Capcom’s Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition is arguably one of the most notable games developers have rushed to patch in order to bolt on “waggle” control in the wake of the launch of Sony’s PlayStation Move controller. Does the inclusion of motion control enrich the survival horror experience, or is it scary for other less welcome reasons? Read our Resident Evil 5 for PlayStation Move review to find out.
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Resident Evil 5 was one of the stand-out games of 2009, offering the first true HD instalment of Capcom’s famous zombie-slaying franchise. It’s also one of the oldest games to be retro-fitted with PlayStation Move support, and to be brutally honest it shows. Capcom has affixed compatibility for Sony’s new peripheral onto the game in rather the same way an optimistic boy racer sticks a spoiler onto his clapped-out Vauxhall Nova in the hope that it will somehow overcome the car’s crippling shortage of speed.
Resident Evil 5′s PlayStation Move controls mimic the interface seen in Capcom’s other notable patch-up job, Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. Simply speaking, you use the PlayStation Move Navigation Controller (or Dual Shock 3) to move your character around and the PlayStation Move wand to aim. Aiming your weapon (and thereby moving around the third person camera’s viewpoint) is activated by pressing the T trigger on the Move wand, and as has been the case with Resident Evil games since time immemorial, you cannot walk and shoot simultaneously.
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Because Resident Evil 5’s Move setup uses this awkward combination, it consequently becomes more difficult to react to attacks from the side or behind. Picture the scene – you’re stalking through a shanty town, anticipating an impending ambush by deranged enemies. You move with the Navigation Controller’s stick, but to glance around you need to press the T trigger on the PlayStation Move wand to engage your aiming mode and then gesture at the screen in order to scope out the surroundings. The problem is, when your crosshair hits the edge of the screen, it just stops dead. You then have to revert to the Navigation Controller’s controls to shift your character’s field of vision.
Because Resident Evil 5 for PlayStation Move is essentially attempting to replicate the tried-and-tested twin-stick configuration of the original game, things feel disappointingly uncomfortable. The increased aiming accuracy bestowed by the Move controller is negated by the more convoluted camera control.
It doesn’t help that Resident Evil 5 for PlayStation Move’s interface is confusingly counter-intuitive, either. Because the T trigger is used to activate the weapon aiming mode, it can’t be used to actually discharge your firearm. Instead, you’ll need to use the “Move” button on the wand to shoot. Instinct tells you that the T trigger should really be the fire button – after all, it’s in the exact same position that a trigger would be on a proper gun – but Capcom obviously thinks otherwise.
PlayStation Move: Everything you need to know
It’s a shame that these issues exist, because there are moments when Resident Evil 5 for PlayStation Move really soars. Aiming with the Wand is fantastic, offering the kind of pinpoint precision that is normally associated with light gun titles like Time Crisis and Virtua Cop. It’s also tremendous fun to use the PlayStation Move controller to hack at enemies with your knife.
The inclusion of PlayStation Move support therefore comes as a mixed blessing for Resident Evil 5. On one hand, the increased accuracy allows you to dispatch enemies with clinical precision – popping craniums has rarely been this easy. The problem is that by removing the second analogue stick from the equation, controlling the camera is made much harder. It’s a trade-off that hardcore fans will most likely learn to live with, but in our opinion the retro-fitting of Move controls onto Resident Evil 5’s already competent interface just doesn’t work as well as it should.
It’s worth noting that PlayStation Move support is granted to Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition via a downloadable patch. Owners of the non-Gold original version sadly cannot access this software – but to be honest, you’re missing out on very little.
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