I'll be honest. I have never liked a Resident Evil game. I've played a couple just for kicks and have never found it too interesting or enjoyable. I was usually pretty upset about these things: Picking up items was a hassle, climbing up ladders was annoying, and the fact that the game had you running on an image that looked like a backround always seemed kind of dumb. Especially since the polygons of your character were far different that ultra detailed backrounds. Since you never knew what angle the next area's camera would be at, they devised a movement system where pressing 'up' is always moving forward to the character. So instead of basically walking according to how you see, it was a matter of turning clockwise or counter-clockwise since your character was always at different camera angles.

Here's one of those really small happy bosses that Leon likes to hug.

Resident Evil 4 finally did what I've been waiting for it to do: realize that the current videogame systems now have the power to be able to render enviornments as realistic as what they wanted from the start. That means the game's in a true 3D. This is a major bonus point for it, because now it becomes a type of first/third person shooter. Bringing up your gun by holding down Right Trigger puts you right behind the shoulder of Leon, our current hero. Each gun has a laser sight to it, so instead of just looking towards the direction of the enemy and firing with the first games, you now have to strive for accuracy as you keep the zombies away.

The story of the game's kind of weird. You're trying to rescue the president's daughter (did somebody say Dynamite Cop?) and she's being held by a village of cult people who have been injected with a strange virus that doesn't make them zombies, but makes them stronger and under the command of some weird beirded guy who looks like he found the wrong pirate game. Of course, they still act like zombies, talk like zombies, and move like zombies. Oh except for those loser zombies that like to walk really slow and then sprint right at you. I hate those guys.


I can't really say Resident Evil 4 is scary. Yes, I had a few times where I've jumped and it definitely freaked Jessica out quite a bit, but it's not really "scary" just "intense". The reason it's intense is because it's so easy to die. If you get hit by the chainsaw dude, dead. If you get hit twice by a couple of axes, dead. Basically you can't screw up. So you end up getting really really good at how to use your ammo, or how you should upgrade your guns to do the most damage.

Even though you spend the entire game shooting zombies, it never seems to get old because the enemies get older and then they start having certain kind of weak-spots. For instance, if you don't have time for a certain enemy, firing off a round into his knee will knock him to the floor. Or firing at someone's shoulder will send them spinning a little off balance. There weren't a whole lot of bosses, and sometimes the bosses were a little unclear. Sometimes I could tell I just needed to blast the boss until they died, and sometimes I had to just survive them for a certain amount of time. And sometimes I just didn't know. Which made it frustrating, because then I wasn't sure if I was doing it right or not. "Is that actually hurting him?" was an occasional phrase.


Most all of the enemies in this game are pretty creepy.


One of the best things about this game was Ashley. Now, Ashley's the President's daughter and at some point 10% through the game you rescue her. At that point you have to make sure she doesn't die either. I think that this is the first video game that finally got the whole "partner" thing right. If she's in front of you when you pull out your gun, she'll duck for cover, she always follows you correctly, she never does anything stupid, and she's actually generally helpful when it comes time for her to do her specific tasks. I was so amazed that someone got this right, that it made it enjoyable for me to tell her "stay here", because I knew she wouldn't screw up or do stupid things. (I can't tell you how many Warcraft II characters I've told to move 10 feet, and they walk the longest route instead and end up in enemy territory to get slaughtered)

The weapons in this game were pretty slick, and the animation sequence of reloading the rifle is probably the best job at animating a manual reload that I've ever seen. The game's final boss and ending both sucked, but there's a really neat mode that you open up afterwards called "The Mercenaries". In this mode, you basically try to kill as many enemies as you can before time runs out, and with high rankings comes new playable characters. There's definitely a lot of replay value in this game after you beat it. Which is why this game is getting the rating it is.

Resident Evil 4 fixes all the problems I had with it's earlier games, and they finally get everything right. If it would have ended the way it did but without the extra modes and collectables, I would have been pretty upset. But the truth is that this is a really terrific game and I really enjoyed by time with it.

Verdict: Recommended.

8.9/10