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You may notice we’ve got several cool comics bloggers contributing to our Comics section these days. Here’s a little more info on each of them!

Comic Book Club is a weekly comic book talk show featuring the best comedians in New York talking shop with industry professionals from all corners of the comic book world. It’s hosted by Justin Tyler, Pete LePage, and Alex Zalben. Alex is the handsome guy on the left, and the primary CBC blogger.

By Rich Watson, founder of the Glyph Comics Awards, honoring the best in black comics; occasional comics creator; former comics retailer; short story writer; voracious reader; classic film geek; dabbler in music and acting.

Matt is the co-creator of Division 18: The Union of Novelty Costumed Performers; moderator of the Comic Blog Elite toplist; and geek-parenting columnist over at ForcesofGeek.com. He also ran the “Battleground Showcase” and wrote the occasional review during the PCS Buzzscope era. And now he’s back!

Norimaro is the James Bond of comic book & video game babes. He appeared in the Japanese version of Marvel VS Capcom 2, but was mysteriously missing from the US version. Rumors has it he was hospitalized by Chun-Li after she caught him stealing her panties, but these are 100% FALSE. He brings his top tier camera & scanner skillz to PCS.

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Resident Evil 5 is the latest and probably most anticipated entry in the long running Survival Horror genre of games created by Capcom. Following the much lauded Resident Evil 4, RE5 comes amid much hype and preview, largely due to the incredible graphical presentation and it’s introduction of cooperative gameplay ala Army of Two.

This installment’s hero, the hard-to-kill Chris Redfield, journeys to Africa where he is joined by the plucky Sheva Alomar; a young but capable BSAA agent. It seems that the Plagas version of the Umbrella virus from RE4 is being peddled as a biological agent on the black market in underdeveloped countries. The fictional township of Kijuju is located in just such a country. The story unfolds in classical convoluted-Japanese-videogame-melodrama fashion, and hits all of the usual beats. Most of these beats play out in the requisite cutscenes, with very little revealed during game play despite Sheva’s presence. The cut-scenes are also noticeably lacking the ever-present quick time events that were in most of RE4’s cinemas. There are a few, but they are well spread out.

One element of the Resident Evil experience that IS missing from this installment is the scary/creepy/suspense/horror that has made the series stand out. The fact that much of the game plays out in broad daylight has something to do with it, but the up-tempo actioneer pace of the game, the relative unzombieness of most of the enemies, and the fact that some of them ride motorcycles make this outing seem more like Black Hawk Down than Resident Evil. The only suspense comes when the game locks you into an area for a period of time and forces you to decimate the ‘zombie’ hordes or eliminate a particularly nasty boss-type. Sheva also helps to take some of the scare out of the experience; she is quite capable, and you may find her bailing you out more than vice-versa.

Resident Evil 5 does however play much like its predecessors. You still can?t walk and aim/shoot, which is interesting since so much of the core Resident Evil experience has been otherwise changed. The Storage Bins/Attach?? cases are gone, so the entire inventory that you can carry is split between you and Sheva, and you can only access this on-the-fly, which, when coupled with the stop-to-do-everything control interface becomes more than a bit frustrating and clumsy.

Resident Evil 5 is a worthy entry in the narrative, albeit one that strays more than a bit from the atmosphere and tone of the series as a whole.