The plot of the game is actually about foreigner powers exploiting Africa and its people. It's an anti-colonial message really.

And I don't think the whole Africa thing has hurt the game at all. I've followed the discussion pretty closely ever since the first trailer was released. In my estimation it seems like must people discussing the racial issue were doing it as little more than an intellectual exercise of sorts. I haven't seen much talk of boycotting the game or anything like that and there's been little coverage of it in the mainstream media.

The demo had two areas: 'Public Assembly' which was a huge open area with tons of enemies (obviously meant to be similar to the first village scene in RE4) and 'Shanty Town' which was more slow paced and linear and much better for getting to know the game. The full game is mostly areas similar to Shanty Town.

A big part of the Resident Evil series has always been about conserving supplies and avoiding combat when possible. That changed a little in RE4 and more so in this new one, but a few stages, like Public Assembly, rely on that mechanic. The goal for the uninitiated is to simply survive until backup arrives.

Of course, once you get more acquainted with the game it's possible to take out all of the enemies yourself. If you shoot the guy with the loudspeaker through the window at the beginning it greatly reduced the number of enemies that show up throughout the level. Then there's tons of environmental hazards (explosive barrels, transformers, etc.) you can use to take out the executioner and the few remaining enemies. There's also plenty of hidden weapons and ammo and even a couple of sniper perches that one player can position themselves on while the other takes care of things on the ground.

Anyone who's been a fan of the series will tell you that the game strayed away from its roots with RE4, which is true. RE5 doesn't really do anything new for the series, it's essentially RE4 with some of the mechanics from RE:Outbreak thrown in. If you haven't played a Resident Evil game before I think RE5 is a good one to start with. If you have played RE4 then the single player will feel like a watered down version of that game, but the co-op makes up for it.

If you've played the older games and didn't play/like RE4 chances are RE5 isn't for you.

I used to work at the local Best Buy and, like most big retailers, they had us pushing the service plans and other stupid add-ons (magazine subscriptions, credit cards, etc). While they never told us to lie, they'd often tell us to omit mentioning any potential negatives unless the customer specifically asked about it.

Best Buy employees don't work on commission, true, but of course they gave more hours to the people that managed to get more customers to sign up for service plans. There's nothing wrong with that. Now, most of my co-workers were honest people; it wasn't uncommon to see some of them give the customers faulty information, but it was usually out of ignorance rather than trying to purposely be deceptive.

There was a handful of people, though, that would tell outright falsehoods to customers to get them to get a service plan or what have you. There was one employee in particular that would sign people up for the magazine subscriptions without even asking then (the 'free' trial that they charge you for after the 8th week if you don't cancel).

Of course, since I worked Customer Service I was the one who had to deal with all of the angry customers. Easily the most stressful job I've ever had. On the one side I had customers venting their frustrations at me. Then, with the way Best Buy's hierarchy is set up (there were about 12 managers, all with the same level of authority and conflicting sets of instructions) it was chaos trying to figure out exactly what they expected from me. So, I simply stuck to the official store policy and, of course, I got 'spoken to' (but not written up, because they really wouldn't have a leg to stand on) for accepting too many returns even though I was following company policy to the letter. After putting up with that shit for two years, I'd finally had enough and quit.

I suppose I'm going off on a tangent here, so let me get back on topic. I think that, with the exception of a few people, most retail employees loathe using lying to people, even if only through omission. Unfortunately, the way the system is setup, there isn't really much of a choice. I was fortunate enough that I could afford to quit a job that I hated (and that was back when the economy was still relatively good). But not everyone has that luxury. If you have a family to support or are a student paying your own tuition (as a lot of my co-workers were) it's not really an option. When I was working at Best Buy, the only people there that seemed to genuinely enjoy their job, other than the managers, were the people working in the warehouse (away from the customers). Most everyone else just sort of begrudgingly accepted that things could be worse and did their best to bear it.

I have to disagree with you on that one. Rarely, when it comes to any form of art, can you deal in absolutes. I'd say stage and audio design play a huge role in the scare factor of horror games. The prison section of Silent Hill 2 was one of the creepiest things I've ever played in a game, not because of the normal enemies, but because of the way the area is designed. In some of the cells there appears to be movement, but because the game uses cinematic camera angles you can't really make out exactly what's there, if anything.

In some of the rooms you can also hear what sounds like heavy footsteps and/or something banging on a wall. So expect a big monster, but nothing. Then, building on that expectation once you get towards the end of the area there's a huge room (the kind that you'd expect a boss battle to take place in) with nothing but a simple puzzle towards the front of the room. So of course, if you're at least a little familiar with standard video game tradition you expect that after you solve the puzzle you'll have to fight a boss; probably that thing you heard earlier, but when you do solve the puzzle... nothing happens.

The way I see it the best way to make a game scary is to build tension within the player's mind. Make then THINK something is coming but keep wondering what it is and when it'll finally show up. Then, to keep them on their toes, ensure that you play to their expectations some of the time and against them some of the time.