and dark, cramped interiors. The usual Capcom attention to detail is present as always, in the heat waves and dust particles. It’s not state-of-the-art by any means (take a look at any door texture), but it certainly gets the job done. The look of the game owes everything to its superb art direction and colour palette. Music is appropriately moody, if a little forgettable. Cutscenes such as the one opening the Public Assembly level are well-directed, making heavy use of the handheld camera style.

So, the setting is great. Unfortunately it rapidly falls apart as soon as you start shooting things.

A quick mention of RE4 is in order, just so you know where I am coming from. I didn’t play through more than the first 45 minutes of that game. The control scheme was a dealbreaker; I simply can’t get used to the lack of any walking, or even slow strafing*, while shooting. I know it has it’s fans, and if you are one of them, then some of the following criticisms will not necessarily bother you as much as they did me, because RE5 is RE4 in a new setting, with a partner character.

Like RE4, you can’t move at all while your gun is aiming. The aim button causes you to plant your feet and go into turret mode. When the bad guys get too close, you execute an instant 180º spin, run a few steps, spin again and repeat. This was kind of clunky when RE4 came out, and it’s really stupid today.

Furthermore, because you can’t move while aiming, this fact has forced the developers into some truly contortionist tactics regarding the animation of the enemies. They will shuffle toward you at a ridiculously slow pace. In groups they will walk up to you and dutifully wait until you shoot some of their friends in the face before setting upon you. Sometimes, hilariously, they will sprint up to about 10 feet away from you, then resume the zombie shuffle. Most of these zombies can take 3-6 shots to go down, sometimes even in the head. They will stagger around for several seconds at a time holding their face until they resume their determined, snail-like pace.

The new partner character, Sheva, is not very effective. She gets in your way quite often, begs you for your (precious) ammo, and likes to get into situations where you need to help her right away. She definitely helps with the shooting, but between the slow zombies and the fact that she will “spend” your ammo at will, she’s just as much of a liability as not having her there at all. I imagine it changes significantly when you have a co-op human partner playing as her as well, although this is only available when playing online (There is in fact offline co-op, thanks Ajar. The PS3 demo allows free co-op online play also.)

The old Resident Evil contextual items are back: when approaching certain ledges or windows or doors, Chris can move over/through it by pressing the right button. Sometimes he will help Sheva onto a slight fork in the game path. You can’t actually tell where these magic “moments” are until you are actually standing on them, which can lead to some frustration.

But the biggest offender, by far, are the controls. They are needlessly cumbersome and difficult in ways that are frankly indefensible. To run you hold down a button and move the stick, otherwise Chris walks. There is no reason to walk anywhere. At all. To use your knife, you must combine a chorded 2-button combo with the shoulder buttons (upper left and lower right on both consoles). That 180º spin that you must use so often? No button for that. It’s not even mentioned anywhere within the game’s pad control scheme: I had to look it up on the net to make sure it was even in there (it’s down on the left stick while pushing the same button that also reloads, or opens doors, or runs). I mean, seriously: there’s a dedicated button for “show minimap”, a dedicated button for “look at Sheva”, but for the crucial and oft-used knife attack or 180º spin? Nope. Inventory management is ridiculously clunky and poorly designed, but runs in realtime, so you need to fuck around with it while zombies shamble forward, and sometimes involves a menu structure that is 2 or 3 levels deep. Haven’t combined the herbs you picked up? You’re probably toast.

I set the scheme to type D, which was the least offensive of the bunch, but still a far cry from – I have to say it, a normal new-gen shooter. Dead Space had a control scheme that literally disappeared when I played it; I spent no time thinking about how to do something, just what I wanted to do. The aiming (which I set to “fastest” – there are only 3 settings) was still like moving underwater. Chris literally cannot turn with anything approaching normal human speed. Outside of videogames, I have fired a real gun exactly once, and even so, I feel quite confident that if Chris Redfield were to somehow materialize and come after me in real life, I could fuck that guy up without much of a sweat. All I’d need to do is step around him.

My demo experience ended with a giant dude with a chainsaw and a bag on his head. I shot him in the face 5 times then threw a grenade (6 button presses to make that happen, btw) for good measure. He shook his head then killed me. I turned the game off and walked away.

It’s just not scary. And the controls suck ass.

My recommendation would be to play Dead Space or Left 4 Dead instead. They’re both a lot scarier, and control beautifully. It’s a shame really, after all the talk of “western-friendly controls” being added to RE5, I thought maybe this is one I would enjoy. The designers seem to be hamstrung by their own dogged insistence on outdated control schemes.

* It has come to my attention after writing this that apparently you can sort of strafe left-right with one of the control schemes. I was unable to discover this. It’s certainly not mentioned anywhere in the game.

He’s completely right of course. It’s not scary, it’s comical; which last I checked is diametrically opposed to horror. You don’t take a sexy nurse and mangle her face – you gotta do something truly disturbing.

Now Richard D. James, he knew something* about taking sexuality and twisting it:

* ok ok, maybe credit goes to Chris Cunningham. Whatever. Leave me alone.

Lots more info for the RE aficionado at BioFlames.

As reported by Joystiq by way of CNN Money (?!), upcoming supergroup simulator Rock Band will be featuring the interminable, gut-wrenching, soul-beshitting songs of… The Grateful Dead.

The monstrous presence of MTV’s moneybags reveals itself:

The iconic group is making 18 master recordings from its diverse catalog available as digitally distributed game levels following Rock Band’s release this holiday season. Among the songs available will be the classic Dead tracks “Truckin’,” “Uncle John’s Band,” “Touch of Grey,” “Sugar Magnolia,” and “Casey Jones.”

“Grateful Dead’s unique fusion of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, and jazz challenged traditional musical boundaries and pushed the limits of creativity to produce a signature sound that is undeniably their own,” stated Paul DeGooyer, MTV’s Senior Vice President of Audio, Home Video and Electronic Games. “With an enormous legion of fans all over the world, Rock Band will give players a chance to interact with the music of these beloved rock pioneers and experience what Grateful Dead did best – jam from the depths of their souls.”

No word on whether or not we will be able to download the haunting sound of thick air.

Thank the maker this content doesn’t come included as standard with the game. I don’t think even a 50-gigabyte Blu-ray disc could hold one of their jam sessions.

MTV has a nice little interview with the main voice talent in Dead Head Fred, John McGinley, whom you will recognize and say to yourself Hey It’s That Guy, as you do with actors that you don’t know that you know but you actually do, in fact, know.

I haven’t played Dead Head Fred yet, but I plan on picking it up for my PSP. It’s got a style to it that immediately struck me – sort of like Medevil on the PS1 did. I want to say, Tim Burton’ish, but honestly that guy gets too much credit for Kooky Spooky fare. We’ll go with Edward Gorey.

The summer doldrums subside a bit this week for both the Wii and the PS3.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
This is a delayed heavy hitter that many a Wii owner have been waiting a long time for. Early reviews are mostly positive; the controls seem to have been improved from previous versions with the addition of the Wii Remote, adding some nice touches like the “fishing” grappling beam move and of course a more natural way of aiming the gun. And some characters actually speak in this Metroid. Not Samus though; she just grunts sexily, while flipping out and killing Mother Brains. I expect this one to sell out initially as there’s really been nothing to play on Nintendo’s newest system for a long time (Chicken Shoot notwithstanding, of course).

Blue Dragon (Xbox 360)
So Microsoft managed to round up Hironobu Sakaguchi, Akira Toriyama, and Nobuo Uematsu – all of whom worked on Chrono Trigger – and what did they come up with? A 3-DVD game that looks like Dragon Ball Z meets Aladdin. I know some people are looking forward to this one but it’s just a little… a lot too romper-room for me. Complete with poop jokes. If you must try the game, and you aren’t already decided: rent it first. That’s my advice.

Warhawk (PS3)
This game somehow managed to emerge from Development Hell mostly intact, losing its single-player campaign in the process and becoming a multiplayer-only 3rd-person fragfest. The official reviews are a bit mixed, but if the 27-page thread on NeoGAF about the beta release is to be believed, it’s one hell of a ride; think Battlefield, but with crazy jets and tanks. You can buy this one in two flavours: as a 1 GB download from the PSN Store for $42.99 CAD (midnight release on Aug.28), or as a full-priced Blu-ray release that comes with a Bluetooth headset in the BluPackage.

Stuntman: Ignition (Xbox 360, PS2 this week; PS3 soon)
The idea behind this one is that you are a movie stunt driver; the game sets up courses for you to race (the “levels”) and you need to perform a certain number of stunts within the course to proceed. The original version was quite punishing in how strict it was. As I understand it, THQ has revamped the system to a looser “tolerance” for errors, rather than making you start all over each time. From what I’ve seen, the visuals are somewhat mediocre, and its hard to get excited about scripted events that never change. Maybe worth a rent though.

Dead Head Fred (PSP)
This looks like it could be a real winner. A Tim Burtonesque gumshoe-inspired adventure game that has you switching between various interchangeable heads that provide different abilities. The videos I’ve seen are pretty funny.

Monster Hunter Freedom 2 (PSP)
This was, if you can believe it, the very best selling game in Japan last year. Yes, more than Pokemon. I think they even have a church dedicated to it over there. You hunt monsters using gigantic armaments. You level up RPG-style. You direct your in-house cooking staff. You wear the skins of your fallen foes as jaunty hats. Graphically, it is very impressive for a PSP title. If you are a fan of those epic Final Fantasy-style battles, this is one for you.

Worms 2: Open Warfare (PSP, DS)
A bunch of worms play Scorched Earth using an assortment of wacky weapons. It’s a pretty cute game, and loads of fun with two players.

Also – Stranglehold got delayed by a week. Boo.

First thing we noticed was that track 2 – the Batman theme – was way, way better music than what they actually used in the game. So we started trying a few other Elfman classics: Edward Scissorhands, Scrooged… and then we hit upon a winner.

Big Top Pee Wee.