You’ve found your way to Cogs and Pistons, a shamefully pretentious discussion of the things that make topical and compelling video games…compelling. Here, we shall delve into what makes us gamers tick, what sets those cogs and pistons in our brains whirring. Why are unique games unique, fun games fun and great games great? Don’t expect it every week though. Let’s just say it’s…semi-regular.

Unpleasant, strenuous and oft inescapable, anxiety is not something people would be expected to enjoy. It relentlessly forces exertion, pushes people out their comfort zones and dictates impulsive decisions, yet for some inexplicable reason, gamers relish it, yearn for it if you will, and, rather neatly, developers provide it in the form of horror games.

Anxiety is a tricky thing to create, so how come Resident Evil 5 does it so well? Answer: the controls.

Like Resident Evil 4 before it, Resident Evil 5 does away with the surreptitious scurrying and tense atmosphere of previous iterations of the series and brings instead a more action orientated ordeal. Deserted corridors and creaking floorboards have been replaced with more expansive areas and non-linear gameplay, but somehow the feeling of anxiety that accompanies every game in the series is intact.

Controls in most modern games purely serve a pragmatic objective: a way to conduct the events on screen.  They are designed to be as fluid and ergonomic as possible so that the player can be immersed in the game, rather than focusing on how to control it. After all, controls are outside of games’ universes. Narratives don’t feature a transcendent antagonist known only as ‘The Controller’ who governs the movements of video game entities, because controls have no bearing on story. Neither do they influence gameplay. The input method should be so usable, and should be mapped out so well, that you don’t even notice it’s there.

How will I ever escape this situation? It's impossible with unusable controls! I have to press A and move the left analog stick?!

Yet you do notice it’s there when playing Resident Evil 5. You notice it a lot. The controls are clunky, unusual and occasionally illogical, but this is exactly how Capcom ensure that the Resident Evil staple — the immense feeling of anxiety– is unharmed. The slightly awkward controls are a design choice that are used to enhance the gameplay. No longer simply used as a way of governing your characters movements, they are a means by which Capcom evoke worry. Without the security of convenient controls, players now have to take into account whether they will be able to perform the actions they desire, within the control (and time) limitations, as well as when and how. Say I made a survival horror game entitled Undesirable Excursion into Haunted House 3: The Sequel to the Sequel, in which various gruesome critters pounced upon a nonchalant player at unexpected times, yet included two control schemes. In control scheme one, shooting is carried out by a simple tap of the right trigger, whereas control scheme two requires both bumpers to be held, the left analog stick to be orientated in the ‘down’ position and L3 to be feverishly pummeled in order for a single bullet to be blasted out of its cylindrical prison. ‘One’ is the control scheme most would opt for — it’s simple, elegant and easy to use — while ‘Two’ is convoluted and difficult to consistently get right. Yet because ‘Two’ makes the game harder, it also makes it more tense, creates more high-pressure moments and forces the player to assess not just what to do, but also whether it’s possible to do it. While Resident Evil 5‘s controls (and all Resident Evil games for that matter) are nowhere near as baffling as those featured above, they are slightly more complex than necessary, but for the sake of difficulty rather than bad design.

The Gears of War control sche- wait, no, sorry. The Resident Evil 5 control scheme.

Yet despite this slight complexity, the Resident Evil 5 controls are not impossibly difficult to use. In fact, they’re very similar to a recent (though niche and unpopular) shooting franchise: Gears of War. Take, for example, the run control. It’s identical to Gears of War, yet I don’t remember hearing complaints about that game’s controls. In fact, this is no coincidence. Back in September, Jun Takeuchi, a Capcom producer, described the new controls as “Gears-like“, and when you look at them, they are just that. There are a few differences (the reload controls are like Dead Space), but none of the commands require super-human manual dexterity, just a bit more care.

Another strange complaint is that you cannot move and shoot at the same time. I say ‘strange’ because this is not actually a control issue — it is purely a design decision. Capcom could quite easily allowed you to move around with the left stick while aiming, but they chose not to. You have to make a choice: move or shoot, stand or retaliate, fight or flight. Gameplay is forcibly more tactical and the risk of the game collapsing into a run ‘n gun mess is avoided.

With the grandiloquence of this post reaching dangerously high levels it’s time we drew the curtains across this most prestigious of e-stages, but before I go, I think a summary is in order. The Resident Evil 5 controls are excellent. They’re complex enough to maintain the classic Resident Evil feeling of apprehension, while usable and recognisable enough to not have an adverse effect of the experience. A tad clunky? Yes, but not without reason. Resident Evil 5 is all about questions and choices. Do you fight or flee, pick up ammo or keep running, work together or risk it alone? Yet there’s one question that’s easy to answer: is Resident Evil 5 worth buying?

Cogs and Pistons is written by an oafish buffoon known as Eoco who can only communicate via grunts and snorts. If you want to, oh I don’t know, give him feedback on this piece, feel free to visit his dank, tenebrous cave high up in the Himalayas, or send your missive to his automatic ‘English 2 Oaf’ translation software via the following email address: