GMonkey

Uh, an RPG, ideally, is a game where you play a character with the personality and characteristics of your choice, not a game where you play the Batman, or whatever character the developer wants you to play.

Now, all they have to do is fix the combat so that it isn't a challengeless bore, start writing a plot that isn't completely forking dire, and not have a single repeated planet account for 90% of the game's content.

Way back when I was a Street Fighter 2 noob, I went with Chun Li, Honda and Blanka because they had the easiest special move, and then stuck with the chick. Everyone else played with either Ryu or Ken.

Anyway, because of that early choice, to this day, my strongest and favourite SF character is Chun Li. Also, it started a gaming trend of mine, where if I'm playing a game where I can pick a female playable character, I will pick a female playable character.

Is today sarcasm day or something?

I hope you're kidding.

Improvement in narrative? Where?

Circular logic for the win. The gameplay was bad because the game's controls were bad, because they were designed to serve the intended gameplay, which was bad. :)

If that didn't make it clear enough, as I see it, in an action game the controls *are*, for all intents and purposes, the gameplay, so to criticize the controls is to criticize the gameplay and design.

Personally, I think that Resident Evil's main problem is that it is an action game trying and failing to be scary. It never really commits enough of the gameplay to the horror aspect of its design, and as such it never overcomes the shortcomings introduced into the action by the concessions it makes to horror tropes. Resident Evil's horror stands too much in the way of its action and vice-versa.

P.S.: What's with all the hate towards my first comment? Is it the more aggressive tone?

It's both, really. RE's gameplay is directly dependent on the games' controls, and Capcom's choice of controls was made with specific purpose of limiting the player's gameplay options. If Capcom changed how the player controls the character in RE, the games would be a significantly different experience. Action game with bad controls invariably means bad action game.

Resident Evil's controls being a deliberate design decision doesn't make them any less shitty. On the other hand, Resident Evil games have always had crap gameplay so I don't see why people should start complaining now. if the crapness was acclaimed in RE4, it should be acclaimed in RE5.

Limiting the player's control over the character *could* make sense in a survival horror game but, as Resident Evil is and always has been an action gamewith no scare factor, nothing more, nothing less, the controls just make it a shittier game.

If you want Resident Evil type gameplay done well, try Dead Space.

Epic finally do something to stop a reasonable amount of players from touching a truly atrocious game, ever again and people complain? This is like Epic's version of charity work. And people say DRM is useless.