Resident Evil 5 has been hyped for almost a year as the explosive next chapter in the series. Capcom has promised much, but does the game deliver?

The story picks up some years after Resident Evil 4 leaves off, and this time you play as Chris Redfield, accompanied by his partner Sheva. As agents in an anti-terrorism unit focused on biological warfare, Chris and Sheva are deployed to Africa to investigate series villain Albert Wesker. Wesker just so happens to be finalizing his plan to unleash a parasitic biological weapon, Uroboros, on the world.

The parasite gives superpowers to a minute percent of the populace and horrifically mutates everything else. Wesker wants to perfect mankind through survival of the fittest using Uroboros as the catalyst. And yes, like in RE4, it makes crazy parasites explode out of a victim’s head.

Of course, there are zombies and gore galore. The AI, pacing, and threat level become more formidable with each entry in the series. The gameplay is akin to Resident Evil 4, again utilizing the over-the-shoulder shooter perspective, and adds an extra twist by allowing a second player to control Chris’ partner Sheva. The minute differences between the two (such as the way they aim) are enough to throw off even expert gamers, so the player will want to stick with whichever character he learned to play the game with.

Despite how visually impressive Resident Evil 5 is, the feeling of the game just seems wrong, as if there’s a splinter in your nose that you just can’t forget about. The dialogue is campy, witless and predictable unless Wesker is talking. The music, while good, doesn’t seem to fit the game’s survival horror genre. And despite how much the plot is fleshed out, there are more holes than there are in the Resident Evil movies – which is a surprisingly difficult feat to accomplish.

As far as protagonists go, Chris just can’t compare to RE4’s Leon S. Kennedy. Where Leon was witty and cunning, Chris seems dull or just outright stupid at times. He’s the meat-head character for whom muscle solves all problems. There’s literally a part of the game where you have to move a boulder; Chris accomplishes this by punching it repeatedly as if on an enraged steroid rush.

Compared to Wesker, who is not only incredibly smart but also has superpowers, Chris doesn’t seem like he’d be even remotely able to keep up even with a rocket launcher with infinite ammo. He’s always very angry and shouts frequently, especially when it’s unnecessary. Of course, even a character who never speaks would seem brilliant when paired with Sheva, who has the incredible abilities to both state the obvious and lose all of your ammo.

Along with all the other drawbacks to the game, it’s surprisingly short – the average player can beat it in maybe nine hours on the first play through. A skilled player can knock that time down to four or five hours. This is slightly alleviated by the chapter select screen, which gives you the option to play any chapter you’ve already played before. With it, a player can endlessly replay the chapters he or she enjoys without having to play all the way through the preceding chapters every time.

There is one very enjoyable aspect to the game, and that is the fact that every chapter ends with either a ludicrous amount of difficult enemies to kill or an extravagant boss. Most gamers are fans of extravagant boss fights. However, the glory of some incredibly large, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it monster is somewhat diminished by the fact that anything worth killing in the game has a number of brightly colored weak spots for you to target that it likes to wave in your face. It’s almost as if the game wants the player to be dissatisfied and openly says at the beginning of every boss fight, “Here’s how to kill me.”

All things aside, the game is a canon addition to the Resident Evil storyline and is, at the end of the day, at least moderately enjoyable. Overall it is good, but deeply lacking the luster and thrill of its predecessor, Resident Evil 4. The music and dialogue seem to be trying to bridge the chasm between videogames and movies, which is kind of a letdown considering how much the game was hyped up.

The game is $60 for both the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, and can likely be found for $40-50 used. The diehard fans are going to need to play it, of course, and it’s a good game for getting your friends into the survival horror genre because you can literally walk alongside them and help them out while zombies are coming from every nook and cranny. Just remember the golden rule: shoot ’em in the head.