• Posted January 16th, 2009 at 07:10 EDT by
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It has been 7 months since we last had our hands on Capcom’s upcoming horror title, Resident Evil 5. If you happened to miss out on our original impressions of the game, you can check them out here. At CES 2009, however, our hands-on was a little different as we were able to check out one of the game’s premier features, namely co-op play.

First and foremost, those of you who may have concerns regarding this mechanic can rest easy – co-op performs almost flawlessly and integrates itself within the traditional Resident Evil experience with little to no shortcomings. The experience itself comes in three different flavors. Gamers can choose to play split-screen, online, or with an AI partner throughout the entire campaign. While we enjoy the superior AI ability that Sheva Alomar presents, we’re sure many gamers will be utilizing the split-screen and online co-op more so than the standard AI-driven partner. Don’t get us wrong – Sheva’s AI is perfectly capable in its own right, however there are instances where her behaviour appears noticeably less vigilant than usual. For example, there were a couple of times as partners where Chris and Sheva would need to pull a level simultaneously; however, rather than performing her duty, Sheva would simply stands there oblivious to the task at hand. It’s small, rare annoyances like this that make utilizing a friend for survival that much better.

Split-screen and online co-op is definitely going to be where Resident Evil 5 truly excels. There is just something about being able to strategically take down hordes of enemies with a friend that makes a game that much more enjoyable. Considering Sheva and Chris can share not only ammo and health, but also inventory items it makes the human interaction of the title the best way to play it. The build on display gave gamers an opportunity to check out how puzzle solving and combat situations can benefit greatly from a thinking mind holding down the fort behind your back.

There were two levels on display in Capcom’s suite, but we had the opportunity of checking out two other levels that were available through this build. Unfortunately, we can’t talk about them, as we’d like to preserve the story as much as possible for our readers however we will say that they were quite impressive. One of the two levels on display involved a cool boat scenario, which involves you and Sheva taking down enemies pursuing you via water. Your objective is to figure out a lever puzzle in order to progress through the closed doors on your way to your targetted enemy. Within this level, you’ll come face to face with the infamous chainsaw-wielding baddies that cropped up in our previous hands on with the game.

Frankly, we were hard pressed to pinpoint any flaws in the obviously near-final build on display at Planet Hollywood. The visuals were crisp with little, if anything at all, to complain about. Aside from a few niggles with Sheva’s AI as mentioned earlier, the only other complaint we had concerned the random appearance of the weapons-select menu, which resulted in us taking major damage from nearby enemies. Thankfully, when we pointed this issue out, Capcom assured us that this particular gripe had been ironed out for the retail copy of the game. Outside of these minor complaints, Resident Evil 5 played near flawlessly and, from what we’ve seen so far, Capcom looks set to deliver a worthy successor to the formula previously established in Resident Evil 4.

Resident Evil 5 is released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on March 13. 

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