Resident Evil 5 Demo Impressions

So the Resident Evil 5 demo just released on XBL (Gold Exclusive for a few days) and it's pretty sweet. It's almost exactly like 4, but it's got a few new features to it that set it apart from it's predecessor. The new setting is okay, not as chilling as 4's. You don't really get that feeling like you're pretty much on your own like before...dunno if it's cuz you have a partner now or the fact that you're constantly surrounded by tons of enemies(almost like an action game). The demo is only the first 2 levels so hopefully the rest of the game doesn't just end up a shooting/action thing. Co-Op is decent, you can do it online or split-screen local play. Don't worry if you're not playing with a friend though, as your AI partner is still pretty good. Mine actually managed to survive despite me hogging all the ammunition lol. Updated controls are great. There's the original controls(love it or hate it), with some new context sensitive moves. The aiming is a bit sluggish like before. They've added a new "Gears of War" style action-game control setup, which allows you to actually move and fire at the same time, effectively bringing the RE series into the 21st century. Your enemies are still kind of slow and dimwitted so you can still get away with the old control scheme. Speaking of enemy AI, I dunno if it was intended to be this way, but there's a part in the demo where you're fighting a guy with a huge axe...well, if you climb up a high platform he literally stands in the middle of the area as if he's waiting for you to come down. It kind of took away from the intensity of the situation(you're trying to hold off the enemies while reinforcements are on the way) when you can just stand on top of something and just shoot the enemies off of the ladders with one shot. Let's see...well, the graphics are really good. RE4 was stellar at it's time and this game sort of carries the torch, beautiful in 1080 HD resolution.

I'm still pretty psyched about this game coming out, even though I feel that it's more of the same and what they changed isn't exactly what I call an improvement. Still, it'd be too much to judge the rest of the game just on a demo, so my hopes are still high that they'll bring more horror back to "survival horror," instead of just becoming another shoot 'em up game.