I know tons of people have given impressions for this game, and even a lot of you have played it. But I still feel kind of privileged to play this in my room, with the lights of and headphones on before it releases so I thought I would write up these impressions. 
This is from the nintendo kiosk disc and not the Japanese preview disc, which contained an expanded inventory and female villagers. I believe this is essentially the E3 build of the game. You know the premise and scenario: I am going to skip that.
Graphics: Great. Nice animations for the most part (aiming, critical hits, enemy evades etc.) Fire looks great as has been mentioned 10,000 times ( I <3 incendiary grenade). Looks good from an art and tech standpoint, I can't wait until I get this engine into the dark and rainy areas nothing to else to read here, you have heard it all before.
Sound: The sound effects are great, the music is pretty standard resident evil droning, but the voices are kind of compressed. What it lacks in sound quality it makes up for in atmosphere effects, the grunts and moans of the monsters combined with bumps, leaves, glass, and weapons etc induces chills. One complaint I have about the music is that it stops as soon as an enemy receives their final hit (provided it is the last one) This gives away their death, I want to be kept guessing a bit longer.
Control: Mixed bag. Aiming is hawt. movement is not. I never had a problem with RE's staple character centric control, the game design simply mandated it, but it hasn't evolved and that is a problem. People who wanted camera centric control schemes just simply were not thinking. The only thing that is really grating is the lack of analog control (please don't confuse this with camera centric). It was a crime in REmake, silly in RE0 (though expected) but it is downright unforgivable in this iteration of the game. Why cant I make leon walk super slow? why is turning digital I want to be able to really crank to the left and right, not just steer him like a boat. I don't mind having running take place with a button accompaniment, I just want both run and walk to have analog graduations, and that isn't to much to ask.
The controls, though essentially the same as previous REs do really fit the new perspective as everyone has said.
Last note on controls, When you are out of bullets I hate the auto reload, I would rather turn tale and run after hearing a *click click* than watch a beautiful reload animation as my face gets devoured.
Camera: This gets its own category here since perspective has always been key in RE. The new perspective rocks. the game feels claustrophobic even when in open areas. When the camera pulls in tight and you are capping off some dude's face, you really fear for what is behind you, or just to your left and right (this is exacerbated by being able to hear them). I was worried about losing the dread of what is around the corner. But its all still there, just reborn a bit.
The Strafe discussion: We all know the control schemes (while ideally "correct") is poorly implemented. You use two buttons when aiming A and B. I think all firing should be handled by L or R. One should aim and the other should fire this would open up the C stick for use while aiming. One idea could be limited movement. for example a limited strafe or back pedaling (this should be slow to keep aim steady and limit its advantages) to allow for repositioning during a tight battle with out taking your eyes off the enemies.
My idea for c-stick use has the head move independent of aim when the gun is at ready. A 20º left right look would be fantastic. You could look left or right a bit (put the camera over the other shoulder when going left) and simply click R (its still being held) to re-zero the gun. This would take some of the cumbersome nature out of the aiming process without having leon bust out into a FPS circle strafe goof fest.
Sorry if this is still a little convoluted, but I know i will be lost in Halo2 love tomorrow, so I decided to quickly write this up before going to sleep. If you are a series fan, get excited, if not at least give it a rent and an open mind. I think the gameplay changes are a lot of fun and could be appealing to those who didn't apreciate the earlier RE offerings.
This is from the nintendo kiosk disc and not the Japanese preview disc, which contained an expanded inventory and female villagers. I believe this is essentially the E3 build of the game. You know the premise and scenario: I am going to skip that.
Graphics: Great. Nice animations for the most part (aiming, critical hits, enemy evades etc.) Fire looks great as has been mentioned 10,000 times ( I <3 incendiary grenade). Looks good from an art and tech standpoint, I can't wait until I get this engine into the dark and rainy areas
nothing to else to read here, you have heard it all before.Sound: The sound effects are great, the music is pretty standard resident evil droning, but the voices are kind of compressed. What it lacks in sound quality it makes up for in atmosphere effects, the grunts and moans of the monsters combined with bumps, leaves, glass, and weapons etc induces chills. One complaint I have about the music is that it stops as soon as an enemy receives their final hit (provided it is the last one) This gives away their death, I want to be kept guessing a bit longer.
Control: Mixed bag. Aiming is hawt. movement is not. I never had a problem with RE's staple character centric control, the game design simply mandated it, but it hasn't evolved and that is a problem. People who wanted camera centric control schemes just simply were not thinking. The only thing that is really grating is the lack of analog control (please don't confuse this with camera centric). It was a crime in REmake, silly in RE0 (though expected) but it is downright unforgivable in this iteration of the game. Why cant I make leon walk super slow? why is turning digital I want to be able to really crank to the left and right, not just steer him like a boat. I don't mind having running take place with a button accompaniment, I just want both run and walk to have analog graduations, and that isn't to much to ask.
The controls, though essentially the same as previous REs do really fit the new perspective as everyone has said.
Last note on controls, When you are out of bullets I hate the auto reload, I would rather turn tale and run after hearing a *click click* than watch a beautiful reload animation as my face gets devoured.
Camera: This gets its own category here since perspective has always been key in RE. The new perspective rocks. the game feels claustrophobic even when in open areas. When the camera pulls in tight and you are capping off some dude's face, you really fear for what is behind you, or just to your left and right (this is exacerbated by being able to hear them). I was worried about losing the dread of what is around the corner. But its all still there, just reborn a bit.
The Strafe discussion: We all know the control schemes (while ideally "correct") is poorly implemented. You use two buttons when aiming A and B. I think all firing should be handled by L or R. One should aim and the other should fire this would open up the C stick for use while aiming. One idea could be limited movement. for example a limited strafe or back pedaling (this should be slow to keep aim steady and limit its advantages) to allow for repositioning during a tight battle with out taking your eyes off the enemies.
My idea for c-stick use has the head move independent of aim when the gun is at ready. A 20º left right look would be fantastic. You could look left or right a bit (put the camera over the other shoulder when going left) and simply click R (its still being held) to re-zero the gun. This would take some of the cumbersome nature out of the aiming process without having leon bust out into a FPS circle strafe goof fest.
Sorry if this is still a little convoluted, but I know i will be lost in Halo2 love tomorrow, so I decided to quickly write this up before going to sleep. If you are a series fan, get excited, if not at least give it a rent and an open mind. I think the gameplay changes are a lot of fun and could be appealing to those who didn't apreciate the earlier RE offerings.