Resident Evil 5

Taking its core gameplay directly from Resident Evil 4, Capcom's latest big-budget Resident Evil fits my tastes perfectly. I know a lot of people have given up on "stop and pop" and moved on exclusively to "run and gun," but for my money, Resident Evil 4 and 5 feature the most purely entertaining gunplay in all of gaming. So obviously I love it, but how much?

What I loved
It's a new adventure with RE4 gameplay. I have a lot of love for the old-style Resident Evil games. Resident Evil 4 was an ambitious reinvention of the series, and while most people loved it, some resented it for leaving much of the old gameplay behind. Either way, Resident Evil 4 is surely one of my top 5 games of all time (I say that about a lot of games, but I really mean it about RE4!). Thankfully, Capcom has resisted the temptation to imitate other popular shooters and kept RE5 true to RE4's foundation. RE4-like enemies, weapon customization, meticulously designed levels, and so much more. In the end, they created exactly the shooter I wanted to play, and for RE4 fanatics like me, it feels so right.
Unrivaled visuals. Resident Evil 5 does the graphics right in every way. Technically and artistically, through flawless animation and cinematics, Capcom has created the absolute most mind-blowing visual experience imaginable. I expected RE5 to look amazing, but it has absolutely exceeded even my highest expectations.
RE5 is the story that neatly ties up everything. Well, almost everything. I have a few questions about a character or two who appeared in earlier Resident Evil games, but Resident Evil 5 delves into almost all unanswered questions and motives, leaving me very satisfied with the story. If Capcom wanted to end the series with 5, they could easily do so.
Co-op, of course! I had the rare opportunity to play Resident Evil 5 with Drumble, who borrowed a PS3 just for this occasion. Both of us are pretty crazy about the Resident Evil series, especially RE4, and that just made the co-op experience all the more entertaining. Aside from a number of disconnects that were entirely the fault of my own Internet hicupping (it's been doing that for a week or two), the experience was flawless. I've not played a whole lot of PS3 games online, but this was a very positive experience. Except when my Internet was dropping out, I never saw any strange character movements or oddities. I can't comment on the in-game voice chat, however, since we used Skype to communicate (which, I don't know why you wouldn't, anyway).
Lack of ridiculous puzzles. RE4 toned down the random emblem-hunting quite a bit, but there were still some random things that had to be acquired to open doors. This has less of a place in the new style of RE games than it did in the old style. Thankfully, the RE5 team realized this, and while there are a few seals/emblems/slabs/whathaveyou to collect, such instances are few and far between, and fit in decently well in their context.

What's alright...
Item management. The item management is almost under the "what I liked" category, but it presents a few bizarre design choices. During gameplay, item management is entirely realtime. This makes the co-op play functional and allows you to trade between your partner and yourself. For the most part, this works well. It keeps gameplay moving quickly, and weapons can be set to up, down, left, and right for quick access via the D-pad. You can only hold 9 items on the 3x3 grid. I warmed up to this limitation, because it's just small enough to make you consider what's really important to take, but not crippling like the 6 slots Chris had in RE1. Also, while only one healing item can be placed in a slot, ammo stacks up in fairly large chunks, and items like grenades stack up to 5 in one slot. As much as I like RE4's super easy item management, I'm also rather fond of this throwback to the limitations of the older games. On the other hand, opening the realtime menu and selecting something like a healing item, a grenade, or other weapon that may not be on a quick-access button can be a pain, especially if your partner is not in a position to cover you while you fumble in the menu. I also greatly miss RE4's option to simply use a healing herb that is lying on the ground, or combine it from outside the case with an herb that is inside the case. Another oddity is that ammo cannot be split. Unless your partner cannot hold all of your bullets, if you hand bullets to your partner, it's all or nothing. One final quirk is that you can only reposition items in your menu between chapters. During gameplay, you may acquire a new weapon that will just fall into the first empty slot in your inventory, which may not be on a quick-access button. After the chapter, you can reposition the items however you like, and also place unneeded items into your off-hand inventory for retrieval at another time. Treasures and keys do not take up inventory slots, thankfully. All in all, the inventory system works, but there are some surprising oversights that I would like to see fixed in the inevitable RE6.

What I didn't like so much...
People who bash RE5 as "outdated." Because the fact of the matter is that there are people who prefer this kind of shooter. Try to see what's enjoyable about it before you just bash its controls. OK, so that's not really about the game, but still. I guess I could pick something I didn't like...
Since when was Chris so dang huge? Seriously.

I gave Resident Evil 5 4/4 stars on my Backloggery for "excellent." Resident Evil nuts will love to see where the story goes and fans of RE4 in particular will be in heaven with the gameplay. Aside from the perfectly-executed co-op and amazing visuals, Resident Evil 5 doesn't improve terribly much upon Resident Evil 4, but I would say the overall game is just as excellent. I had considered it my most-anticipated game for quite some time, but I'll admit I was worried if it could truly meet my expectations. Thankfully, it turned into something really amazing. For a gamer with my tastes, I couldn't recommend it more.