Resident Evil 5 Demo Impressions

In your face, PlayStationers! The Resident Evil 5 demo is exclusive to Xbox Live for a week! That's seven more days of demo fun than the competition, and I'm sure it was worth however many millions of dollars Microsoft spent for the privilege.

Hey, stop your crying, laid off Microsoft employee. It was worth it!

As a paying Xbox Live Gold member (that's right, Sony fanboys, we pay for our online service on this side of the tracks because we're rich and beautiful), I downloaded the demo yesterday. Here are some of my thoughts so far:

• This game is pretty. Sure, it's mostly browns and tans like every other current-gen shooter, but there's a slickness to everything that really adds a sheen of believability. Unfortunately, that makes shooting nearly photo realistic people in the head a far more disturbing experience than usual. I stared into a man's eyes as I murdered him last night, and my soul still hasn't recovered.
• This game is clunky. The default aiming speed is slower than Paula Abdul. I went into the options and bumped it up, but I'm still not able to aim as quickly as I want. When you're inside a wooden shanty with dozens of zombies coming in through the doors and windows, you'll want to whip your pistol around a little more quickly.
• This game is clunky. The inventory system is nearly broken. To switch weapons or use an item, you press the Y button to bring up a little in-game menu. This would be fine except that the zombies are still trying to eat your face while you fiddle around for a green herb. Again, frustration.
• This game is clunky. Chris Redfield moves like he's underwater. And that's when he's moving at all. If you stop to aim, you stop. Period. No walking and shooting. This is particularly annoying when you're being set upon by a chainsaw-weilding sack-head. You'll want to walk backwards while planting the ridiculous number of bullets it takes to bring this freak down, but no dice. Unless you stop shooting, turn around, and run away, you're dead. One hit with that chainsaw, and your torso can go ahead and star in a Doublemint Gum commercial.
• This game is clunky. It plays similarly to Resident Evil 4, which I loved, but things just feel...off. There's a note about this being a work in progress when you fire up the demo, but with a release date in March, I'm not sure how much more work could go into this thing. Downloadable patch, anyone?

So there you go. I should point out that I haven't had a chance to play in co-op mode yet. I had no one to play with locally (I'm so alone!), and no one online seemed to want to let me join their game or even join the ones I tried to host. But if the co-op works exactly like the single player campaign, it could be fun. In SP, you'll be followed by a sultry female companion who helps you out with the zombie killin' and can access different areas of the level. If you replace her computer brain with a friend's brain, there are probably some very good times to be had. I just can't say for sure yet.

Anyway, Resident Evil 5 doesn't appear to be a bad game at all. Just a little disappointing in its quirks. Overall, I had a pretty good time with the demo, and I'm looking forward to playing the full game. None of its idiosynchrocies kill the experience, and all of them can probably be overcome with some practice. They just shouldn't be there in the first place.

Resident Evil 5 will be available March 13. And you PS3 suckers can get your paws on the demo next week.