Capcom has officially pulled out all the stops for the Resident Evil 5 release, even when it comes to the press. As part of today's very special delivery, we received something called a Progenitor Virus Test Kit.


The kit appears to be a cross between a box of Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits crossed with something that's usually handed out to college students at STD clinics. While there are no Q-tips inside, intended to swab out your holiest of holies, there are rubber gloves, a paper surgeon's mask, hand sanitizer and a giant, red "biohazard" bag (which, in its folded-up form, initially resembles a whoopee cushion) (at least, that's what I thought it was).


:(

But there's nothing humorous about this bit of swag. Designed, I guess, to set the tone of the game for reviewers, to create a sense of playful paranoia, the swag is more than a little off-putting and unsettling.


Inside the box, I located a pair of CD-ROMs. One was labeled as a Progenitor Virus Detection Kit. The other: Progenitor Virus Suppression Kit. I assumed they were asset discs. I popped the Detection disc into my hard drive, ready to pull screenshots, and an animated -- and fairly convincing, I have to say -- virus detection sequence ensued.

After about a minute of listening to a disembodied woman's voice saying things like, "Virus Detection will officially commence in three, two, one..." and watching TriCell graphics float around my desktop, I was informed that my infection level was 98-percent.


!


Then I was told to insert the Suppression disc. More graphics. More disembodied-woman voice. After another minute, I -- or is it my computer? -- was pronounced virus-free. (It's vague.) And I was given careful instructions to insert my "hardware" (ah, so it's my computer) into the enclosed biohazard bag, and told that a TriCell employee would stop by my NYC apartment in "five to seven days" to collect the infected hardware.

Maybe I'm in a crabby mood today -- it's raining in New York -- but none of this is funny, or enlightening. Telling someone they have a virus after inserting a disc into their computer is the tech equivalent of saying, "I gave you gonorrhea," then saying, "Just kidding. LOL."

So, thanks, Capcom.


I guess.

For more on Resident Evil 5, check out:

Resident Evil 5 review (Xbox 360, PS3), by Scott Jones

Thought/Process: More on Resident Evil 5 and Uncomfortable Echoes, by Evan Narcisse

Uncomfortable Echoes: An Conversation With Resident Evil 5 Director Jun Takeuchi, by Evan Narcisse