So the demo’s been out for a while now and the Official Playstation Magazine has already published their review. I have to admit: it’s damnably fun. I’m a huge fan of co-op games because I’m both popular and so good at video games that people feel bad when they play against me. (okay, maybe I exaggerate. I have a good-sized group of friends and can play above average. [alright, you got me. I keep my mailman tied to the sofa so I have someone to play with, and he still manages to beat me even though his hands are tied to each other. And I cut off his thumbs.]) Hell, it’s probably even more fun if you’re a member of the Klan. Despite all this, I feel like Capcom is moving even further from what Resident Evil is meant to be.

Let me just start off by saying that I’ve never really been a big fan of the franchise. I didn’t really give it much of a chance until RE4 came out, and that’s mostly because I like action games and I saw some promo art of Ashley Graham. I still had plenty of play time with the older-style Resident Evil games though. Setting aside their antiquated camera system and irritating save methodology, they were shit-bricks scary. While RE4 by no means lived up to the fear factor of past titles, it still managed to make me tense at certain points in the game. Why? Not because I was fighting hordes of ganados, mutated giants, dudes with chainsaws, and other horrible things… no, it was because I was doing all of these things alone. I mean, I guess Ashley was around whenever she wasn’t getting snatched up by a monster or falling into some obvious trap, but it’s not like she was ever any help. In fact, she made the game even more stressful because she was someone you had to protect. In RE5, as many of you will probably already know, there is a female protagonist named Sheva Alomar and she’s hardly the helpless daddy’s girl that Ashley was. In fact, she has just as much talent with a firearm as Chris Redfield.

Well, to that I say, “ptooie!” Having another person around that can always protect you totally ruins the feeling of the game. I mean, is anybody ever afraid when they’re playing Left4Dead? Of course not, because there are three other people around to save your ass if you ever get mobbed by zombies. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that Resident Evil 5 will be an amazing game and will sell like bitchcakes, but I feel that the survival horror genre as a whole is heading the way of the dodo, slowly but surely being consumed by action games that appeal to a wider audience.

I guess there’ll always be Fatal Frame. I don’t really see how they could turn that into an action game… unless they attached a gun to the camera. Or, I shutter to think, made more like Pokemon Snap. (get it? Shutter? Like on a camera!)