Resident Evil 4

Its hard to explain how good this game is without explaining how bad the other games are. Playing Resident Evil 1, 2, or even 3 is like shooting yourself in the forehead: It isnt a fun experience. You moved like a tank, the graphics blew, and a few of the games had HORRIBLE voice acting.

Enter Resident Evil 4. The biggest change RE4 has gotten is obviously the "Over the Shoulder" camera. While I had no problem quickly adjusting to "Shooting from the side", I've heard many people say they get confused with it. In its defense, though, I got one of my nongamer friends to play it with no difficult, and even he was able to blow off zombie heads with pinpoint precision in the first 5 minutes of play.

The first thing that will jump out at you is that it is in widescreen format- no longer the full screen. However, I've heard this is not TRUE widescreen, and it is just a letterboxed fullscreen. If this really matters to you is your opinion, being as I can't afford a Widescreen HDTV for gaming, and I doubt many people reading this can.


Just as a comparison, here is the original look of Resident Evil.


Yep, one hell of a lot of difference. This is mainly because Resident Evil basically saps every inch of the Gamecube's power to display some of the best console visuals I've ever seen. Actually, this probably wins the bet for the BEST console visuals ever, beating such games as Halo, the upcoming Doom 3 XBOX game, and about any other game you can throw at it. The only other games that has made me go "Wow" at the visuals like this has been Half Life 2 and the Dead or Alive series games on the XBOX- and even those havent had to work around the inherint limitations of the Console market (And, in defense, not much is onscreen with DOA, giving it the ability to make high-poly stuff).

Okay, anyway, on to the game. Leon is potrayed now as some sort of police guy protecting the Presidential family. The game doesnt exactly explain why the US Military didnt just blow through it with an army, but this is probably because the japanese are still confused as to what the US is (More on this phenomenon in this game later).

Anyway, long story short, you're playing "Save the Princess, I mean, save the President's Daughter". You start off in a small village full of zombies that speak some bastardized language (I'm inclined to say Italian, but I have no basis for that) and have this great hatred for you. Interestingly enough, most zombies at this point only do the typical "Run at you with some sort of weapon" type deal, which is fine with me, because that means they die faster.

Speaking of death, now to the weapons of the game. This is one of the most intuitive weapons systems in a fighting game I've ever seen- not only can you buy, find, or sell your weapons, you can upgrade them for cash. This essentially means that when you amass a large amount of cash, you don't sit on it until the merchant magically obtains a stronger shotgun- you can essentially build the d*** thing yourself. For example, you start off with a Pistol which touches quite a bit on a Beretta or Glock (A gun nut friend told me what company it was, but my memory fails me. Who cares, I can shoot zombies in the crotch with it). Through the game, you can upgrade it to a much stronger weapon, switch it out for the "Punisher" (A generic hangun with peircing capabilities) or the "Red 9" (An overpowered Mouser), or sell the d*** thing and only use the shotgun. It certainly gives you one hell of a lot of options.

Now, onto the game itself. This game is about 15 hours long (For me) and is reported to be about 20 (For anyone else). I have a tendency to blow through games no matter what, so I'm not sure. However, I can tell you this game is LONG- two discs of complete bliss. At no point was I disinterested, bored, or thinking "This is getting repetitive". The game chugs along quite well, keeping you from getting a deja vu feeling, even with the same enemies. Eventually, however, due to the length of the game, you lose the fear of most enemies, and your prime thing is to see "If I shoot it in the nuts, will it die faster?".

Also, the cut scenes are very intuitive. In the middle of one, if your character is doing something actionworthy, you have to "Participate" by mashing buttons, hitting the trigger buttons, or otherwise pushing stuff on your controller. For example, if Leon is running, you tap "A" to "Dash". If he's in a knife fight, you hit R and L to dodge a knife. Its interesting, and it also makes you paranoid (I'm still jumpy from my "Mario Party" days).

And a very important note about the game. Apparently, according to the Japanese down at Capcom studios, the President's daughter is an idiot. If enemies come close to her, she gets into the fetal position and yells very loudly "LEON!!!". No, she doesnt do anything but sit and cry. And if an enemy comes too close to her, BAM- it grabs her, lifts her up, and starts hauling her off to the nearest exit. Of course, then your killing spree is limited by the fact you have to run over there, kill the thing hauling her, and protect her. No, you can't equip a gun to her- apparently she's too busy running around crying and concerned about if you look up her skirt (She will get mad at you if you try that. Trust me.).

Also, as a American, I felt kinda like a pitiful Minority in this game. Everyone, of course, is supposively American in this game. However, a lot of the dialogue you'll notice is something like this.

Leon: Why are you doing this?
----: You know me. *Camera Angle* Because I'm American!

I'm not kidding. Of course, right after that, you're supposed to mash buttons, so I kept laughing so hard that I forgot to mash the buttons, and Leon got knifed. When I later look at my stats on my playing time and kills in that game, I must have gotten killed 10 times from that part because I couldnt keep a straight face about the "Being American".

Other than that, the story and dialogue are interesting enough. The character "Ada" is kind of your sterytypical "I can do anything" woman who turns out to be "I run around looking like a Matrix reject". Krauser reminds me of the Contra games from the NES. Sadler reminds me of like a really mean schoolteacher. Regardless, these characters don't hinder the game, and I didnt feel like it was over the top (Suprising, being as the same company made Devil May Cry, which had the most over the top ludicrous storyline I'd ever seen, with acting to match).

Overall, I give this game a "Perfect". The battle system could have used Strafing and quick weapons switching, yes. And for you tech fags, it doesnt have REAL widescreen. But I had a blast playing it, and I can definately see myself playing it in the future.

Tomorrow.


Today.


When I'm done writing this review.


Screw it, I'm playing it right now.

5 star(s) out of 5

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