Master of Unlocking

Woooosh! THAKA-BOOM! R.I.P. grotesque final boss. Now we shall ride into the sunrise on our rescue helicopter.

I really want to write about the ending to Resident Evil 5, but I guess I shouldn't spoil anything for anyone. One of the things I liked about it and can share was that it did move the story forwards. After all the time the RE series spent stagnated in Raccoon City (the likes of Resident Evil Outbreak File 4: Zombie Zoo Escape) it's great to see that Capcom are now quite happy to keep things moving. A rather significant part of the story comes to an end here, and that ties in nicely with the broader "monsters are a part of life now" perspective the RE universe has reached.


At the same time, I suppose some might worry that there's a danger that cutting too many ties to the Umbrella/Raccoon City thread that started the series won't leave enough meat for subsequent developments. But the thing I liked best about RE5 - in fact, the whole reason I was so keen to buy the game, after finding out the spoilerific specifics of this - is the way it's firmly rooted in characters and relationships from previous games.

My absolute favourite part of the game involves a fun, action-packed boss fight, and then a protracted, gruelling ordeal of melee attacks and quick-time events that lasts precisely TOO LONG minutes. What are you doing in this bit? I'm not telling you. But the fact that I found it so difficult and it took me so long and the 'F' key on my keyboard is probably never going to be the same again, well it only made the emotional payoff of success all the sweeter. It's a great technique I think: torturing the player not because the game has arbitrarily decided to make you jump through cruel hoops, but as a way of conveying the lengths one character is prepared to go through for another.

In other news, completing the game unlocks the exclusive PC version costumes, including this number for Sheva:


It's like they saw me coming.