FeedResident Evil 5 and Psych 101
by Paean on Mar.11, 2009, under Opinions, xbox 360
Capcom has performed Pavlovian conditioning on me with regard to Resident Evil 5.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term, Pavlovian or classical conditioning refers to getting someone to act a certain way by introducing a stimulus. This stimulus is paired with something else so that it triggers a certain response that you’re looking for, even when that something else is taken away.
This kind of conditioning was named after it’s father, behavioral scientist Ivan Pavlov, who got his pet dog to salivate at the sound of a bell. Interestingly enough,that pretty much describes the reaction of some people I know when Capcom announces a new installment in any of their popular franchises.
Admittedly, I’m one of them. You see, I’m not really the type to rent something or to do some prior research on the product I’m interested in–at least, not always. There are instances when my primal nature asserts itself. I throw caution to the winds and I buy games that I crave for. Resident Evil 5 is one of those games.
Not all people are as easily conditioned, however. As I’m writing this, I’m recalling a thread I read on the GameFAQS forums earlier. One person decided to cancel his or her pre-order of the game, claiming that Resident Evil 5 just “wasn’t Resident Evil anymore.”
That begs the question: what exactly makes Resident Evil Resident Evil? Fiendish puzzles? Multiple heart-stopping moments? A severely scarce supply of available ammunition? Cheesy B-movie lines and voice acting? An inability to shoot while moving at the same time? All of the above?
An even bigger question is this: how do you reconcile the popular Part 4–the installment that introduced some major gameplay changes–with the rest of the “classic” series?
Opinions on the thread have varied greatly, but here’s my own take on the subject: the game is by no means “classic” Resident Evil. It really feels more like Resident Evil 4.5, with some Gears of War elements thrown in for good measure. Frankly, that’s okay with me.
The one thing people shouldn’t do with RE5 is to call it “survival horror” as the term no longer fits the bill. Besides giving us more action and less horror, Capcom has also systematically desensitized us to the latter–that is, we’ve been repeatedly exposed to the horror over the years so that it no longer horrifies us in the least.
So to that person who canceled his or her pre-order, I respect your decision for doing so. In fact, I even commend you for sticking to your guns. As for me, I’ll be getting my steady diet of mindless Resident Evil violence this weekend.
March 11th, 2009 on 1:30 pm
I think RE 5’s official genre is “action-horror” isn’t it? But yeah, this game is definately for the kind of people you’re talking about. It even has the same animations in it’s characters. In a way it seems lazy, but in another way, it seems like very precise marketing.
March 11th, 2009 on 8:57 pm
Yes, I believe it’s “action-horror.” ^_^
Capcom said they’d be giving the series an overhaul with Part 6, so I’m curious as to how it’ll turn out.
March 12th, 2009 on 1:35 am
I would laugh if they gave it an ‘underhaul’ instead and turned it back into an adventure game.
I miss the old style quite a bit: I can get my horror fix from Silent Hill, but the cheesey B movie cliche is never portrayed so well in any game but Resident Evil.
Admittedly 4 had its moments, with Leon trying too hard to be a badass: YOU ARE SMALLTIME.
March 12th, 2009 on 2:11 am
I just dont want them to go back to the old camera angle. It sucked. You all know that.
March 12th, 2009 on 3:23 am
@Arcadia
I miss Ashely’s cry for help. Sheva’s is too…different. Nowhere near as annoying as Ms. Graham’s. XD
@bob dole
All to well. ^_^
March 14th, 2009 on 4:17 pm
@Bob Dole
You suck. You should play Outbreak, learn yourself something about classic RE.
March 14th, 2009 on 4:47 pm
Who the hell would recomend outbreak to learn about classic RE? That has to be the worst of them all. I have played the old games and know about it and those controls suck. They do build suspense but only because they are so limiting of what you could do and put in the factor that you cant control the camera which makes it even worse.
March 15th, 2009 on 2:10 pm
bob that’s what they were fucking trying to do back then. there was limited technology, limited disc space, limited fucking everything compared to today. what you need to fucking do is quit looking at all that shit in the past with today’s knowledge and look at it the way you first did all those years ago when NOTHING LIKE IT HAD BEEN DONE BEFORE aside from alone in the dark.
March 15th, 2009 on 5:53 pm
I am not comparing it to todays games. I really never liked the controls and camera back then. Thats not saying that I didnt enjoy the games, I like the storyline a lot and I am a huge fan of zombies, but they were flawed. They did not have to use this system of controls. Plus there where other games that did this genre better anyway, parasite eve and silent hill (especially silent hill 2), that did not resort to RE control scemes or did it better.
March 16th, 2009 on 12:42 am
Interesting how Square handled Parasite Eve 2 back then…