Capitalism, isn't it grand?

Some of you may notice a little Gamefly logo over there to the right.  Yeah, that's right, now that a couple of people read my blog, I've let the power go to my head and I'm going all "commercial."

Don't worry, I plan to get drunk, wake up face down in the gutter, have an epiphany, and start getting back to my roots soon.

But no, it's like this.  Anybody ever wants to try that, do it through my blog and I get $20.  Adam is doing it already, so I figured "why not?"  For what it's worth, I've had them since December and they're actually a pretty decent product, if you play a lot of video games.  Apparently you have the choice here to try it for free or start paying $8.95 now.  Tough decision, but if I was gonna pick one or the other, I think I'd go with free.  Just a reccomendation.

And the opening about being all commercial and video games segways us nicely into another video game review.  Resident Evil 5.

Now, since I'm still playing it, this is more of a "first look" than a full-on review, but so far it gets a rating of at least 3.5 MegaFonzies.  The graphics are top-notch, and the bumpmapping on the zombies makes them look darn realistic.  The zombies from RE5 actually have limited brain functionality, allowing them to do things like speak, fire a crossbow and have emotions.  So far, the only emotion I've seen is a sort of gutteral hatred for me, but they evince that quite well.  There are also a lot of them.  The numbers you deal with are never quite along the lines of Left 4 Dead, but you also don't have the kind of mobility that you had in that game either.  Resident Evil has never been a run and gun type of game.  To shoot a zombie, you actually have to stop running, plant your feet, and take aim.  And there are no piles of infinite ammo lying around.  You will need to pick your shots very carefully, and I reccomend getting used to the machete early in the game, because proper application of a big sharp stick can save a lot of bullets.

Also, the game is apparently racist, because almost all the zombies are black.  Now, this was news to me.  I thought that the zombies were all black because the game takes place in Africa, where the zombie myth is supposed to have originated with voodoo witch doctors.  But nope, apparently the game's setting has nothing to do with it, the zombie are all black because Capcom just really hates black people.

To discourage this line of thinking, the game has introduced a black partner by the name of Sheva Alomar (fun fact:  the model and voice actress for the game is actually a mix of Jamaican, American, East Indian, and Irish blood named Karen Dyer.  She performs professional burlesque under the name Eva La Dare).  This actually worked out pretty well, believe it or not.  The game is no fully co-oppable, and in fact it's a lot more fun with a friend.  You can play it over Xbox Live or you can split-screen it with a pal.  If you're doing the latter, however, you had better have a big television.

The gameplay is good, but it takes some getting used to because of how much it fundamentally differs from the traditional run/gun style of a First Person Shooter.  The story is shaping up to be the typical hole-ridden Capcom fun-fest.  To give you a taste, let me just borrow a single sentence from one of the multiple 30-page exposition files you have the option of reading before playing.  "In today's world, medicine has become a part of almost all medical procedures."

If you like to run around item hunting, piles of gold and priceless gems are to be found in barrels, crates, and under stacks of tomatoes, which makes you wonder why the nation is so poor; the whole country is practically overflowing with barely-concealed riches.  An abundance of shiny objects notwithstanding, Africa looks very much like Africa.  They went to great lengths to get the atmosphere right, and it pays off.  The poverty-stricken cities look run-down, dirty and barely alive.  And that's before the zombies show up.

So in conclusion, I'm a corporate whore, RE 5 is a buy-worthy game, and I can't come up with a better closing joke.