Resident Evil 4 review 



I finished Resident Evil 4 the other day, and I can honestly say that it is one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played. Of course, I'm somewhat biased seeing as how the Resident Evil series has long been the most pleasurable of all my console gaming experiences. Several years ago I went out and bought a Sega Dreamcast after playing Resident Evil 2 for the first time at a friend's house. Well, the Dreamcast certainly lacked longevity, but Resident Evil: Code Veronica was a lot of fun. My old friend, Lorealle, and I stayed up many late hours trying to finish that masterpiece.

Anyway, the RE series is the ONLY reason I own a Gamecube, and I certainly wasn't disappointed by RE4, despite being made to wait years for it. Capcom has perfected the format of the RE series. Some new features that I really appreciated: the ability to buy and modify weapons (despite the narrative peculiarity of having a mysterious "arms dealer" show up at every save point), the deletion of those annoying typewriter ribbons, improved aiming capabilities and an acceptable abundance of ammo and green, red and yellow herbs (no blue herbs this time around). Also, the finding of little "treasures" along the way added a new element of fun. By the way, regarding the weapons: the sniper rifle was awesome. Oh, but don't waste your time with rapid fire weapons (unless you're really into that kind of stuff); I found them useless. All I needed was my trusty handgun (the ability to "tune up" weapons makes this standard firearm much more useful than in previous versions of the game--especially since 9mm rounds can be found everywhere), a shotgun, a sniper rifle and, eventually, a magnum. Oh, and the ability to purchase large "attache cases" means that you can carry it all.

RE4's story definitely kept my interest, but I was a little sad to see Umbrella Corp. take a back seat this time around. The zombies are gone too, and are replaced by their smarter cousins: armies of European villagers controlled by murderous parasites. So you think that shooting their heads off means they're dead? Think again. Also, I loved the added "realism" in the action. If you shoot an adversary in the leg, he/she actually reacts and falls to the ground. If you shoot him/her in an arm that is holding a stick of dynamite, he/she will actually drop the dynamite (which means it's going to blow up on the ground next to him/her--sweet). BTW, watch out for those peasant women wielding chainsaws--those bitches are fierce. Whatever you do, don't let them get close to you--you'll be sorry. Also, I'm not sure why their faces are covered with burlap, but it sure is creepy.

The game wasn't too hard (which is something that totally annoys me about a LOT of games) for a casual gamer like me, but it wasn't too easy either. I think I died over seventy times throughout the course of the game. RE4 isn't too short either, but, because I found myself playing it every spare minute I had, I finished it in a relatively short amount of time.

If you have a Gamecube, RE4 is a must have. It was definitely the most enjoyable game I've played in a long, long time, and if you're even a moderate fan of the survival horror genre, you won't be sorry.
 

Posted: Thu - February 3, 2005 at 01:10 PM           |

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