Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 is a third-person shooter with an over-the-shoulder perspective. Players can use several weapons including handguns, shotguns, automatic rifles, sniper rifles, and grenade launchers, as well as melee attacks. Players can make quick 180-degree turns to evade enemies. Many boss battles contain quick time events.

As with Resident Evil 4, players can upgrade weapons with money and treasure collected in-game and heal themselves with herbs, but cannot run and shoot at the same time. New features include infected enemies with guns and grenades, the ability to upgrade weapons at any time from the inventory screen without having to find a merchant, and the equipping of weapons and items in real-time during gameplay. Each player can store nine items. Unlike the previous games, the item size is irrelevant; a herb or a grenade launcher each occupy one space, and four items may be assigned to the D-pad. The game features puzzles, though fewer than previous games.

In 2009, five years after the events of Resident Evil 4, Chris Redfield, now an agent of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), is dispatched to Kijuju in West Africa. He and his new partner Sheva Alomar are tasked with apprehending Ricardo Irving before he can sell a bio-organic weapon (BOW) on the black market. When they arrive, they discover that the locals have been infected by the Las Plagas parasite (those infected are called "Majini") and the BSAA Alpha Team have been killed. Chris and Sheva are rescued by BSAA's Delta Team, which includes Sheva's mentor Captain Josh Stone.

In Stone's data Chris sees a photograph of Jill Valentine, his old partner, who has been presumed dead after a confrontation with Albert Wesker. Chris, Sheva and Delta Team close in on Irving, but he escapes with the aid of a hooded and masked figure. Irving leaves behind documents that lead Chris and Sheva to marshy oilfields, where Irving's deal is to occur, but they discover that the documents are a diversion. When Chris and Sheva try to regroup with Delta Team, they find the team slaughtered by a BOW: a mutating troll-like giant.

Resident Evil 5 was developed by Capcom and produced by Jun Takeuchi, who directed Onimusha: Warlords and produced Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. Keiji Inafune, promotional producer for Resident Evil 2 and executive producer of the PlayStation 2 version of Resident Evil 4, supervised the project. Production began in 2005 and at its peak, over 100 people were working on the project. In February 2007, some members of Capcom's Clover Studio began working on Resident Evil 5 while others were working on Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, which debuted for the Wii.

Yasuhiro Anpo, who worked as a programmer on the original Resident Evil, directed Resident Evil 5. He was one of several staff members who worked on the original game to be involved in development. The script was written by Haruo Murata and Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, based on a story idea by the concept director Kenichi Ueda. Takeuchi announced that Resident Evil 5 would retain the gameplay model introduced in Resident Evil 4, with "thematic tastes" from both Resident Evil 4 and the original Resident Evil.

Resident Evil 5 received generally favourable reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic. Reviewers praised the visuals and content. Corey Cohen of Official Xbox Magazine complimented the fast pace, and called the graphics gorgeous. It was praised by Joe Juba and Matt Miller of Game Informer, who said that it had the best graphics of any game to date and that the music and voice acting helped bring the characters to life, and Brian Crecente of Kotaku said it was one of the most visually stunning games he had ever played.

Adam Sessler of X-Play said the graphics were exceptional, and Edge praised the gameplay as exhilarating and frantic. For IGN, Ryan Geddes wrote that the game had a surprisingly high replay value, and GameZone's Louis Bedigian said it was "worth playing through twice in one weekend".