Resident Evil 5 Add on Content: An Utter Disappointment

RE5 Downloadable content: An Utter Disappointment
Game: Resident Evil 5
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: April 7th
Price: $5.00

I have yet to write my review of Resident Evil 5, as I have WAY too much complaining to do and not enough time to say it...I will however make a point about RE5's Downloadable content, which just released yesterday, in an effort to hopefully save some people some money.

Basically, I was excited for the DLC-it featured a Deathmatch(survivors) and competitive mode(slayers) for up to 4 people. Sure it's nothing overly fancy, but I found mercenaries to be the most enjoyable part of the game, so of course I had high hopes for this no content, despite the fact I had to fork over $5 for it.

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Sadly, much like the game as a whole, this DLC was a disappointment. First and foremost, I enjoyed playing splitscreen mercenaries with friends and with my sister. It was exciting, challenging, and rewarding, and of course was great fun when you had someone to strategize and share the fun with right next to you. For god knows what reason, there is no splitscreen mode in this new content-just as my sister and I were about to boot the game up, we realized(to our dismay) that it was impossible to play together. This immediately killed the experience.

The situation grew even worse as I came to realize that this game looked startlingly familiar to the actual mercenaries mode. In fact, it was the exact same thing, save for the fact that two teams can compete or kill eachother. The time is still there for no real reason...and there is literally NO NEW CONTENT here. The levels are the same, the characters are the same, and the enemies are exactly the same. The only nuance here is the corny rock music that plays in the opening menu, and a new techno beat for the gameplay. This is a letdown.

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And to add insult to injury, if you wanted to play as that awesome character you worked so hard to unlock in mercenaries mode, you'll have to get it OVER AGAIN. That's right, you worked hard for the character already, but now you have to BUY that same character AGAIN for an outrageous amount of points. Understandable if they were NEW characters, but a complete waste of time for the same skins you've been looking at. Oh, and one more thing, if you haven't unlocked all of the characters, expect to face hard times online....the default characters(normale Chris and Sheva) are nowhere near as powerful as Wesker and some of the other later characters.

Oh, and if you thought it couldn't get worse, keep in mind that this content was already on your game disc. That's right-it was already there, on the game you spent $60 on. So what is it exactly that you're spending $5 more dollars on? Well, in Capcom's words, a "key" of sorts to unlock it. I didn't mind paying a small fee for new content, but to have to buy what I already have...no that's ridiculous.

Is there anything redeeming here? Well, if you want to kill your friends, you finally have the chance...online, of course. This mode can be fun, however the gameplay is clunky and not designed for competition, so expect to just stand still and shoot eachother until one of you dies. Also the time factor is a completely idiotic addition portion of the gameplay, as you are literally forced to struggle just to play with one another for a decent amount of time. It made some sense in Mercenaries, but should have taken out in favor of stock or an adjustable time limit.