I'm in Japan and I picked up a copy of RE5 for the 360 yesterday.  ive already played through most of the game, and have come to the conclusion that this game is great. But before I start praising RE5 too much, I must also add that there are somethings I definitely do not like about it. Ill go over those reasons first.

1. Sheva Alomar is a pain in the ass.  I think one review put it best when they said it feels like you are baby sitting her the entire way through.  It's true. She constantly gets in to trouble and needs to be rescued. And when ever she is holding items she uses them in the stupidest ways. Including ammo and health. And she has no idea how to use grenades, or other secondary weapons. Next, it's annoying having to upgrade her weapons in addition to Chris's.  I mostly end up giving her Chris's hand me downs once better weapons appear in the game. Since I dont have anyone to play with Ive had to put up with her level after level.

2. Next problem.  The saving system is lame.  No longer are there typwriters but rather automatic checkpoints. And when ever the game is saved at a checkpoint your inventory is also saved. So you cant go back and restart the level with the stuff you had before. And there is no more merchant either. You simply buy and upgrade weapons after you complete a stage. And when you die they give you option as well.

3. Another concern is how they do headshots now.  You actually have to upgrade the a critical modification on a weapon to increase that guns chance at a critical head shot. And this is always the most expensive upgrade. It's annoying because without upgrading, a head shot almost never kills an enemy. So you have to upgrade for each weapon to achieve this. And you have to upgrade the critical modification repeatedly to get a good head shot to death ratio.  I just find this annoying.  its actualy easietr to kill enemies by shooting them in the knees and stomping their heads after they fall to the ground.

Now the good.

1. The graphics are amazing.  the best Ive ever seen on the 360.  And the character models too are incredible.  The people look so real and talk in a natural way.  I can never stop marveling at how Capcom has raised the bar with this game.  And the stages are varied and beautiful.  You start out in a shanty town but the adventures of Chris take him to swamps filled with crocodiles, villages filled with spear throwing primitives, mines, the savanah and so on.

2. Boss battles.  This has always been one of the great things about the RE series.  They know how to come up with exciting and varied bosses to take down.  And in this game they are straight up crazy freaks that come striking in High-Def.

3. The menus.  One thing the game has expanded on is the menus. You can now view in detail the amout of enemies you have killed by type, the shooting accuracy of each weapon used by the player, the times Chris has been killed and so on.  And there is also a point system.  You get a certain amount of points for completing a stage. And it of course depends on several factors on how the game was played. The more points you get the more stuff you can unlock. Im a bit of a stats whore so I like this kind of stuf fin a game.

So there you have it. The good and the bad. And my final verdict for this game is 9.0 out of 10.

How many hours is the game shaping up to be? I heard the campaign is only 6 hours. (hope not)

Im not really lookin forward to this game but I might rent it and give it a try when it comes out...

Ive put in over six hours already. And there is more. But it does seem like the game will not be so long though I cant say for sure. I expect it will be about the same length as RE4.

ok thanks, hopefully there will be replay value, and the mercs minigame should be fun.

If it lasts for about the same amount of time as RE4 did, i'll be happy

Dang, I was really hoping you'd comment on the atmosphere and overall mood of the game, I'm actually really surprised you didn't.

Was the demo very telling of the overall mood?

Any details of other modes to play?

The demo gave me the impression that co-op was the best way to play this game, and your comments suggest this too.

I'm on Chapter 3-3, so I've played through half the game so far and it didn't take me very long at all. Maybe four hours, and I'm a very slow, methodical, search-every-corner type of player. (I might be even farther in given the type of weapons I have at my disposal at this stage.)

I've faced three bosses so far, and each of them is HEAVILY inspired by a boss from RE4. I understand when a title in a series wants to pay homage to and recognize its legacy, but when entire set pieces are lifted from one game and dropped into another, you go too far.

The core gameplay is so much a retread from RE4 that this title really should have been released 12 to 18 months ago. There's nothing in it that should have had the fans waiting for it this long.

I totally agree with the OP's comment about the save system. You never know when you're going to take a step and trigger a cut-scene (and thereby a checkpoint) and lose the opportunity FOREVER of investigating a certain area to pick up treasures, cash and ammo.

RE4 was so polished, it would be a massive disappointment if the follow-up disappointed there. So, yes, the controls are sharp. The graphics are sharp. The voice acting is pretty good...but there is enough trademark silliness to ensure we're still playing an RE game. At one point early in the game, Chris finds the key to a certain room and just as he's about to use it, a boss materializes behind him. Instead of using the key, opening and door and locking the boss on the other side and moving on....Chris runs down a branching corridor to fight the boss.

The sidekick trend in games is still not perfected. Essentially, the game is meant to be played co-op. Otherwise, you have to manage twice the inventory. Capcom expects you to use Sheva in single player as a mule for carrying around inventory you'll need yourself, which is the reason you can carry so little yourself. It's a distracting chore that breaks the rhythm and pace of the game.

Is it better than Dead Space in spite of these flaws, I believe so. Dead Space only had about half a dozen different enemies throughout the game. You could fight virtually everything by standing in a corner sniping it from across the room. There are vast numbers of segments where this works in RE, but there are a number of others as well. I'd give DS a 7 or 7.5 and RE5 an 8 so far.

No one is commenting about the mood of this game? I'm really perplexed, because I always thought that was one of the most important things...