In true "In Defense of" fashion I will talk about why I believe Resident Evil 5 is not as bad as some people think. A few points I am going to go over is A.i, gameplay mechanics and tone.

   From my experience, I never really saw a problem with the A.I. When I played RE5 solo I just made sure to equip Sheva with a few good weapons and some healing items. I knew that I couldn't rely on her to completely wipe out enemies but Sheva was more than ready to help distract a boss, stun an enemy and heal me when I was injured. When you play with the A.I partner on you just have to take the lead.

    I understand that Ashley is not supposed to be a soldier. She is just a normal person that can't defend herself. Sheva on the other hand is a BSAA agent. When I played RE4 I didn't think less of it for having Ashley, that wasn't a negative aspect of the game. The same goes for when I played RE5. Having an A.i partner wasn't a hindrance to me or my experience playing through the game.

   When it comes down to it, I just can't really see a reason why people would just completely hate the campagin. So you have to walk around with an A.i. that can at times be mildy frustrating. The same thing happened in RE4. If anything having your A.i. companion help you in battle is a plus.

   One of the things people would associate with the survival horror genre is a lack of ammunition. Resident Evil 4 never left you completely dry. Through all of my playthroughs I found that I was always handed out just the right amount of ammo, I never found myself high and dry.

   I remember watching a friend of mine play RE4. He was only using his pistol, despite having 45 shotgun shells, 20 sniper bullets and 100 TMP bullets. He just used the pistol. He kept playing RE4 as if he was playing RE1! As if ammo was a problem. It drove me crazy! If you were reckless with your bullets/accuracy you would be in a world of hurt but for the most of the game the only gun that was ever hurting for ammo was the magnum! Bullets for the pistols and TMP were plentiful and the shotgun had a decent amount sprinkled about. This, to me meant that RE4 was moving into a more action oriented direction.

  Ammo isn't abundant but it can easily be found inside of crates/barrels/chests and off of the corpses of defeated enemies. RE5 has the same melee combat that RE4 had. You could fire a bullet into the leg of an enemy and cause him to fall to a single knee, when this happens they are open to a melee attack that will usually defeat them. A smart player can conserve a lot of ammo this way.

    Resident Evil 5 kind of operates in the same way. You do need to play smart, but you are rarely in a low ammo scenario. During my play through I did run low or out of ammo during some of the more challenging boss fights, but this was a rare scenario. 

    This mechanic adds a layer to the Co-Op gameplay that other Co-Op games just simply do not have. Having to split ammo, weapons and health items adds a meta-game that makes the game a much deeper and engaging experience.

   One thing that both games do an excellent job of doing is introducing different variety of enemy types. Different creatures and monsters require different approaches and certain weapons are best suited to deal with certain enemy types. So if a player was foolish enough to burn through all of their shotgun shells they might find themselves quickly overwhelmed by crowds of enemies. If a player used up all their sniper ammo taking out lesser enemies, the mini-bosses will quickly make them regret that. Different enemy types are plentiful in both games and they make the player vary up their strategy and approach. 

   Another complaint people had with RE5 was it's use of QTE. RE4 was my first time being introduced to QTEs and at the time I thought they were brilliant! I mean, you could never put the controller down during a cut scene anymore! Well when RE5 was coming out QTEs had already overstayed their welcome and a lot of people were getting tired of them.

  * Video of Leon escaping the giant statue was uploaded by youtube user Pizza-Hero.

   In fact, there is a sequence in RE4 which has Leon running away from a giant robotic(?) statue as a bridge collapses. I didn't think anything of it at the time but in retrospect, what?

   The QTEs aren't intrusive. If an enemy grabs you you shake the left joystick...which is the same joystick that you use to walk/move. It isn't a three button combination or some other nonsense.

   To keep this section simple. Quick Time Events are present in both games. Resident Evil 5 does it no better and no worse than what RE4 has established. The bar was set and RE5 made not attempt to improve on it.

   People seem to categorize Resident Evil 4 into the “Survival Horror” genre. As I mentioned before I never felt like this made a lot of sense. You had access to weapons, either by constantly discovering them or by simply purchasing them from your friendly local merchant(s?). You have a decent supply of ammo and for the first time ever in a Resident Evil game you're not fighting the controls.

    Personally, I always hated the controls to the first few games. I felt that the games have a forced horror element because the controls were so bad. I mean, you try to run from and you begin to spin in place....Some people might not agree with me but I always felt that poor controls were not and should never be considered an element for a horror game.

Note: I just wanted to mention that Resident Evil 5 has an excellent DLC that plays more like a traditional survival horror game. On the hard difficulties the enemies are nearly impossible to defeat and you must solve puzzles and survive in a mansion that is a recreation of the Spencer mansion from Resident Evil 1.

   If we were to look at the design of the level known as Public Assembly we can find lots of tight corridors and bottlenecks. These are not here by mistake, they are meant to be there so the enemies can swarm and surround the player to apply the pressure.

   So how tight are these corridors? I went back and played RE5 and found that the narrowest of these corridors to be about 2 character sizes in width (I was using Chris BSAA costume). Now, compare this to a game like Gears of War where most stair ways, door ways, hallways are spaced to be 3 to 4 character sizes wide (mostly to support the combat) or bigger.

   Tight corridors in combination with enemies that swarm or block your path (enemies such as the Reaper, Executioner act as living blockades that force a retreat) really bring that tension home.

   Resident Evil 5 will always be one of my favorite games. I came to the conclusion that the game isn't just a simple rehashing of it's predecessor, it is a natural evolution to the series.  From it's enemy designs, game mechanics and gameplay this game was a step in the right direction, despite some of it's flaws.

- Danny Q
@Dannylv100

   In this installment of "Level Design 101" I will go over the first level of the game Freeze-E Frosty's. I worked on this project for 9 months back in 2010. I was the lead Level Design and I designed 3 levels and the boss battle.

   I will be discussing each section of the fist level, going through my thought process and talking about the decisions I made and why.

   The first level of the game serves as the tutorial that will teach the player everything they will need to know about the game.

   This is where were introduce a few of the game's characters, we do some foreshadowing and we establish the world and atmosphere of Freeze-E Frosty's. It was very important for us a team to quickly establish the world and get the player in the game as quickly as possible.

   The game opens up with a brief cinematic. At the end of the cinematic the player enters the room. The cinematic introduces the player to the world of the Freeze-E Frosty's Ice Cream Factory. It has a bit of humor and is very light and colorful. We establish early on that this game is going to be a lighthearted 2D adventure.

   Once Frosty (the player) enters the factory, he stands in front of a large sign in the background. That sign in the background is a billboard that tells the player how to walk left and right in the world (A key to to move left and the D key is to move right).

    As the player gets to the door they encounter the one of the many NPCs in the game, the receptionist. The door is locked but as soon as the player gets close it will be unlocked and they will enter the next area and begin their adventure.

   As soon as the player enters the walkway there is a wooden crate obstructing their path. We have an encounter with another NPC, "The Foreman" who will instruct the player to click on the left mouse button to use their "Freeze Gloves" to freeze the empty wooden crate, shattering it and clearing their path. On the wall behind the player we also have a sign with the picture of an NPC using their freeze gloves as an arrow clicks down on the mouse button, to help guide the player.

   Once the player freezes the box in front of them they are rewarded with an audio cue of "Good job kid, just like that!" from the foreman. To enforce the freezing mechanic with have another freezable wooden crate in front of the player being held by two NPCs. The player must freeze the crate they are carrying to continue moving forward.

   The next obstacle that the player comes across is a forklift that is moving its forks up and down. At this part we have a sign on the wall informing the player to use "W" to jump. The player will then know how to jump, this means that they can now jump onto the forks of the fork lift. The forks on the fork lift only lift the player high enough to know that they can get onto the ceiling of the walkway. In order to continue forward they must once again use W to jump onto the walkway.

   Once the player reaches the top of the walkway they can go left and interact with some NPC characters. If the player goes right they will run into a group of NPC characters who are trying to fix a malfunctioning crane holding a steel crate. The player is supposed to fire their freeze gloves at the crane which will cause the crane to drop the steel crate and move out of the way. Here we reaffirm the two things the player learned, 1) They can use their freeze gloves with the left mouse button 2) They can use "W" to jump over obstacles. The player also learns something new, they can not freeze a steel crate. Steel Crates are reinforced and will not freeze or shatter when you fire upon them with the Freeze Gloves.

   Once the player gets down from the top of the bridge there will be two NPCs talking amongst themselves in the background. As the player progresses further they will see a fellow worker use their freeze gloves to extinguish an NPC who is on fire. If they player chooses to they can either freeze the worker to get through or simply jump over them, either way we further reaffirm the skills they just learned.

   The player will get off the walkway and proceed to move right toward an elevator. In this area thy will find a large glove hand that will point them toward the elevator. If the player continues to go right they will see an image of Frosty's Boss appear on a nearby monitor. He will then inform the player to get back to work (to get on the elevator and go up to the next level).

   Now that the player has reached the lab area they have two choices. They can go left to interact with a group of NPCs or head straight toward the lab.

   If the player heads into the lab it will suddenly lose power and the frozen T-Rex will begin to awake from his icy slumber. After the power is restored the door on the right opens and the player can continue to the next area of the factory.  

   It is important to note that at this part of the game we did not want to stop the player from moving because we believed that if the event in the background is interesting enough then the player will naturally slow down and stop to watch rather then forcing them to sit still. Forcing the player to stop even for a few seconds can separate them from the game world.

   After the factory meltdown there is an event with the T-Rex. He breaks free from his frozen slumber, eats an NPC and storms off into the bowels of the factory. His escape and rampage are foreshadowed by the loss of power in the earlier sequence.

   After Meltdown: The elevator button has an event tied to it, at the moment the elevator will not go anywhere until the factory begins to meltdown. Once the factory has gone into meltdown mode the elevator will take the player to the second level and level 1 is completed.

  This are is where we introduce the player to their new item, "Dash Boots". Once activated the player is told to use the "S" key to activate and use their dash ability. Ahead of the player are high pressure water jets shooting out from a few broken pipes. If the player attempts to use his gloves the water will become ice and form a temporary barrier. If the player attempts to just simply run past the water, the pressure will knock them back. The only way to get passed the water is to use the Dash Boots. The player needs to get through two more wall of waters before they can continue on. This is done to help reaffirm the dash mechanic.

The player eventually runs into a malfunctioning bridge. Here they have two options, 1)They can either dash across with proper timing, 2)jump over it using the W key. Once they reach the other side they will reach the first checkpoint in the game.

   After Meltdown:  The player back tracks through this area heading back toward the elevator. The first dangerous thing they encounter is the malfunctioning bridge, which has now collapsed, revealing a large pit of spikes. The player can once again dash over the gap or with some skill, clear it with a well timed jump.

  We introduce the pit of spikes here so we can teach the player the consequences of death. If they player were to fall into the pit they would die, but be respawned nearby via a checkpoint.

  After the player clears the gap they will then have to dodge some falling rocks. The rocks do moderate damage to the player and can easily be avoiding by a well timed dash. Once again, this is here to teach the player that they will face dangers in the environment.

   Once the player reaches their workstation they are prompted by  "The Boss" to activate the workstation. They will use the "E" key to activate a series of switches that will then in turn activate a machines in the background. Once all the machines have been activated this will trigger an event where the machines malfunction and the factory begins to meltdown. At this point the player is prompted by their boss to head toward the elevator outside the T-Rex lab so the player can escape the dangerous factory floor.

- Danny Q
@Dannylv100