For those of you who are thinking WTF is this Ninja dude talking about, just listen to why I consider RE5 to be more than just a straight up action game but to be actually more along the lines of an Action-RPG with more of a focus on the RPG side.

Just like with RE4, RE5 brings back the ability to upgrade various weapons to make them even more bad ass and super powerful. I mean come on a S&W 500 with a 5000 damage rating! I mean that is as kick-ass of a gun as anyone could ever want in a game! The primary reason I keep playing RE5 over and over again is this single reason: there is an appeal here to keep grinding away doing exchange point and gold runs to further upgrade my weapons.

I mean look at this way. You play an Action-RPG, say the popular Titan Quest that was released a few years back, what is the appeal? To level grind and make a more powerful character and get cooler stuff and then show it off to the world, right? The same concept exists in the MMORPG genre as well. We constantly want to show the world how cool our character is and what we've unlocked and RE5 is no different.

I remember the first time I jumped online after beating the single player game for the second time. I had to restart all the way over after beating it once due to my file save getting corrupted... needless to say I was furious. Anyhow, after jumping online I played with a guy that had the Hydra Triple Barrel, the S&W 500, and the Infinite Rocket Launcher. I was like OMG how did you get all that cool stuff?

After he informed me of what to do and what levels to do over and over again to acquire the most gold and exchange points the fastest I set out on my mission to get these legendary weapons.

I find myself becoming addicted to RE5 much like I became addicted to Titan Quest years back. The thrill of leveling up my character (well weapons in RE5) and acquiring more powerful legendary weapons to show the world that I am certified bad ass in the RE5 world. Then unlocking infinite ammo for all the weapons was just another way making my guns even more bad ass. Then jumping online and when playing with someone new, hearing them say OMG what gun is that? Chris has a chain gun!?

So in short, RE5 is an action-rpg in most respects. In an action-rpg you have to acquire more gold and xp to make a more powerful character. You usually have to do boss runs and dungeon grinds to accomplish this is a fairly fast manner.

In RE5 you have to acquire more gold and exchange points to make a more powerful weapon, which in turn makes a more powerful character. You usually have to do grind sessions where you have to play certain parts of the game like chapter 4-1 over and over again to acquire gold fast, or chapter 5-1 over and over again to get exchange points fast.

Is RE5 going to last as long as a typical action-rpg? No it's not, but considering I've already got 40 plus hours into this game and still haven't unlocked or powered every weapon up yet, or purchased all the infinite ammo options yet, leaves me with the desire to play even more till I've done it all.

So, I say RE5 is the best Action-rpg of '09 so far. That's my opinion and I am sticking to it.