the Tommy|Zor era

Oh but v2! Why review a 3-and-a-half year old game? Why? Because it’s amazing. There’s still some people out there that haven’t played this through to completion. Those people are actually hurting their gaming career by not experiencing this absolute highlight. Where to begin? Oh, I know. This is one of the Top 5 games ever made. Ever. Out of tens of thousands of video games made, this is one of the 5 best. It’s that damn good. Let’s begin.

The Resident Evil series has always been a little polarizing. On one hand, you had a great version of the template invented by the Alone in the Dark series; the best one, in fact. On the other hand, you had awful controls, merciless difficulty, lack of ammo, brutal loading times and tragic voice acting. I played each and every one of the RE games and enjoyed them all, but I could completely understand why someone would not. At one point, the developer, Capcom, starting showing off screenshots and videos for Resident Evil 4. (Hell, before that they attempted a fully 3D version of Resident Evil 4, but that turned into Devil May Cry) The game had amazing graphics, but the game seemed to be similar to the other ones in how it played. The same tank-controls seemed to be in place, and the constantly switching camera angles were indeed in place. I was excited, but it didn’t exactly make my head spin.

Shooting Ashley with a gun is not what I had in mind…

Months later Capcom says, “Fuck this. We did it all different now. We’re using a unique camera and aiming system that’s never been done before. You’ll like this game.” At this point I wasn’t even paying attention to it anymore.

So one day the game finally sees release, to rave reviews. Not just rave reviews, to fucking spectacular reviews. All of a sudden people are throwing around hyperboles such as “one of the greatest games of all time!” and “better than Metal Gear Solid and far more important,” and “Holy shit. I haven’t had this much fun since I banged my cousin!” and so on. All of a sudden I was excited again. I watched the video reviews and I got really anxious to play it. I got the game.

So how’d it turn out?

In a word: Ridiculous.

The graphics, the atmosphere, the fact that is was letterboxed widescreen, the controls, the sound, the music, the characters, how great Ashley was, the enemies, the weapons, the strategy, the puzzles, the ease-of-use inventory system, the maps, the level design, the ending sequence, the bosses (the best since Mario games), comma, comma, comma. If this game was my worst enemy and killed my mother, I would still go shake its hand.

Spookier atmosphere than grandma’s house, and that bitch crazy

One thing I must mention specifically that other reviews never talk about is the difficulty of this game. It is perfect. It joins a list of games that have perfect difficulty. The list goes like this:

• Super Metroid
• Resident Evil 4
• Super Mario World
• Axelay
• Donkey Kong Country
• Metal Gear Solid 4
• Mega Man X

These games have the perfect balance of kicking your ass and helping you celebrate. They never become cheap, and ramp up the difficultly gently as you gain confidence and experience. That’s the right way to do it. Resident Evil 4 does this perfectly as well, along with everything else that it does.

So many parts of RE4 are derivative of other, often lesser games. The escort parts with Ashley are taken from ICO (another absurdly good game), the shooting controls are a lot like Mindsweeper for Windows, the widescreen camera is from Beyond Good and Evil, the radio sequences are from Metal Gear Solid, etc. In fact, RE4’s camera viewpoint gave birth to another type of game altogether, dubbed a “second-person shooter.” It’s not first person, and it’s definitely not third person, so it’s in between. So many games use this viewpoint now that it’s hard to realize it all started here. Gears of War, Metal Gear Solid 4 aiming, Uncharted, Dark Sector, etc etc etc I’m looking at you.

I grew up in the 16-bit generation of gaming, so I appreciate the value of a game that has replayability. I have not re-played a game this many times since SNES games. The New Game+ system (invented by Chrono Trigger…or…Mario Bros. 3?) is in place here, and starting the game over with all your money, inventory and weapons is thrilling. It’s just fun to kill the enemies - not because killing is fun, but because this game makes you enjoy it. Everything bleeds, squrts, explodes in a delicious manner, up close and far away. It’s satisfying, like eating your second Big Mac of three. It’s also fit to mention that the PlayStation 2 version of the game is even better because it contains extra Ada missions and true widescreen support (instead of just letterboxing), both which are important enough to constitude re-purchasing the game at a discount price even if you own the GameCube version. Then there’s the Wii version of the game, which adds Wiimote aiming, but little else. I found this version to be the worst, because it makes RE4 feel like a shooter, and that’s not how it was intended to be presented. It’s a grand action-adventure game which just happens to have monsters that you will blow to shit if they get in your way.

Leon is bad-ass and obviously American

I could talk about RE4 for days. The level of detail and polish is uncanny. The way if you look up a ladder and Ashley’s above you, she calls you a pervert for looking up her skirt. If she’s wearing pants, she says nothing. The way Leon’s back hurts when he catches her, the way the enemies react to localized gunshots, blah blah blah. It’s amazing.

Go play it. Go buy it. Go steal it. Do whatever it takes, just play it and enjoy it.

v2 rating: 11/10.

The Good: Everything
The Bad: Box art could be better?
The Ugly: How much I wish Ashley Graham was a real character, especially in her alternate pop-star outfit