You’ve seen the horrors of ‘ Lost In Nightmares’. You’ve seen Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar in new costumes fighting for their lives in The Mercenaries Reunion.Now join Jill Valentine and BSAA Agent Josh Stone as they escape from the Tricell facility in ‘ Desperate Escape’, the second downloadable episode for Resident Evil 5.

Recently freed of a mind control device, a fatigued Jill Valentine has collapsed. Awoken by BSAA agent Josh Stone, Jill and Josh work together to escape from the Tricell facility under the darkness of night. Fight off unrelenting waves of enemies in heart pumping blockbuster action as Jill and Josh race to assist Chris and Sheva in their final showdown with Albert Wesker.

Simultaneous with the releases of ‘Desperate Escape’ and ‘Lost In Nightmares’, new costumes for Chris (Heavy Metal) and Sheva (Business) will be made available, allowing the player to experience Resident Evil 5 with a fresh new look and feel through both game play and cut-scene playback.

Chris and Sheva in these new costumes as well as Josh Stone will also be playable in the refreshed Mercenaries Reunion mode. Along with the two previously announced characters, Chris (Warrior) and Sheva (Fairy Tale), these are the first five of eight characters announced as playable in the Mercenaries Reunion mode. Each with their own unique weapon load-outs, these new characters provide additional challenges as the player aims to shoot down as many enemies as they can within a limited time. Chain together your kills, extend your time and rack up points. Featuring the most extreme weapon selections, Mercenaries Reunion mode provides hours of new strategy induced kill sprees.

‘Desperate Escape’, ‘Lost In Nightmares’ and all new playable characters for Mercenaries Reunion will be available in Resident Evil 5: GOLD EDITION that will include the original game plus all additional content. The ultimate Resident Evil 5 experience, RESIDENT EVIL 5: GOLD EDITION will be available as a single Blu-ray disc for the PlayStation 3 or as a DVD with a token for the downloadable content for XBOX 360.

Please see below for a release schedule of all additional content:

• February 17th (360) — Lost In Nightmares + Costume Pack
• February 18th (PS3) — Lost In Nightmares + Costume Pack
• March 3rd (360) — Desperate Escape + Costume Pack 2
• March 4th (PS3) — Desperate Escape + Costume Pack 2
• March 12th (360) — Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition (Disc + Download Token)
• March 12th (PS3) — Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition (All content on disc)

The Resident Evil Archives series gives Wii gamers the opportunity to play classic Resident Evil games at a great value price.
The prequel to the game that started a multi-million dollar franchise, Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil Zero exposes the back story and internal tyranny of the Umbrella Corporation and lets players discover the origins of the T-Virus in an epic storyline that tells the horrors leading up to the infamous mansion incident.

Only available on the Nintendo GameCube until now, Resident Evil Zero brings Rebecca Chambers – rookie member of S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team – to Raccoon City, where she must investigate a series of gruesome murders. Almost immediately she stumbles upon a military transport truck filled with corpses and her journey of horror begins.

Rebecca encounters Billy Coen, an ex-Marine convicted on circumstantial evidence for the murder of 23 people. Players will get to control both Rebecca and Billy simultaneously using the Partner Zapping system, as they fight their way out of Raccoon City.

Exclusively available on the Wii, Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil Zero will be released across PAL territories on January 22, 2010.

Capcom is pleased to confirm that the scariest game on Nintendo Wii, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, will be playable at horror film festival Grimm Up North.From 30th October till 1st November horror fans from across the UK will converge on Manchester to enjoy the greatest and latest horror films that the movie industry has to offer. Accompanying the fright fest’s cinematic experience will be the next chilling instalment in the Resident Evil shooter series on Nintendo Wii, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles.

To celebrate the deliciousness of brains, Capcom will be giving away t-shirts, facemasks and figurines to anyone that plays. Pods can be found in the Odeon cinema, with further stations hidden throughout the festival.

If you’re around that area during these dates, why not check it out and bag yourself some goodies in the process!

For more information on Grimm Up North, please visit http://www.grimmfest.co.uk

To celebrate the launch of Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles on the Nintendo Wii Capcom is calling all zombies to head to central London on 31st October. We’re offering a free Nintendo Wii and a copy of the latest instalment in the Resident Evil series to the best dressed zombie. Two more zombies will win a copy of the game for the best zombie stagger and the best zombie moan.

The zombie Walk is taking place from 12 noon on Saturday 31st October outside Tate Modern. Zombies should horde from noon and then prepare to go on the ‘rampage’ across the Millennium Bridge.

Your zombie contacts will meet you at Tate Modern from noon. Please don’t eat them.

Members of the press will be invited to take photos, so shy zombies need not re-animate.

Free zombie make-up will also be applied by an expert to the first 20 Zombies who stagger over. Please arrive at 11am if you want make-up done.

Zombies can also get their photographs with two glamorous zombies who will be putting in an appearance.

Location: Click Here

For more information, please contact Darren Waters – djwaters1@gmail.com

Resident Evil, a name infamous with gamers since 1996 when the original title launched on the PS1. I was 17 way back then (oh how the years fly) and can still remember playing this for the first time at a friends house.

I basically made myself comfy at his place and didn’t leave for a week until I’d thrashed it, he didn’t mind so much as he was busy with the new wonder machine of gaming the 3DO! So for those not familiar with the series it was created by one of my favourite game designers Shinji Mikami and the legendary Capcom. They made a whole new gaming genre, called it survival horror, and it did what it said on the tin by thrusting gamers into a world of horror, monsters, villains and of course heroes. The games 2 playable heroes were Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine who were members of an elite special forces team called STARS. They end up investigating what had been happening in a mansion on the outskirts of Racoon City and discover that it’s a secret laboratory for pharmaceutical company Umbrella. Umbrella has been illegally designing biological weapons but things went wrong and their T-Virus gets unleashed and starts bringing the dead back to life.

The gameplay was all hi-res pre-rendered backgrounds with fixed camera angles and 3D character models seemingly interacting with the environment. Most gamers will remember those tedious but nail biting screens where it does a first person view of a door and it slowing creaking open, never knowing what awaits behind it. The enemies ranged from slow shuffling zombies to fast moving ‘hunters’ with sharp claws and weaponry to combat these started out with simple knifes and pistols, with more powerful weapons becoming available as the player progressed through the game, although ammo was scarce it heightened the sense of ‘survival’ with all the horrors around you. This became the norm of the series which spawned many sequels, Resident Evil 2, 3, Code Veronica, Resident Evil Zero (we’ll not mention the gun survivor games shall we) and they kept the same winning formula throughout these great titles and just added more tweaks, features and monsters which kept bringing gamers back for more.

Then came Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube and PS2 which totally changed the series and I might add, also put me off the series. Now this is not to say anything bad about the game at all, in fact many tout it as the greatest of the series, it’s just that I couldn’t get on with it. I think it was mainly due to the drastic change in the gameplay dynamics with Capcom moving it from the tried and tested pre-rendered screens to full 3D and the change from zombies to infected villagers who where a lot faster and deadlier. It was like a shock to my system, I wanted to get into it and give it a chance but kept getting as far as the first village, running out of ammo and having chainsaw sack head decapitate me, that and the latest Final Fantasy had just come out which took over my gaming life once again. So enough of my waffling about the history of Resident Evil and onto the question in hand, can Resident Evil 5 restore my faith in the series?

The answer is a big fat YES! Although it is a yes with niggles but I’ll get onto those later. The game goes back to the roots of Resident Evil in a few ways, firstly by returning Chris Redfield to the lead role, supported by newcomer Sheva Alomar, and secondly it takes the story to the root of the virus’s origin in Africa. Yet again Capcom have changed a lot of aspects of how the game plays by making it a fully co-op game, as in you and your partner have to survive and by breaking the story down into chapters, each of which having 3 stages to play through, so there’s not much of the old get key B from room C for door A by going back through half the map. After progressing to the next stage or by going through certain doors the game locks off the previous area so it does funnel you on a set route. Between each stage you are ranked in 4 categories, Accuracy, Enemies Routed, Deaths and Clear Time with the ranks ranging from S class down to D, depending on how well you played. This builds points which can then be spent unlocking bonus features from the game including alternative outfits for Chris and Sheva and infinite ammo for the weapons. Also between stages you can rearrange both characters inventory, put items in storage so as not to fill up available slots and also sell the many treasures you can pick up in the stages. Money from this can be used to buy new weapons or upgrade the ones you have, improving attack power, reload speed and ammo capacity.

Res 5 is purely built for co operative gameplay with your partner always being with you, the AI actually being pretty well programmed too. First play through you can only select Chris to play as but have the option to play as Sheva after that. Your partner has 2 orders that can be issued, cover and attack, sounds simple and it is but above all else it works. With cover selected your partner will stick to your heels and attack enemies that stray too close using small arms fire. Attack on the other hand will see your partner actively seeking out the enemies and getting stuck in, they will also break open crates and barrels to collect items and will hand over any they think you may need. If you have given your ally a heavier weapon as well as a handgun they will swap to using that while in the attack mode too, I’ve found that an infinite ammo magnum and rocket launcher is a perfect combo! You can also give items to or request items from your partner if they are close to you at the time.

So here comes my first niggle, its not survival horror anymore, it’s become action horror instead but it does pull it off so well. Being able to buy better weapons or power up existing ones between stages breaks up the suspense and although ammo is scarce on your first play through, you’ll find it a lot easier on the second run, especially once you’ve unlock some infinite ammo perks for the weapons. You may think that infinite ammo would ruin the gameplay but sticking it on the harder difficulties still proves to be challenging and enjoyable despite not having to worry about ammo. It’s still a case of survival but the new gameplay is very action heavy with hordes of infected villagers and creatures coming at you at once, this changes the genre for me and makes the game fall into the same category as Gears Of War, which is in no way a bad thing but does lead me onto my second and biggest niggle.

The control system has a major flaw, this being that as soon as you aim you stop. It’s as though all the laws of physics change when you raise your arms and your feet get cemented to the floor. Why? Please tell me Capcom, why you would re-invent the series with so many new positive features, excellent dialogue, engrossing story and great graphics, and then stick to the same old static aiming controls? The game was always going to be compared with other action titles using a third person over the shoulder view, top titles like Gears of War, in which the characters can move while shooting. It’s simple right? That’s all it needs, to be able to sidestep or back away gently instead of standing there waiting for the chainsaw to tear into your flesh. Does this flaw ruin the game? Not in the slightest to be honest, some people might not even mind it and it’s not stopped me enjoying the game completely and still having me going back for more. You may not see it as a flaw but I just feel the game would benefit from a more free movement control system that is enjoyed in a lot of ac
tion adventure games currently out.

My only other niggle with the game is that the demo hinted at offline split screen co-op for the story mode but this seems to have been scrapped for either system link or online play but upon completing the game it unlocks the Mercenaries mode which appeared in Resident Evil 3 and 4 and this does have split screen gameplay. This mode pits you against a non stop horde of enemies where you have set equipment and a time limit you have to survive. The more you kill the more points you earn, which can be used for purchasing the game’s bonus features.

I’ve purposely avoided directly discussing the game’s story so as to make this review spoiler free for fans of the series as well as newcomers. Herein lays the backbone for this game and what makes it so appealing, the story is what drives it and makes it what it is, a Resident Evil game.

Review score

Graphics – Up there with the best of them with excellent character models and environments and even options for several graphic filters, once unlocked, to give it an old film style feel.

Sound – Pretty standard musical score with enemy presence being announced by increased pace in the sound track then fading out when safe.

Playability – It’s slow in places and very high action in others, niggles aside, it works but could be so much better. Cheap deaths from the interactive cut scenes will annoy but can be funny to watch Chris die in some horrible ways.

Multiplayer – With the ability to team up with a friend online to replace the AI makes this amazing, working as a team really works and makes it a very enjoyable gaming experience. Add a split-screen co-op for the story and it would have scored a 10.

Replay ability – With the 4 difficulty settings, Mercenaries mode, online co-op, 30 hidden BSAA emblems, loads of collectables and achievements/trophies to earn, this game will keep you coming back for more until you’ve done it all and then you’ll keep playing just to enjoy it some more.

Overall – This is a must buy for any fan of the series or fans of action adventures with a touch of horror thrown into the mix. Still room for improvement but when all is said and done, this is still Resident Evil. Now time for me to dig up Resident Evil 4 and give it the chance it surely deserves.

Review by Craig “Hippy Pickle” Lewis