Resident Evil 5: Zombie no go go, unless you tell am to go, Zombie no go stop, unless you tell am to stop

"Now lets all just stay calm and hopefully we can take care of this 'Zombie' problem in a civilized manner"

Who knew a pregnant woman who barely plays video games with a hardcore gamer would both squirm with anticipation of getting through a normal work day to be rewarded with a zombie-blasting-fun-shotgun-reloading-handholding-good-old-time? For all your marriage needs Resident Evil 5 for PS3 and Xbox360 from Capcom is there fulfilling all that marital bliss people talked about you having after exchanging vows about sickness and genetic altering viruses and boy, was everyone right on about it all being worth it.

Without saying all the same stuff again about the love of zombie in all of its forms (Previous Review of RE5 Demo) I'm going to just stick to my reaction of RE5 after finishing the game with my diamond in the rough on a par 4.

A quick synopsis for this game will remind you of any RE typical virus problem creating zombies that must be dealt with.  After zombie after zombie are destroyed you take arms up against the person in charge of distributing the virus.  This RE takes place in a fictional African country as this makes for a great 'test' site for the newly created virus without the fear of a military superpower intervening.  Instead, you and your partner are a part of a small group that investigates biological terrorism around the world and is assigned to this lovely country after rumors start of people making meals of other people.

RE5 is everything I'd hoped for with a little extra gravy on the side.  It makes for a very hard decision when comparing to its predecessor, RE4, on which is better. The shock value on what a huge step forward RE4 was made for a high bar to live up to but with the addition of the Co-op mode, the beauty of this generation of consoles, and sticking with all that worked previously, RE5 has at least matched RE4 in greatness.  

The solo play is quality as the AI of your uncontrolled partner has the aim of a true champ and avoids death fairly well.  Your AI companion however, does not understand what it means to conserve ammo and will blow through just about every bullet you hand them.  For anyone who's played any of the RE games, you know that ammo is scarce and is one of the things that will make or break your survival as zombies attempt to chomp on your pooper and neck alike.  In some instances your AI buddy will be such a good shot that it almost feels like cheating.  This makes the game a bit easier than I prefer but others may appreciate all the help they can get.  

The Co-op mode is one of the best 2 person Co-ops I have ever seen. The overall game is so fun that even someone that is typically not enthralled with gaming can start to play RE5 and notice smiles appearing on their face.  After completing the game with my wife I realized that this game's development was actually centered around the idea of you playing with someone and making the experience of two people better than just one.  Many of the fights in the game are meant for you to coordinate times to reload, when to take shots, exchanging of equipment, and covering one another from all directions which is best done with a real partner and not a skynetty one.  The controls are easy enough for anyone to pick up and quickly learn as they are identical to RE4's 3rd person over the shoulder shooting controls.   

Hopping right into playing with a partner isn't the fastest thing to do as RE will save all of your progress no matter who's game you are joining and no matter where they are in the story.  What is nice about this is all the extra unlockables that are bought with a how-smooth-was-success based point system is saved to your account and not just the person's story you are playing.  

The cutscenes and storyline are solid and mesh very well to make the experience a complete one.  There is still some of the extra unnecessary unusualness that RE/Capcom likes to have such as extreme physical attributes (punching through a person) and over the top characters.  Even with this strangeness, the voice acting is done very well and the music and sounds of the game also make for a seamless movie played out as a game or game played out as a movie depending on your half full/hall empty outlook.  Different pistols sound like their real counterpart and the ooga-booga zombie sounds still have the same old scariness that comes from when you know damn well it's in the shadows somewhere.

Completing the game just like RE4 unlocks some extra modes of play but not as many as RE4.  RE4 had a very difficult extra storyline that could be played after the game was completed and RE5 is missing something like that.  I'm going to guess that since the new trend of games now is to have to purchase extra expansions, they will probably release something like this at a later date.  

Lots of head disintegrating action, smooth transitioning cutscenes, fun gameplay, and an opportunity to make a real life partnership even stronger make Resident Evil 5 a game everyone should take the time to find a partner to play it with.  Yeah, it being RE5, I think...   

Rating: 9.0 {on a scale of -10 to 10, 5 being a must play}

Fela Kuti and the Afrika 70 - Zombie (video is only 10 min of the full 12+ min song)

DeBlob: I see people turn their heads and quickly look away, like a new born baby it just happens every day

Not THE Blob

Released for the Wii by the company THQ, Deblob is a game involving humor, creativity, and a general abundance of color violence. Best described as a platformer, DeBlob takes you into the heart of a fantasy world called Chroma City. The evil black and white I.N.K.T. Corporation (notice that it's not called Empire, Army, or other military synonyms) enter into Chroma and start stealing the colors away from everything and begin enslaving the "colorless" citizens. Enter Blob, the round hero with his rag tag bunch of friends to save all of Chroma City from its lack of triumphant true diversity by running around and painting the town red.... and yellow, blue, orange and every other color of the ROYGBIV universe allows unless you have the good old fashioned color-blindness handicap.

DeBlob is quite a fascinating game in its delivery, simple enjoyment, with a buffet of visual and musical dishes. The controls are simple to pick up and respond quite well but the game has very minor typical camera issues found with all three dimensional games. There are simple instructions for available actions and abilities and extra quests/achievements are easily explained and plentiful. The main actions of the game are accomplished by first acquiring a color from an enemy and then roaming around applying that color to everything in sight.

The idea seems cheap and pointless for hardcore gamers, and that reason will keep this game low on the priority list next to shaving, bathing, and soaking up UV rays. For those that take a chance and play this game will find themselves enjoying quite near everything about it. The musical portion alone is done in a manner to keep repetitive sounds from being annoyances and the visuals also stay away from the little sister poking you in the eyes over and over.

The game really helps you reminisce about finger painting. The good old days of putting on a smock, and saying no to using a brush because it already took you five minutes to take your snow pants and galoshes off so you'll be damned if you aren't going to enjoy yourself before you've got to put it all back on again. Ok, if it doesn't do that it at least gives you an electronic mimicry that Jackson Pollock would be proud of.

Overall, if you want a hardcore, violent, difficult challenge of a game, DeBlob isn't for you. If you want to play a simple yet creatively made game, give DeBlob a chance as you'll be pleasantly surprised at how fun the color wheel and painting the town red can be.

Rating: 4 {-10 to 10 scale, 5+ being a must play}

Resident Evil 5 Demo: you should follow me down. there's no color and no sound in a black and white town

Capcom has come a long way from their original survival horror zombie thriller Resident Evil. Taking place in a fictional midwestern place called Raccoon City, members of STARS (Special Tactics and Rescue Service) were sent in to investigate murders involving cannibalism that had occurred there. After searching for lost Bravo team members shortly after the investigation started, Alpha team finds themselves surviving for their lives within what was first thought to be an abandoned mansion. From there Capcom had a franchise on their hands stemming sequels, movies, books, other types of games such as Umbrella Chronicles (played much like the House of the Dead style light-gun shooters) and also inspiring many other similar series such as Silent Hill. To truly pay tribute to all these zombie games, a proper ten second silence must be given to the NES great Zombies Ate My Neighbors.

In 2005 the last major release in the series, RE4, was by far one of the best games available for the gamecube console. RE4 had one of the best control styles fully utilizing the fisher price controller with a now copycatted 3rd person, over the shoulder, laser-sighted aiming system. The game also brought back the black cat crossing your path paranoia and piddle in your pants fear that made the original a classic. The storyline flowed very well with actual gameplay and had additional challenges after the game was completed. To this day I still reflect on the many days spent playing RE4 after a few too many cold ones at 3am while listening to Brian Eno records and wondering how I wasn't placed in a mental institution for how scared I was of Las Plagas and moving silhouettes. Thankfully things like the Wiggles can help save anyone's sanity.

Capcom's next installment, Resident Evil 5, is due out early in March 2009. A demo of this game is available on Xboxlive (Gold members initially) after some many impressive trailers tickled our fancies for the last few months.

The first thing that this demo shows off, besides RE4 flashbacks of zombies dying face down in the muck, is that they have not steered away from what works.  Great controls, beautiful graphics, and lots and lots of zombie head popping action.  2 levels are included (1 more than the previous japanese demo) both of which allow for the opportunity to try out the newest addition to the game: a 2nd player.  Even if you don't have a friend to play with in co-op mode(over xboxlive if not split screen), the game controls an additional player that you have to share guns, ammo, and herbs to survive together.  You both look out for one another and like all other great male/female duos of all time such as lucy and ricky, fred and ginger, sonny and cher, ace and gary, etc, you have to lean on one another to be successful.  

After playing through the 2 levels many times, I realized, after the emptiness of finishing Fallout 3, I had something to look forward to once again.  Hopefully you will say the same thing and maybe even want to fight along side of me as a scantily clad chesty female.  Kind of like the tactical support of Fiona from my new favorite show with the voice of Sam?