Call me a wimp, but my time with Resident Evil 5 in Capcom’s press room left me with a chill down my spine. It wasn’t a fear of grotesque monster-infested loonies running rampid that got to me, it was the giant freak with a chainsaw and bag over his face that ripped my partner in half that really left an impression. Even though it scared the living hell out of me, it left me wanting more, way more.

Resident Evil 5 looks amazing, it definitely has some of the best graphics around for the 360 and PS3 to date. The game has the same feel as Resident Evil 4, with the over-the-shoulder camera and such, but there are a few things about the game that might actually hurt it if not changed before the release. One of those things was the menu — when brought up, you would see a clear menu box where you would have to then quickly select which item you would want to use. This would have been great, if it wasn’t all in real-time — I was too busy trying to figure out which weapon would be best while a bunch of phsychos kept running at me. Maybe if the menu box wasn’t so clear it would have been easier, because then the weapons wouldn’t really be blending in with the environment.

Another problem that was pretty obvious (and downright hilarious to myself) was the fact that the lighter skinned enemies had horrible AI for whatever reason. Here you had the African enemies running after you and actually attacking, while the lighter ones would run into walls and just walk over to you like nothing was even happening, so it was pretty obvious that something had been done despite reports to the contrary. I understand if the developers wanted to somehow to remove the taste of racism some people saw, but to “fix” it like this? Let’s just hope they get the kinks worked out before March 13 of next year.

As for the controls, players might as well just stand there and let the infected have their way with them. The controls (at least for the 360) really just took a piece of my soul. Players pretty much do everything with their right hand. It’s like you don’t have enough fingers on one hand to even shoot the gun. I guess for some players that wouldn’t be TOO difficult but…anyways, trying to handle the guns was horrible. I spent most of the time trying to aim, and then by the time I got it right I was face to face with the one I was trying to shoot. It just took too much time trying to aim the gun at people, especially if you wanted to shoot someone next to you. Players would have to lower their gun, then try all over again. Luckily, Sheva ended up having to help my pitiful self out of the ordeal. Though, I do have to admit, her AI works very well.

I can honestly say that I was hoping for more with the gameplay, but hey, the game has until next year. Let’s just hope that by then the enemies will have their heads out of their butts and Chris will actually be able to aim a gun, isn’t that what he’s supposed to do anyways?