Resident Evil 5 – Versus Mode

I’d have to say the only disappointing thing about my trip to New York was that it got in the way of my ambition to beat Resident Evil 5 on ‘professional’; the highest difficulty setting.

Up until last night I’d beaten the game on Amateur, Normal and Veteran modes with the help of my regularly-pissed-but-rather-gifted gamer chum Kieran (DILLIGAF on xbox live or Dills for short). Now then, Dills is something of an xbox achievement points whore and with 75087 points in the bag at the time of writing, who could argue that he’s good at it? I can honestly say that I’d never been bothered racking up the points until lately, but I was determined to break the back of the game as I had on all the previous installments in the series.

So, after a long Good Friday sesh, we finished professional (woohooo!) and I completed all the achievements in the game (each game on the xbox has a potential of 1000 points for you to grab); that was until Capcom decided to release a ‘versus mode’ for Resident Evil 5 which means I’ve got another few to go now!

For 400 Microsoft Points (the currency on xbox live – Around £4) you can purchase and unlock this feature in the game; I’ve always argued that it’s a shame they don’t either include this in the launch of the title, or provide it free of charge should it be developed later, but hey, we live in a capitalist wonderland so who am I kidding? Again, out of principle I rarely purchase things like this, but I was really eager to see what Capcom had added to an already 10/10 game. And I wasn’t disappointed.

The ‘versus mode’ is essentially an all out time attack mode, with a twist. 4 game modes mean you can either play alone killing 3 other human controlled players or partner up and try to work as a team against 2 other human players; all the while fending off a mixture of computer controlled enemies which upon elimination, extend the game’s duration by granting you a few seconds extra per kill. It’s very fast paced and has a fantastic learning curve. In short, it’s good fun and well worth investing in.

The best bit about this ‘versus’ mode is that you pick a character with a set inventory (you can find other items scattered around the battlefield) and it can really determine the way you play the game. The game also features the ability to ‘unlock’ additional characters in exchange for experience points that you gain either playing any of the game modes including story mode. So that’s what I did, I kept repeating chapter 6-2 on professional because I got it down to under 3 minutes each time, and you can gain 2,500 exp if you manage to finish it with a S rating; which to be fair is pretty simple if you have the unlimited ammo rocket launcher like yours truly! FIRE IN THE HOLD!

It’s really worth unlocking all the characters (see gallery below), hopefully they’ll add a few more over time although not if they charge me pounds shillings and pence again!

Oh yes, and playing as Albert Wesker in his S.T.A.R.S. getup is like being in my own geek heaven, trust me folks.

Playable Characters in ‘Versus Mode’