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Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (Xbox 360) review"Lost in Nightmares will take hardly more than an hour to complete, and it’s really only a worthwhile investment if you really want to know how Jill got into the predicament that cast her as a Excella Gionne’s personal bodyguard. Fighting the Guardians of Insanity, hulking grotesques armed with giant cudgels, feels more like something out of Silent Hill than Resident Evil, and putzing through a much-watered down version of the Resident Evil 1 mansion really only makes me realize that it’s better to just go play that game instead." |
As I noted in my Resident Evil 5 review, the main game is pretty good. It was so good, in fact, that Capcom released a variety of different extras for it after its initial release. This led to Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition, which is the exact same game as the non-golden (pewter??) version of Resident Evil 5, only now it boasts all of the extra content you would have to purchase individually on Xbox Live without having to now actually buy it through Xbox Live. The caveat is that not all of said content comes pre-downloaded on the disk. Don’t buy Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition pre-owned! Otherwise you probably bought some download codes that the previous owner already used!
If you can get past the illogical decision of having to enter codes to download what should already be packaged on an actual disk, then you’ll probably find this to be the best version of Resident Evil 5 to own . . . assuming you don’t already own the original version (otherwise, just download the extra content you want because you won’t be saving any money buying two versions of the same game). What does Gold Edition allow you to download that you wouldn’t have access to on your plain pewter version, you dare ask? See below.
Set three years before 5, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine find themselves at the Spencer Estate in an ill-conceived quest to stop a wheelchair-bound Ozwell E. Spencer from performing nefarious deeds. What’s supposed to be nothing more than a super simple mission goes horribly awry when none other than Albert Wesker appears out of the woodwork. Having played Resident Evil 5, you will know that it’s not possible to kill Wesker until he’s half-submerged in molten lava, cursing Chris’ name to oblivion. There’s no molten lava here! But in all seriousness, this extra content will expand upon the flashbacks that occur in Resident Evil 5 when Chris reminisces about Jill and her sandwiches.
It also acts as an homage to the original Resident Evil’s mansion by recreating a decent portion of it and even allowing you to set the camera angle to bring back the nostalgia of having more difficulty fighting the controls than fighting the undead. Furthermore, the tiring door opening sequence is back for every door you must go through. I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss that in the newer renditions that the series had to offer.
Lost in Nightmares will take hardly more than an hour to complete, and it’s really only a worthwhile investment if you really want to know how Jill got into the predicament that cast her as a Excella Gionne’s personal bodyguard. Fighting the Guardians of Insanity, hulking grotesques armed with giant cudgels, feels more like something out of Silent Hill than Resident Evil, and putzing through a much-watered down version of the Resident Evil 1 mansion really only makes me realize that it’s better to just go play that game instead.
Similar to the Ada Wong DLC in Resident Evil 4, Desperate Escape has you playing through Resident Evil 5, only now through the perspective of a resuscitated Jill Valentine and Josh Stone as they try to – get this – desperately escape. And before they can succeed in doing that, they have to shoot their way through quite a few Majini hordes, go through some new areas, and lament at the loss of a faceless BSAA West African Branch dweeb.
I like Desperate Escape more than Lost in Nightmares because it feels more like Resident Evil 5 than some half-baked homage. It’s still a breeze to go through; it took less than an hour for me to complete, but it felt more enjoyable because the Majini hordes were relentless and never stopped coming. In Lost in Nightmares I felt that I could creep through the underground catacombs to try and entrap a Guardian into Chris’s inviting shotgun. Here, you can’t stand still otherwise you will get eaten. There are always more baddies to deal with just around the corner.
Just like Lost in Nightmares, you’ll need to manually download this piece of content from Xbox Live after you input a lengthy code that comes with your copy of the game. Thankfully, you don’t have to do that for the remaining extras.
Resident Evil 5’s regular version already comes packaged with Mercenaries, and sadly Mercenaries Reunion doesn’t differ from regular Mercenaries in any way other than it allows you play as different people or utilize different costumes. It sounds a little bit underwhelming, but playing Mercenaries Reunion just makes me realize how much I enjoyed playing regular Mercenaries anyway, and the fun just gets re-acknowledged when you go through some of the more interesting maps as Barry Burton or Rebecca Chambers.
Besides, who doesn’t enjoy the frantic pacing that Mercenaries Reunion employs? It’s almost awe-inspiring to witness roundhouse kicking a Cerberus midair, to then disintegrating an encroaching Majini with buckshot to the brain, to then turning around to take out a band of lickers with a well-placed grenade, and get rewarded with a hefty chain bonus for doing it.
While Versus Mode came out prior to any of the other DLC offered in Gold Edition, Capcom figured to include it on here, too. There are four different modes to try out: Slayers, Team Slayers, Survivors, and Team Survivors.
In Slayers, the goal is to get the highest score in the allotted amount of time by killing Majini and, if necessary, the other players in your game. Dying causes you to lose points. For Team Slayers, it’s the same basic concept as Slayers, only here you have a teammate. It’s difficult to fathom, I know.
On the other side is Survivors. Again, try to get the highest score before the clock runs out, but to do that it’s best to kill the other players roaming around on the map. If you die, you lose points. This makes for some pretty hairy battles, and adding a teammate to the mix only makes it better.
Clearly the main attraction. Now you can see Chris dress up as a Zebra or Sheva dress up as a scantily clad Amazonian. To some, this may be the most appealing asset if you catch my drift.
. . .
So there you have it. That’s what you can expect to find on Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition. None of the parts can really survive on their own, but as a whole they make a decent load of extra content. Of course, the real reason to ever get this game would be to play Resident Evil 5, but what do I know?
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Community review by Fiddlesticks (July 15, 2012)
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