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Resident Evil 5

Like previous games in Capcom's nearly 14-year-old series, the story line of the latest "Resident Evil" centers on a wicked outbreak that turns the locals into rabid zombies. Set a few years after the original, "Resident Evil 5" explores the African origins of the virus. Other games took place in locales such as Spain, Russia, Antarctica and the Midwest. Spokespeople for both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Anti-Defamation League declined to comment for this story because they hadn't viewed the entire game. (You can Buy Resident Evil on March 13.)

Contents at a Glance

10 things you didn't know about Resident...
Screengrabs from the game, a la Flickr
Some gameplay footage

10 things you didn't know about Resident Evil 5

While doing research for the game, development team went to Africa in the very early stages of development and took several thousand photographs for the creation of the stages. Just assembling all of those photographs together in a library that the staff could access was actually quite a lot of work.

In order to research Chris's military outfit and the military outfits of the people in the BSAA, James Mielke had a person from the Japanese Self-Defense Force come into the office and give us advice on different kinds of military equipment. At one stage some of the people from the development team asked to see a replica of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. So my friend brought in this huge RPG replica! And, when he was taking it out of his car in the middle of town, people were gathering around him asking, "What the hell is this? What's going on?"

Anyway, you know that Sheva appears in the game as Chris's partner. There was the idea for Sheva very early on in development. Ultimately, development team probably went through 50 Sheva variations. What they were going for was not Beyoncé-level hot, but hotter than Angelina Jolie. They had so many variations of her face. They had a lot of versions where the only thing changed was that her lips were 5mm bigger or 10mm bigger. Actually, they wanted to add those into the art books when we were putting them together. But, when development team asked the designer for them, he said he had wanted to forget about all the time they spent designing Sheva, so he threw all the other designs away. She's like Yorda from Ico, but gutsier, more helpful, and wields a Magnum. She picks items up if you tell her to, and also hands you items she recognizes you'll need (like ammo for whatever weapon you're carrying). She's not totally user-controllable, but she's handy in a firefight, makes a useful mule, and does a good job staying alive. Her path finding is also quite adept, as she rarely, if ever, gets stuck on anything.

Whether you're planted in a Jeep mowing down motocross bike-riding, Las Plagas-infected bad boys or in some explosive-filled shipyard, it's always satisfying to hop on a turret with unlimited ammo and cut enemies in half. Make sure you don't overheat your gun, though.

If you see a lever, it's meant to be pulled. There isn't a lever in the game without a purpose.

As in Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 5 features a wealth of carefully hidden emblems for you to find and shoot. The more emblems you nail, the more points you earn to spend on the game's unlockables. Be warned, though. Emblems are more difficult to find this time thanks to the bright, highly detailed environments. Some emblems are sitting out in plain view, while others are deviously concealed.

Dogs come at you in Resident Evil 5, but this time they're not jumping through windows. They make up for the lack of cheap shock theatrics by assaulting you in packs. Oh, that's not particularly comforting, is it?

Sheva is not great with ammo management. One of the downsides to keeping it simple is that she'll often just unload her entire supply of handgun ammo while trying to shoot enemies from too far away. Her accuracy is good, but her penchant for scoring headshots -- not so much. Sometimes you'll wish you could just stop her quick-draw, cowboy antics entirely. ProTip: Upgrade her basic weapons as fast as you can, so that her shots will provide more stopping power. You can upgrade a gun's Critical Head Shots, and you should do so first.

There are some things you would think Chris could simply step or climb over, but can't.

When RE5's producer assured us that this game had learned from RE4's mistakes, and wouldn't go on and on and on just for the sake of proving that Capcom could make a long Resident Evil game, well, he was being honest. RE5 is not a short game, especially when compared to earlier entries in the series. But it's a more concise experience than RE4's unnecessarily lengthy 30-hour gun fest.