I had a hunch that Capcom was heavily influenced by Gears of War when developing Resident Evil 5. But sometime during the fifth chapter, when the zombies with AK-47s forced me to take cover behind conveniently placed barricades, it became less of a hunch and more of a verifiable fact.

Resident Evil 5 is truly a strange beast; a Zonkey of a game. Consider the following observations:

• It's the first numbered Resident Evil game to feature cooperative play.
• It may be the first Resident Evil game that doesn't include a full stage set at night.
• It features zombies that shoot AK-47s.

Of course, these oddities seem like minor elements at first. In fact, Resident Evil 5 mimics the broad strokes of Resident Evil 4 well. It has a similar sense of pace, beginning with the "surprise" of a zombie infestation, and steadily building toward encounters with enemies of an increasingly insect-like appearance.

The changes all sounded great on paper. It takes place in Africa, which seems like an interesting setting, in theory. It tacks on gun-toting co-op sidekick Sheva, which appeared to be a logical addition, especially after carting around the helpless Ashley across half of Spain.

But after playing through Resident Evil 5's main campaign, it becomes clear that, for all its similarities to the previous entry, Resident Evil 5 is actually a stab--albeit not in the dark--at something different. And at the end of the day, that stab amounts to a disappointing whiff of the knife.

Resident Upheaval
When it comes to creating tension in horror fiction, the setting is often as important as anything else. An abandoned hotel. A shack in the woods. A shopping mall.

There was something very primal about the woods and castles of RE4. It was a genuinely atmospheric setting, a series of gothic locales that didn't quite feel like anything I'd seen in a game before. It wasn't ever terrifying, but it was certainly creepy; there were at least a few moments where I yearned intensely for the soothing sounds of a typewriter save room.

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Resident Evil 5, by comparison, rarely takes you to anywhere remotely creepy--the most blatant evidence that this game is trying something new. Even in its most cavernous scenes the game defies true spookiness, giving you a bright lamp to light the way, or a puzzle centered around sunlight reflection.In the latter section of the RE5 you'll journey deep underground, only to find yourself inside well-lit subterranean ruins.

Throw in fluorescent zombie military compounds, and zombie bikers tearing through sunny African markets, and RE5 may as well take place in an infected level of Army of Two. It's a veritable zombie spring break--Zombies Gone Wild.

Surprise Me
The lack of captivating environments speaks to a larger problem with Resident Evil 5--there aren't many surprises to be found in Kijuju.

And when I say surprises, I don't mean "dogs jumping through glass" surprises. The surprises that made Resident Evil 4 great weren't shock-style scares, but instead came in the form of an unexpected boss, or an inspired Alamo-in-a-shack sequence. Moments that at least felt fresh, and had you sitting up straight in your chair.

The intended surprises in Resident Evil 5 come off as cheap and uninspired. Major setpieces are centered around repetitive turret combat. Zombies on motorbikes trigger one of the silliest quicktime events ever fashioned. Big alligators are back, but this time they'll swallow you up from out of nowhere--more frustrating than shocking.

In fact, many of RE4's bosses and combat scenarios are recycled here. The guys with chainsaws return, but are oddly ineffective, pausing before every attack. The giant El Gigante shows up, but you battle him from a stationary turret in one of the more boring boss fights in Resident Evil history. A later encounter with a sea monster, reminiscent of RE4's alligator boss, is similarly fought from behind a mounted gun.

Minor, expected surprises, such as RE4's eccentric weapons merchant are absent. As superfluous as he was, I always found his "welcomes" to be a satisfying in-game reward. In Resident Evil 5, all weapon buying and selling is performed in a dull, bare-bones menu at the end of each chapter.

Even the surprise of death has been pushed to the background in RE5. When the enemies manage to finally knock you out, you enter a "dying" mode, allowing your co-op partner some time to revive you. As the levels are largely linear, rarely requiring you to leave your squadmate's side, you are typically free to constantly spam the resurrection, repeatedly coming back to life as zombies cordially watch from the sidelines.

This resurrection spam effectively kills the tension in almost every otherwise-intense combat scenario, including boss fights. In fact, I died more often in quicktime events than I did fighting actual enemies.

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