I really need to stop titling posts “Thoughts on..” All I apparently do is think meanderingly about games.

I just tried out the Playstation 3 demo for Resident Evil 5, and in many ways, it’s a little disappointing. Granted, it’s a lot like Resident Evil 4, which I loved, but it seems to be lacking some of the charm. I’ll fully admit that this may be because it’s only a demo, and I know I’ll eventually be buying the full version regardless. It’s also much more difficult, although that may have to do more with the lack of save points. In the demo, when I die, the game is over. No return to last save.

I am loving Resident Evil’s quick-turn when you press down and X. It’s been a mechanic that the series has used for a long time, and I really wish I had that in Dead Space. When you’re playing a shooter without a mouse, turning quickly is always a problem. Even more so when it’s a shooter where you can’t move and shoot at the same time. Despite my misgivings, I’ll be buying Resident Evil 5 when it’s released. I’m a huge fan of the Resident Evil series, and I’d be surprised if this game was suddenly bad after so many good titles.

This seems a good time to look back on the series and analyze why I’ve loved the Resident Evil games so much. I’ll be skipping discussion of Resident Evil 0 and Resident Evil: Outbreak, because I’ve not played either, but as a fan of the series, I’ve played the other games – most more than once.The original Resident Evil wasn’t the first game in the series I tried, and I’m sure that lessened its impact on me. Still, I played the Playstation version all the way through twice, and I enjoyed it so much that the Nintendo DS remake “Resident Evil: Deadly Silence” has made its way into the small collection of about a half-dozen DS titles that I’ll never get rid of.

Resident Evil 2 is probably my very favorite game in the series, largely because of the one thing it did better than any other game I’ve ever played. That game scared the everloving crap out of me. Not in the “oh-this-is-really-eerie” kind of Silent Hill way, more in the “AAAARRGH!” kind of way, when you’re backtracking down a hallway where you’ve been a half dozen times and zombies shatter through a window you’re passing. The only game to come close is Dead Space, which I’ve got to admit is very well done.

The game they named “Resident Evil 3” was not by itself a terrible game, but it was far inferior to both of the previous two games. I don’t remember much of the game, as I played it more than a decade ago, but I distinctly remember being underwhelmed.

The first three Resident Evil games shared the same game engine, although the graphics of the sequels were much better. I remember being amazed at how good Resident Evil 2 looked on my original Playstation. But Resident Evil: Code Veronica X was the first game in the series to introduce a limited three dimensional camera. And that game was hard. It’s the only Resident Evil game I’ve played that I haven’t completed. I got a bit more than halfway through the game before I ran out of ammunition and healing supplies and found myself in an unwinnable scenario. I had to start completely over. My next time through, I got a bit further, but ended up in the same spot. Badly hurt, no healing supplies, and very little ammo. So I quit playing.

Resident Evil 4 was a totally different game. It wasn’t even really a survival horror game so much as an action game. A third-person shooter. And it was fantastic. They kept the weapons and the inventory screens, the characters and the green herbs, and you still couldn’t run while you were shooting, but the long-held fixed cameras were gone, and so was the T virus and the Umbrella corporation. Instead, they introduced Las Plagas. The laser sight made it the only shooter I’ve played on a console that I really liked, and the wildly creative levels such as the mine cart fight made it one of the best games I’ve ever played.

So now we come to the fifth title in the series. As I said before, I’ll definitely try it. I just hope that the demo is a poor example of the gameplay in Resident Evil 5.