My spending prohibition is being tested to the max. FEAR 2, RE5, imported FFXIII are all coming out in the middle of my six month prohibition. This sucks.

Well, it can be done right (see CoD4), and then it's pretty enjoyable (assuming that the game doesn't expect the kind of precision you can only get with a mouse from the player), but this is just awful.

Have you tried the FEAR2 demo? It's not my cup of tea (although I loved FEAR 1), that's why I'm asking. You should really try it before considering buying it.

What I should have said is more that it reminded me of how much I suck at using thumbsticks...and that it's imprecise. If they ported this to the Wii I would buy it in a heartbeat because their control scheme for RE4 was one of the best I've ever played with.
My mark of quality precision: If I can't easily aim (not necessarily hit) for the head within a second of seeing my enemy, your controls are imprecise.

I made a thread about a month ago about this...
Anyways, I like the controls they feel very precise and efficient. The only things that ticked me off are how its impossible to see your laser in broad daylight and how incredibly stupid Sheva can be (but this is remedied by online co-op with a close friend).

Wasn't terribly impressed by the demo. The gameplay direction they chose feels old and archaic when compared to its respective competitors in the genre. And what I especially dislike is the need to constantly cater to your companion. When she's controlled by your friend in co-op its fine (if he/she knows what they're doing). In single player however its very frustrating. Suddenly you'd get an alarm that she's in trouble and you have to drop everything you're doing now and go help her or its game over. Frustrating and is just not my idea of fun. And than there's controls of course. But that's a whole different issue.

I completely agree with other people about the artificial restrictions the RE games have always imposed on the player. And yes, this game does feel a lot like an action game with zombies and restrictive controls. But compared to RE4, the inclusion of the ability to sidestep increases playability immensely. Plus it just really looks great in HD and is all modern-like.
I've never really been a fan of the series even though I've followed it. Got halfway through RE1 with Jill. Finished RE2 with Leon and partially played Claire's playthrough. Then didn't play another game until RE4 which I put down for over year before returning to finish.
Still, I think once you accept the silly conventions, I can see myself having fun with RE5 when it releases.

yeah I'd have to agree on that, fear 2 has changed substantially and all for the better in my opinion! They didn't waste all that time setting up interesting stories, they've removed the irritating lean option that I always accidently hit, they've gotten rid of that pansy "realism" of only carrying 2 rifles and they've added that awesome mechwarrior unit, just what every claustrophobic alone-against-a-creepy-army-and-freaky-superpowered-little-girl type game needs!
Less flippantly, they've taken almost everything the game did well and stripped it back to make it a generic horror themed shooter. On the upside, the aiming was fairly nice for a console shooter...

How can you say that leaning is irritating? What is irritating is having to come out of cover to shoot somebody and getting killed! What is this, 1999?

Well that WAS sarcasm... I sincerely hope you didn't believe that I thought the inclusion of a mechwarrior unit enhanced the claustrophobic horror feel of the game...

I feel stupid now, I just read it quickly and didn't notice the sarcasm, apparently reading message boards and trying to find the resistance on a hull at the same time is not as efficient as I'd like it to be. I kind of dug the mech thing though, it was nice to have a break in between all the tension, which is why they've said they included it, to release some of that tension.
Also, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody claimed leaning was annoying, there's all kinds of tastes out there!

I SO TOTALLY AGREE! 100%!
Don't get me wrong, I liked RE4. But I fell in LOVE, head over heels, for RE2. I love the zombies, I love the creatures and well I love everything about it. Really, aside from Leon, RE4 was another game. I feel like it shouldn't have been called RE :/
I'm so glad someone else feels the same way. You have no idea how much flack I get for saying these things! :P

I must admit that I thought 2 was the only good one. It was the first I played which does colour my view a bit but I found 1 to be clunky, 3 to be a pretty rehash of 2 with more regular bossfights and whilst I didn't play 4, it looked like it was more of a slow action game than anything else. 5 seems to have continued the trend and managed to annoy me more (likely because I've actually played the demo), who the hell can't walk slowly backwards whilst firing a pistol??

For those of you who own Unreal Tournament 3, I highly recommend The Haunting, a mod that's practically Resident Evil 4 without the control limitations. You can shoot while moving in all directions, and you can even do evasive dive rolls. Although at the moment it's really more of a beta demo than anything.

Since we're on the topic of mods here's a good one. Its a co-op survival horror total conversion for UT2k4. I seriously recommend if you own the game. Played it a while back and it really did it for me as far as horror genre is concerned. I imagine it only got better from there on:
[url=]http://www.moddb.com/mods/killing-floor[/url]
or
[url=]http://www.killingfloor.net/[/url]