Resident Evil 5 - hands-on

Later Chris and Sheva find themselves travelling through a mine. The lights are out and the duois forced to carry an industrial lamp to see where they’re going. Frustratingly this leaves one of you (Chris can choose to bear the load or ask Sheva to instead) defenseless. We travelled slowly, guns raised – the light only casts its glow so far – and then we hear their shouts. We don’t speak their language but it’s pretty clear they know where we are.

Pretty soon we’re out of bullets and limping along in need of a green herb or two. It was a mistake to be so careless with our ammo we realize, and now there are several infected loping after us in the darkness. Worse, one of them has sprouted a grotesque, twisting tendril from the stump where his head used to be. Worse still, poor Sheva is having trouble keeping up and we wind up blindly dashing ahead into the darkness. Somehow we manage to get turned around and run right into our pursuers. Backing away again Sheva hands us an incendiary grenade, our last. Old tentacle head is approaching – we’ll have to make this count. Holding our breath we lob the grenade… and gasp in horror as it lands with a plop and a hiss in a puddle at the bottom of the tunnel. Soon enough the message, ‘You are dead’ fills the screen.

Sometime later, having finally mastered the mines, we emerge blinking into the sunlight. But our troubles are far from over. Perched on the edge of a cliff, the infected here are better armed and organized. They even have heavy weapons mounted on the back of their trucks. Heck, they even have dynamite. But by now the old magic is back and we’re popping heads like pros. As is Sheva, who’s just about the best co-op partner we could ask for. But just as the end is in sight, a cutscene ushers in a terrific boss fight.

Emerging from the back of a stricken truck, the bat-like creature is pretty terrifying. We gave it everything we had, but it barely flinched. Running around the arena we located some handy proximity bombs. Careful placement allowed us to cripple the creature temporarily but we still struggled to defeat it. The fight ended horribly as the gruesome creature swatted us over the edge of the cliff.