Editor’s note: This review was written by Aaron Warren, a student at Full Sail University. Aaron started playing games when he was about 5 with the NES. After that point, games became his No. 1 hobby, and Aaron has been playing them like mad ever since. As he got older, Aaron fell in love with games that have great stories. He tends to stray toward role-playing games more than any other. Great games tend to have great stories, and Aaron loves that.

Capcom has been releasing interesting and compelling games for many years. It has many franchises that are incredibly popular. One such franchise is Resident Evil. In Resident Evil 5, Capcom succeeded in pleasing players again.

Being a longtime fan of the franchise, I was excited about the newest installment. The return of Chris Redfield as the main character was something Resident Evilfans had been waiting for since we last saw him in Resident Evil: Code Veronica. This game was also the culmination of everything in the series involving Albert Wesker and was something fans have been excitedly awaiting.

This game takes place 11 years after the events of the first Resident Evilgame and a few years since Resident Evil 4. During the time since he was a member of STARS, Special Tactics and Rescue Squad, Chris had gone and joined the BSAA, Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance, an organization against bioterrorism. Umbrella Corporation has also been dissolved; unfortunately, the various bio-weapons it developed still creep up all over the world. Incidents seem to keep popping up all over, and Chris was sent to investigate one such incident.

The story takes you through some of the classic twists and turns that have become the norm for Resident Evil. We see Wesker returning as the big bad in the game as well as the return of another popular character from the franchise. You can also be certain we get to witness some pretty extreme mutations into horrific creatures. We also get to see the return of the Ogre monsters from Resident Evil.

The story takes some time to look into what Chris has been up to since his last appearance in the series. It appears that Chris and Jill went after one of the last heads of the Umbrella Corporation, but they were too late. Wesker beat them to him and murdered him. After a confrontation with the super-human Wesker, we were lead to believe Jill was killed. This is one of the events that seem to motivate Chris to continue doing what he does best: fight bioterrorism.

The story takes you through some interesting scenery. You start in a small village, but by the end, you are standing in the middle of a volcano! A couple of times, you find yourself on large ships battling outrageous monsters at the end. You also get the chance to use some interesting weapons like a satellite laser and mounted Gatling guns. At another point, you even run through the ruins of an ancient civilization full of traps devised by the ancient people.

The control scheme that was used for this game is very similar to the setup used in Resident Evil 4. Once again, Capcom used the over-the-shoulder style for gameplay and brought back the interactive cutscenes. They also brought back obtaining multiple weapons and being able to use money you collect to upgrade them. This is one of the mechanics I liked the most when it was introduced in Resident Evil 4. Along with that was the treasure hunting you can do to obtain more money to get better weapons. The item system in Resident Evil 5 is a live-action system. You can no longer pause the game to adjust your items. You have to do all of the item interactions in real time within the game, which can really add to the frantic feel.

One of the new things introduced in Resident Evil 5 was the story mode multiplayer options. You can now play through the story with a friend who can play the other character, which added a lot of fun to the game. They brought back the Mercenaries multiplayer game as well. Another feature they added was a points system you had to use to unlock things like infinite ammo and alternate costumes for the characters. You could also use these points to buy small figure statues of characters and creatures in the game. Capcom has also released some downloadable content for the game that allows you to play through Chris’s flashback. You also get an opportunity to play through the escape of Jill and Josh.

I really enjoyed Resident Evil 5 and highly recommend it. To finally see the reappearance of Chris Redfield in the game made me ecstatic. I got to see the culmination of some of the events of the last few games come to fruition in a truly epic climax to the series so far. Events with Wesker were finally wrapped up and in a satisfying fashion. The changes made in Resident Evil 4 and then brought through to Resident Evil 5 are quite good and really help to make the game great. Adding a multiplayer co-op through the story of the game is also loads of fun with friends.