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Resident Evil 5 Preview

• By Sid Shuman and Patrick Shaw
• December 15, 2008 12:15 PM PST
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These chainsaw executioners are even tougher than they were in the last game, and defeating one will require the full attention of both Chris and Sheva. If one player serves as the 'bait,' the other player can hang back and heap on the damage.

Controlling Your Fear

The inventory management is actually one of the most dramatic changes in Resident Evil 5. Rearranging and rotating colored healing herbs, ammo boxes, and guns in your inventory has been scrapped in favor of a simple limit to how many items you can carry at once. In combat, managing your inventory items also adds to the sense of anxiety, as you must access weapons and healing herbs in real time and not from the safety of a paused menu screen. Though you can assign four items to quick-select slots on the directional pad, you'll still need to fumble in your inventory to free up space and trade weapons or ammo with your partner. This will give you a few panicky moments when one of the chainsaw-wielding executioners approaches and you're left scrambling to grab your most powerful gun.

As for controlling the action, Resident Evil 4 veterans will find that this game's default controls haven't changed much. Resident Evil 5 plays a lot like series favorite Resident Evil 4, with its familiar over-the-shoulder aiming and precision shooting. Using the default controls, the left analog stick handles almost all the work, but Resident Evil 5 adds an optional control scheme that's been billed as a "shooter" layout. In practice, this mode adds the ability to strafe using the left stick but changes little else, and aiming is still accomplished using the left stick. The core Resident Evil 5 design team, based in Osaka, is still working on a mysterious new third control scheme that will be unveiled at a later date. We're hoping that it adds the option to aim your weapon using the right analog stick-fingers crossed, people!

The Las Plagas infection has taken hold of this blackwater tribal village, and the natives are getting awfully restless.

Dead and Loving It

During our hands-on time, the GamePro editors re-lived the first frenzied assault in the African village, moving on to a corroded junk yard infested by dogs, and then quietly crept through a booby-trapped mine. Then we skipped ahead to play a totally new, never-before-seen chapter set in a rotting tribal village that was infested by parasite carriers. Here we got our first glimpse of some giant crocodiles and clashed with the bloodthirsty natives, who fought back with powerful spears and acrobatic hand-to-hand attacks. The attention to detail was impressive: by firing low into the crowd, we sent several attackers sprawling off the pier and into the jaws of the circling crocs. Another stage was set in a crumbling oil refinery as Chris and Sheva pursued an enigmatic figure named Irving. Our final adventure was an adrenaline-soaked race up a spiraling mountain pass, fighting off attacks from the infected villagers that clogged the narrow dirt road.

In fact, the sheer variety of engagements we experienced in Resident Evil 5 was nothing short of staggering-we never fought through the same environment twice. If the final game can keep delivering on the massive action set pieces we saw here, while retaining the pins-and-needles creepiness we loved from Resident Evil 4, then horror fans and shooter fans alike will have every reason to celebrate this March.

This marsh boat is the only free-roaming vehicle to be featured in Resident Evil 5, though other vehicles will factor into some of the action scenes.

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