Resident Evil 5

Format Xbox 360

Developer Capcom

Publisher Capcom

Genre Survival Horror, Action

Ten years on, and it's still the bloody dogs that cause the first proper jump-out-of-your-seat moment in Capcom's newest entry into the series.

Over a decade ago we, along with gamers up and down the country jumped out of our skins when a pair of Rottweilers burst through a window in the original Resident Evil. Ten years older and wiser, we thought we couldn't be scared. We were wrong.

We're engaging in an intense assault along a shipyard dock. An AI-controlled Sheva covers our backs fantastically well, sniping crossbow-wielding marksmen on the cargo crates above us.

We've just cleared the ground-based Infected locals with laser-guided bursts of our sub-machine gun before our finger lifts from Right Trigger as a lone mutt bounds from around a nearby corner and skids to a halt in front of us.

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It has a lolling tongue and a puppy-like expression. It's completely disarming. Then something last seen in a John Carpenter flick occurs. The head splits smoothly into two and tentacles flow out of the pulsing orifice before the dog-thing launches straight at our throat.

We freak even more when two more come loping towards us. Come the end of the next bloody, bullet-ridden half hour we're officially cat lovers.

This is very much the game where old clashes with new to make an interesting new concoction. The developer has kept the set-up of the Resi 4's award-winning over-the-shoulder viewpoint, the guns' laser aims, the occasional quicktime event and Infected locals.

However, the reintroduction of original badass Chris Redfield has obviously made someone at Capcom HQ get misty-eyed with nostalgia, because there's traces of the series' roots deeply embedded in the title's gameplay and wrapped tightly round the plotlines. There is a sense that Resident Evil 5 is drawing together a decade's worth of dangling story threads.

Firstly, these roots are unearthed in RE5's range of monsters, with mutated dogs being only the tip of the iceberg; winged insects, leech monsters and gigantic bats nicely intersperse with the Infected humans, too.

Capcom's cracking abomination designs are on top form, and your first mini-boss fight in a sealed-off furnace room offers an echo of previous entries that'll please long-time fans.

Secondly, the storyline. The setting may be new, but Capcom is intent on bringing an entire series' worth of baggage along with the original protagonist. The loading screens between each area and chapter summarise chunks of the Resi timeline, extending over ten years and six titles and covering the main story arc.

Is this crucial information that newcomers may need in order to understand what's at stake, and who's who come the closing stages of the game?

Then there's the uncharted territory of the new Co-operative mode. Surprisingly, the multiple pathways through each level aren't as pronounced or as diverse as we'd originally believed, mostly being pared down into either sniping points, or an alternative way of gaining entry to buildings (try your hand at a Rainbow Six-style grenade through the front door or blockbuster burst through a back window).

Furthermore, an AI Sheva doesn't really live up to his potential when flying solo. He's tough enough at your back, but setting up covering fire while either of you recons an area is out of the question.

Swapping guns from your inventories is fiddly enough, but we're not sold on making the transactions real time. By the time you've re-equipped to your satisfaction, your enemies are nose-to-nose with you.

Close-quarter combat is something you need to get used to; each chapter is divided into numerous smaller-than-you'd think-areas.

The background visuals sell you the illusion that you're in a bigger world than you are - streets and buildings are cut off by strategically placed car wrecks and chained fences, and you need space when you've got six to eight locals coming at you with machetes and flesh-eating parasites for mouths.

In terms to the environments - small each area may be, but there's loads of them to see as you trek across a country. And the settings get better and better as you go forward. The implementation of the Gears-style control scheme works, pure and simpl.

Air support is a great thing, too. Oh, and shooting a lit explosive while its still in its owner's grasp leads to one of the funniest visual affects we've chuckled at in a while.

And all this is in just the first few chapters of the game. We know this ride is going to get crazier from here on in. Could the biggest game of the year really come out so soon? Find out next month!

Gillen McAllister