Resident Evil 5

It tooks its time - so was it worth the wait?

	Version PS3, (360)	Developer Capcom	Publisher Capcom	Genre Action

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Perhaps most importantly, though, you're going to have to work out how you feel about Sheva, on whose digital brains Resident Evil's current gen credibility might be said to hinge. The girl's not short on positives. She's probably the highlight of the game's many visual and audible highlights for one, with her fluttering eyelashes, faux-ethnic fashion sense and diamond-polished South African English. She's a damn good shot, for another - sometimes embarrassingly so, picking off distant Majini with her pistol before you can fumble your rifle up to your eye. While the player has ultimate control over her inventory, Sheva will restock it with ammo and health sprays on her own - not only that, she'll bring you ammo for your weapons unasked.

You communicate with Sheva via the circle button alone: tap it to call her to your side, or tap it while standing over an object (e.g. an emplaced gun) to have her interact with that object. If somebody gets their dirty undead hands all over your ladyfriend, circle button lets you smack them off their feet; if you're on the receiving end, hit the button and Sheva will leap to your defence. Should either party take one monstrous spider or farming implement to the face too many, they can be resuscitated on the verge of death by the other. It's game over if Sheva snuffs it, so you'll want to share out new guns rather than hoarding them jealously, and upgrade her loadout via the shop screen (accessed between missions, or whenever you die).

Neither of Sheva's two AI settings, toggled by holding circle and hitting D-pad up or down, is very satisfactory. In Attack mode she'll bust out the big guns at the first opportunity, exhausting precious quantities of potent ammo on villagers you could easily punch to death, thus leaving you well and truly chuffed once you hit a sub-boss like the chaps with the chainsaws. In Cover mode the opposite is true: Sheva will stick to her pistol, stubbornly repulsing your mental suggestions that, in the face of the screen-filling mass of oily black tentacles you're dousing with napalm, she might just want to let rip with that RPG you passed her a moment ago. Path-finding issues are infrequent, thankfully: the girl is smart enough (for instance) to duck into crannies to evade the laser beams which periodically rake certain walkways in the temple area.

If there's one thing about Resident Evil 5 that probably won't divide opinion, among consumers at least, it's the question of racism. In my hands-on preview of the first three chapters I singled out one particular cut scene for racist imagery, while arguing that the bulk of the material I'd encountered was inoffensive. Regrettably, my allegation was made on false grounds, as the BBFC was kind enough to note when we contacted them for a response. This unfortunate blunder corrected, the worst you can say about Resident Evil 5's depiction of Africa is that it treats the continent as a painted set, a passive arena for the violent dramas of well-equipped white westerners - something many films and books are guilty of, and forgivable enough given that white westerners make up a hefty percentage of the game's target audience.

Had Resident Evil 5 been released a year or two ago, it might have met huge acclaim. Sadly, Capcom has been beaten to the punch on several fronts. In terms of paying homage to Resident Evil 4, Dead Space has whipped the carpet out from under the fifth iteration's feet; in terms of raw scares, Siren has it bang to rights; in terms of co-operative play, Left 4 Dead, Fable II and Gears of War 2 are comfortably ahead. As it is, Chris Redfield's return to the stage should be on your shopping list, but make sure you've squeezed the juice out of those Christmas purchases first.

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