On the second last day of the E3 Media Conference I managed to sneak my way into Capcom's booth and fight my way to one of the Resident Evil 5 set-ups. This is by far the prettiest game here at E3. The level of polish, depth of art and vision and fluidity of movement is just stunning. It might have just been me, but I thought it looked just slightly better on the PS3, which is the system I played it on.

For fans of Resident Evil 4 the good news is this feels very familiar. It's not just an update though, and as the old adage goes, if it ain't broke..., so expect a game that delivers the same intense action as Resi 4 only with a slew of new gameplay additions and an all-new Resident Evil chronicle to digest.

There were only two playable portions of the game on the floor, and none of it was running as the newly announced online/local coop, however, newcomer to the series, Sheva (who I am in love with, by the way), was on-hand to help me through the two sections as friendly AI (the best kind of AI). It’s not known how much of the game will be played with her by your side, but given the pedigree, it’s likely she won’t be there for all of it giving you plenty of single-player alone time with this dastardly new menace, which is just the sort of scary injection the doctor ordered for fans of the survival horror experience.

Speaking of survival horror, despite the series’ shift to a more action-oriented experience, Resident Evil 4 had its moments of pure horror genius, and it’s looking like that will be the case here also, only ten-fold.

The first section I played through saw me taking on the usual slow-moving villager types only when these guys got close enough to grapple with me their mouths transformed into horrific flailing monster jaws ready for a Chris Redfield meal-to-go. You can push the analogue stick left and right frantically to shake the enemy off if they get too close, and the context sensitive action moves have returned with a few new additions.

There are five new close-quarters combat moves, the only two I saw though were a straight punch (which looks amazing), and a right hook that knocks enemies flying when Chris runs to help Sheva if she’s being attacked.

That said, she’s no slouch in the strength department, either. Whereas Ashley in Resident Evil 4 could actually be annoying for her weakness, Sheva packs plenty of heat and can take on bad-guys with very little trouble. She’ll also dynamically help you reach higher places or jump across gaps. You can send her on missions to open locked doors from another approach and even give her a small number of commands (such as to stay with you, or to attack at will). She’ll give you ammo if you’re running low and will even heal you if you need it. A new feature to the game is a countdown to death (as opposed to instant death) that allows you a very short amount of time to have Sheva heal you or to heal yourself.

Another new feature is in place for a more seamless gameplay experience. Anyone who played Resi 4 will remember having to essentially ‘hot pause’ the action in order to change weapons or equip grenades/heal yourself. Now all of this is managed in-game in real time, however, there’s also a new hot swap feature for weapons (something Resident Evil 4 sorely lacked) which means you won’t necessarily be stuck and exposed while you sort yourself out defensively-wise. So a clear inventory box pops up in-game and you can manage your items on-the-fly as opposed to pausing the game; interrupting the overall flow. This adds to the sense of desperation carried over from Res Evil 4 and keeps you more than on your toes as the room for a breather is lessened even more so.

Mainstays to the reinvention of the formula are still present here. You can move certain objects to block doors and windows, and these can equally be destroyed with gunfire, explosions axes and your knife. Shooting specific areas on the enemy will see them reacting accordingly, though the AI for the show didn’t seem all that good. Hopefully it will be ramped up and a bit smarter for the final build, which given is still not until next year, means Capcom have ample time to address this.

You’ll still net pick-ups from downed enemies and broken crates/barrels. These include most types of ammo, health sprays and herbs as well as cash. There was no merchant to be found in either of the levels, and Capcom were remaining tight-lipped, but it seemed a given we’d be seeing some form of item shop for the game (hopefully it is the Merchant).

Beyond all of this, there were barrels to explode (so, luring large numbers of enemies to them was key), different enemy types (and not all black, mind) as well as two bosses – the first of whom looked creepiest and packed the bigger punch, but was a lot easier to take down than the second.

The first guy came smashing through a wall with an enormous hammer. He basically looked like a huge blob of black skin as his head and face were draped in stitched up pieces of flesh. It was almost on par with some of the imagery you usually see in the Silent Hill titles, only he had all the Capcom hallmarks of sub-level bossiness (there’s no way either of the two end characters were final bosses, not from my experience with what the Big C throws at you, anyway). He was a bit easier to take down and only took a bit of effort with a well-placed incendiary grenade or two, but the second guy; the much touted amped up version of Resident Evil 4’s hessian-bag wearing chainsaw menaces, was a lot harder to take down.

These guys have a more powerful saw than the first round of them, but moved a bit slower. Again, this could have been an E3 AI issue, but between Sheva and myself he was still kind of easy to brush over. It was more a case of dealing with the relentless swarms of regular baddies that made the second sub-boss encounter difficult. Well, that and I ran out of ammo fairly quickly.

Ultimately, this was the best looking game on the show floor and held up to the same action levels as Resident Evil 4 (and in many areas surpassed them). I saw plenty of room for the cooperative play to keep gamers digging this online as well as more than enough tension and horror for the single-player Resident Evil-ers out there (such as myself).

Moreover, on top of the impressive stuff shown, there was actually very little revealed. No pure sniping moments, none of the light and dark puzzles we’ve been promised, absolutely no huge final bosses and almost no story revelations to speak of. All of which is a good thing (I think) since the game’s release is still aways off. But if I had to tell Capcom anything to keep in check it would be tougher, smarter AI (not just cannon fodder), beyond that everything else was spot-on. I had no qualms about controls (as many did), as I know the final build will have an invert option (yes, I invert my controls) and I think the somewhat less organic, fluid movement style works for this type of game (as it did for RE4).

I asked if we might see either (or both) of the demo levels shown available as XBL or PSN downloads leading up to the eventual release of the game and it wasn’t ruled out. But for now it looks as though we’ll have to wait until March 12 next year for what I think was one of the top three games of E3. Be sure to hit up our Resident Evil 5 game page for all the media you can soak up.