After playing with Shin Oni yesterday in some Resident Evil 5 offline co-op(he managed to pick it up early from an import/dosmestic) store, I have to say, Resident Evil 5 is not as easy as one make it seems.

Shin decided to drop by, to give me a quick sample, which later on became a meal, of what was to come to me come Friday. Anxiously inserting the game into my 360, the game I've waited 3 years for, and the main reason why I bought a 360(or a next generation console in general), had finally arrived.

We enabled co-op mode and set the difficulty to Veteran. Mind you that there's a difficulty after that, Professional, that is unlocked once you have beaten the game. Once we started up the game, our hellbound journey through Africa began.

Skip past cutscenes, we gather our equipment, only to be surrounded by a huge mob of Majini. Here I am, trying to fight them, and Shin is just like "turn around and run fool". After dying(by the way I am a RE vet, but this totally threw me off guard), we restart the scene again and manage to escape.

I'm just going to make a long story short; to those who have said RE5 was really easy and ammo was plentiful, you are dead wrong. Throughout the game, Shin and I struggled, yes and I mean, struggled to find ammo for our weapons. The Majini came from all sides, through dark alleyways, caves, mines, and oil refineries. There were barrels everywhere, yes, but they were mainly filled with gold. We struggled to find herbs and first aid sprays, having to sell out precious weapons for a few hundred just to buy a few sprays.

There were so many "we are fucked" moments that I can't even count them all. From being ambushed, to no remorse from the game as a chainsaw wielding maniac came our way while we scourged for the littlest bit of ammo. Every piece of ammo we found counted. Majini took about 7-8 handgun bullets to the face, about 4-5 with a shotgun, and about 30 with Machine Guns. Grenades helped, but not as planned, they only slowed them down. And the minibosses? Forget about it. Once we made it to the Marshlands, the Tribal Majini we encountered there were faster, stronger, more agile, than the ones found in the village. They leaped into their air with their spears, wielding grenade infused bows, firing at will. Shin and I struggled to gather as many herbs and ammo as we can.

Then...the tribal leaders came.

These huge guys with elephant tusks on with giant staffs come chasing after us. Once you're hit by one of them, you're pretty much screwed. Shin and I died about 10 or more times in that area alone, and about 15+ times in just about every chapter and chapter checkpoint.

The game is still survival. While it may not be survival horror in the sense of shit coming out of doors and hallways, it still has that classic Resident Evil feel to it. There were so many heart pacing moments I had where it was either life or death, herb or reload, and wondering where my partner, Shin, was at. We bound to stay close together at all times, and the brief times where we had to separate were dreadful and uneasy.

After reading previews, I don't see where the hell these people have got this "its a walk in the park" and "ammo was everywhere" bullshit from. From what I've played so far(we made it into Chapter 4), this game is not easy, at all, period. It's more nerve wrecking, suspenseful and dreadful more-so than all of the Resident Evils before it. And you know what? I loved every minute of it.