Wednesday 20 Sep 2006

Sadly I was a Resident Evil virgin before this game converted me. Yes, I dabbled a little at friend’s place with the Remake, but it never grabbed me and the strange controls seemed a bit counter-intuitive.

With hindsight, and the quality of this game apparent, I realise that if I had been left alone with the game for an hour or two I would probably have been drawn in. Anyway, my interest in the entire series now is completely due to Resident Evil 4’s awesomeness. Total awesomeness.

This is a great, great game. The magnitude of its greatness should not be underestimated. It sucks you in, keeps you enthralled, and never lets up - even after you complete it you’re wanting more. Again!

Harrowing horror

The premise and story are B-movie material for sure, some strange group has kidnapped the terrorist’s daughter, and they’ve pinpointed the location to a village in the Spanish woods. Leon Kennedy (that’s you) is sent in, by himself, to go rescue her. Obviously she’s not that important. For some reason the residents of the village are hostile, and seem completely brainwashed. Things are not right here, but you guessed that since you put the disc in that says Resident Evil 4 in your GameCube and switched it on. Things are not supposed to be right in horrors. Nothing’s right till just before the end credits. It’s one long slog against ridiculous odds to achieve freedom. What a feeling in a game - it’s far better than any horror movie could be because there’s so much more immersion, so much more at stake. It’s harrowing to see Leon’s head get lopped off by a chainsaw-wielding brown-bag-wearing zombie-like human. It’s horrible to hear Ashley’s screams as these weird creatures carry her off to perform unspeakable rituals on her.

It’s totally satisfying to blow the minions’ heads off, only to have your heart sink as tentacles burst out of their neck cavities and whip their blade-tips at you. It’s relieving to hear the soothing music that plays when you make it to a typewriter and save your progress.

Foreboding and mystery

The game is all about atmosphere, and that’s masterfully crafted by the fantastic graphics, the eerie music and freaky sounds. The story also builds to an interesting point and helps to keep a sense of foreboding and mystery. The controls help to improve the atmosphere too. Yes, the controls help. Leon moves like a normal person, he can’t strafe, he doesn’t do that strange float-run most video game characters do - his is a purposeful, plodding walk most of the time. He can run, but it’s still not fast. As for turning, well, they’ve implemented a 180 degree turn by pressing a button and back on the stick, so that helps. For some reason I missed the first play instructions and didn’t know about these two features until about half-way through, and I didn’t mind one bit. I enjoyed walking everywhere, admiring the artful scenery and sense of fear that was building.

The camera follows behind and above Leon so you can see what he does. He also can’t shoot and move at the same time - you have to press the right shoulder button to point his gun, moving the camera to rest on Leon’s shoulder, and then only can you aim using the control stick. Leon is a methodical aimer too, it takes time to move his arms around to aim at that wolf-creature running at you from the side. To move again you have to get out of aiming mode by releasing the shoulder button. In my humble opinion, the designers at Capcom know exactly what makes games tick - it’s all about setting parameters that make the gameplay interesting. If Leon was superhuman, and could strafe, run, aim, change weapons and shoot all at the same time you’d need a lot more enemies to shoot at to make it interesting, and then it just wouldn’t be Resident Evil, it’d be more like Serious Sam or something. As frustrating as the controls are sometimes, I love them for their creation of suspense.

One of the games of the generation

There are a few other game play aspects worth mentioning. The boss battles for one. I can remember every one of them well - they’re etched into my brain. They are some of the most awesome scenes I’ve witnessed in gaming, magnificent every one. The first big one, the creature in the water, was an experience that took my breath away. The interaction with Ashley, your charge for most of the game, is well implemented too, and adds more suspense as you have to be constantly on the look out for her safety too. A much talked about feature used extensively is the Quick Time Events system. This requires you to press a certain button or combination of buttons quickly in order to duck, or run, or cut or whatever the situation calls for. It’s a fun system and used to great effect by the many scripted events that happen as you’re moving through the village, and then the castle. There’s also some new modes that are unlocked when you finished - useful for your inevitable replay of the game.

Game of the generation? That’s hard to say, but if we were to choose ten games of the generation, this would definitely be in there.

Pros: Everything - graphics, music, sound, story, length, replay, atmosphere, you name it.
Cons: None. OK, it’s a horror so it’s violent. Squeamish people please don’t get this.

Rating:
Contributor:	Peter

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