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The greatest horror game ever made.
Resident Evil 4
Developer: Capcom Production Studio 4
Platform: Gamecube
Genre: Survival-horror
I was first introduced to Resident Evil in 1997 by a friend of mine in junior highschool. I did not own a Playstation, and I had never even heard of the franchise until being shown Resident Evil 2 one weekend at his house. However, after watching him play through nearly the entire "reverse game" in one sitting, I found myself intrigued and wanting to play it myself. However, seeing as how I was but a poor 15-year-old, I could not afford a new console and therefore had to wait to see if it would possibly be ported to another medium.
I was in luck, however, as only a couple years later, Capcom ported RE2 to the Nintendo 64. I snatched up my copy as soon as I had an opportunity, and I played the hell out of it. Little did I know, however, that in the coming years, Nintendo was going to see a hell of a lot more support from this franchise than I'd previously anticipated. About three years later, only a few months after the launch of the Gamecube, Nintendo-owners were treated to a full-blown remake of the original Resident Evil. Loaded with some of the most intricate and realistic graphics ever built, as well as new areas, enemies, puzzles, weapons and items, REmake (as it's called by many Nintendo fans) was looking to be the best offering in the entire series.
Months later, the Gamecube was finally graced with it's first completely new entry, Resident Evil Zero, a prequel to the first game explaining the origins of Umbrella, the Mansion Incident and the Raccoon City outbreak. It brought along with it a new dual-character setup as well as a new inventory system to do away with the item-box systems from the previous games. However, by this point, many had seen the Resident Evil franchise as a dead beast. RE Zero was the last "traditional" game in the series, and after almost eight years of sloppy controls and frustrating inventory-systems, most fans had simply written the series off as obsolete and inferior in the light of upcoming franchises like Silent Hill.
Finally, years later, Capcom gives us brand new incentive to return to their beloved survival-horror series with open arms: Resident Evil 4. Featuring massive alterations to the gameplay, full-3D graphics that are substantially more impressive than those found in REmake and REZero, top-notch voice acting, a great plot and a load of extras and bonuses, it's pretty easy to see why it's the best game in the series, and almost certainly the best game in the genre as well.
Story
It has been six years. Six years since the Mansion Incident, six years since the Raccon City outbreak, six years since Raccoon City was removed from the face of the Earth by the U.S. Government. Six years since Leon S. Kennedy, then a rookie cop literally on his first day of work, escaped the confines of the city and left the madness of that horrible day behind.
Shortly after the Federal Government ordered the nuclear sterilization of Raccoon City, the truth was revealed about the Umbrella Corporation's involvement with the outbreak and development of the T-Virus. Their villainous actions were exposed, and in the wake of this, their stock prices plummeted, their business suffered and within a month, Umbrella, a massive international corporate conglomerate, was as dead as their zombified test subjects.
Six years later, Leon S. Kennedy is a secret agent in service to the US Government. He has spent the last half-decade of his life under rigorous training and has finally been given his official position: to provide protection and security for the President and his family. However, only days before he was scheduled to begin this assignment, the President's teenage daughter, Ashley, was abducted by unknown operatives. No ransom was given, no contact was made and no suspects could be researched. It seemed to be a completely random and purposeless criminal act.
Then reports started surfacing that Ashley had been spotted in Europe, near a small, rural town named Pueblo. (The player is intended to believe that the game takes place in Spain, but this is never said outright.) Seeing as it was his assingment to guard the President and his family, Leon is given the order to follow up on these reports and make his way to Pueblo to attempt to locate the girl. Arriving at his destination with a local police escort, Leon enters the town only to meet with horror yet again. Attempting to glean any information from the seemingly-harmless locals brings a death sentence upon his head, as his escort is murdered and he finds himself alone, fighting for his life against a town filled with murderous villagers. Using his wits and skills to the best of his ability, he sets off on his misson to recover Ashley Graham, and discover the truth behind the demonic inhabitants of this village.
Gameplay
The most important aspect to address right off the bat is the massive alteration that the overall control of the series has recieved. In previous RE games, you had 3D characters presented in pre-rendered environments that were given 3D properties. However, because of their pre-rendered nature, the camera viewpoint was a static, non-moving perspective. When moving out of the frame of one viewpoint, the camera would quickly shift to the next static angle to provide you with a more fitting view of the environment. Now, while this was certainly good for the purposes of graphical detail and cinemetic presentation, it's an absolute nightmare for control. The reason being that when switching from one angle to a completely new angle, you run into the problem of control calibration suddenly changing at the drop of a hat. In one area, the camera may be placed in front of the character and you'll have to pull down on the joystick in order to move your character north. However, if you enter a new area with a different camera angle, this one from behind let's say, suddenly pulling down on the joystick makes your character turn around and run south. That's sort of a problem.
So, in past games, Capcom eluded this issue by giving the game controls as though it were a first-person shooter. Pushing up on the joystick would always make your character run forward, regardless of the position of the camera. Left would always turn the guy left, right always right and down would always make him back up. This worked to create a sense of universal control, but it came with it's own set of problems as well. The fact is, trying to control your character in that fashion was not always as limber or fluid as it should have been, especially in a series that focused so heavily on evading your enemies and preserving your inventory.
RE4 has rectified this situation. No longer will you have to deal with the awkwardness of cinematic camera angles hampering the controls. The actual control scheme remains the same. Up moves forward, left turns left, right turns right and down makes Leon back up. However, considering that the game is presented in full-3D, the camera always stays directly behind the hero. Movement controls are quick and responsive, so you'll never have anything to blame (besides your own incompetence) if you can't get Leon to maneuver around the enemies correctly. Holding the B button will make Leon run instead of walk, and while running, he's particularly quick and agile.
However, beyond the new ease of control to be found in the game, Leon also has an assortment of other new control advancements to be used. First, the aiming controls have undergone a complete overhaul. In previous games, you would hold the R-Trigger to make the hero bring up his gun, at which point he would auto-aim at the nearest zombie. You could not fine tune the controls any more than that, though. You could aim at chest-level, up in the air and down at the ground only. In RE4, holding the R-Trigger brings up Leon's gun and causes the camera to swing in just behind his shoulder. While holding the trigger, leon stands still and you can use the joystick to aim the gun in any direction you like, while pressing the A button will make him fire the gun. Headshots, legshots and chest-shots are now at your discretion to use.
On top of that, when not using your gun, the A button becomes a completely context-sensitive command button. You can hop over fences, open doors, climb ladders, knock down ladders, brace furniture in front of doors, jump out of windows and many, many other options. However, Leon now also has a selection of combat-sensitive A-button commands as well. Shoot a villager in the head or chest, and while he's staggering around, run up and press A. Leon will do a huge roundhouse kick that will knock the enemy through the air and knock back any surrounding enemies. Shoot a villager in the knee, and if he falls into a kneeling position, run up and press A. Leon will grab the enemy and perform a suplex, frequently capable of decapitating humanoid enemies while conserving ammo.
One other nice addition to the controls is the quick-knife option. In previous RE games, your character would start off with a knife of some sort, used to fend off enemies if you ran out of ammo. However, carrying it required you to sacrifice an inventory-slot, and it required you to equip it in place of whatever projectile weapon you were currently using. In RE4, this is no longer the case. Leon will always have a knife on him, strapped in a sheath below his left shoulder. At any point in the game, you can hold down the L-trigger and he'll whip out his knife immediately, at which point pressing the A button will make him attack with it. This option helps in several ways. One, it doesn't take up any inventory space. He's always got it on him, and therefore, does not need to be carried in the attache case. Two, it doesn't require you to un-equip your selected firearm. Three, it conserves ammo because it's always an option, and is very quick and easy to use.
The final control-based aspect of the game to look at are the selection of "interactive cutscenes" in the game. Very frequently, Leon will encounter cutscenes in which he needs your input in order to survive. For example, one earlier scene finds Leon bound and gagged in a run-down shack. A villager carrying an axe approaches and attempts to kill the hero. Just before the enemy swings, however, you'll see "Dodge = A" displayed at the bottom of the screen. Hit the A button while it's displayed and Leon will quickly lean forward and evade the attack. Later in the game, some of these sequences become very rapid-fire, forcing you to fend off several dangers in quick succession. The actual combinations are no more complicated than pressing A and B at the same time, pressing both triggers simultaneously or hammering A or B as fast as you can. The challenge is in your reflexes and not knowing exactly when the danger is coming.
The survival-horror genre has always focused on one specific property in order to convey the intensity of the gameplay. This is the concept of "rationing". Rationing your inventory space, rationing your ammo, rationing your health supplies, etc. How long you stay alive depends very heavily on how intelligently you've spent your bullets. Half of the fun is in planning your path of attack and figuring out how to survive an impending gauntlet of challenges with limited resources. Resident Evil 4 brings with it a new type of inventory management not seen before in the series. Leon keeps all of his equipment in an attache case, a large, armored suitcase, for all intents and purposes. When you enter the item menu, the case is displayed as a grid, consisting of X by X boxes. Each piece of equipment you find requires X number of boxes to store. You can arrange your equipment however you please, leaving the task of space-management up to you, as opposed to just letting the computer decide how much stuff you can haul.
A lot of the fun in RE4 is really figuring out how to cram as much stuff into your inventory as you can manage. There will be points in the game where you'll have five different guns, over 500 rounds of different types of ammo, several of each type of grenade, several pieces of healing equipment and so on. Then, of course, you'll hit a nasty section and burn through half of that ammo and most of those grenades which will leave you scrounging for more stuff to fill your inventory with.
Another new aspect that RE4 employs, in regards to rationing, is keeping track of your cash flow. Littered throughout RE4's landscape, and upon killing most enemies, you'll find heaps and boxes of pesetas (Spanish currency) with which to buy new items and upgrades. Routinely, throughout each area, you'll come across hooded merchants selling their wares amidst the horror of the environment. These guys sell anything from guns to healing supplies to weapon upgrades to maps to larger attache cases for lugging around more junk. Almost all of the guns in the game are customizable in some way, from increasing the firepower to the firing speed, reload speeds, ammo capacities and so forth. On top of that, many of the weapons have special extra equipment such as stocks and scopes, as well as special properties like the Punisher handgun and it's ability to shoot through multiple targets.
One of the most important rationing aspects of the game is knowing what to buy and when to buy it. Certain guns aren't worth the money to upgrade, some take up too much space, while some are absolute blessings in disguise and are worth every peseta. Knowing how to spend your money economically is a challenge, and having the right upgrades at the right times can make a world of difference.
The selection of weapons and items to be found in this game is pretty damned impressive, too. In terms of guns, you've got about four different types of handguns, three different shotguns, two rifles, two magnums, one machinegun and a few "other" types of weapons like the Mine Thrower and the Rocket Launcher. Plus, you've got about a half-dozen secret weapons that can be unlocked after beating the game, such as the Matilda handgun and the Chicago Typewriter machinegun. Beyond these weapons, you've also got three different types of grenades, several types of healing supplies and a few really cool special upgrades like the Assault Vest.
At this point, you're probably wondering how difficult the game is, right? I'm going to say that it's probably one of the most fairly balanced games I've ever played. It's not easy, but the difficulty cannot be blamed on a lack of ammo or too many enemies. If you can't beat this game, honestly, it's just because you suck. The fact is, I tore through over nine-friggin-hundred enemies over the course of this game (and I know this because it tells you at the end), and I had a full attache case before engaging the last boss. I was carrying almost 50 rounds of magnum ammo, about 200 rounds of machinegun ammo, 50 rounds of rifle ammo, 100 rounds of handgun ammo, 45 rounds of shotgun ammo, five or six full-healing vials, five guns and almost a dozen grenades. And this was after killing over nine-hundred enemies. Now, that's not to say that the game gives you too much ammo. No, I came out so heavily armed because I played it smart. I didn't waste bullets by using the shotgun at long range or using the handgun against more than one enemy. I played it smart, and came out with enough supplies to kill the final boss several times over.
Like I said, the game is certainly not easy. There were many, many parts where I found myself having to switch back and forth between weapons at the drop of a hat, fighting for dear life against a squad of violent enemies. However, in spite of this, it's also completely fair. If you ever find yourself completely out of ammo and having to rely solely on the knife, it's because you suck. If you ever find yourself having to just flat out run from a major encounter, it's because you suck. You absolutely cannot blame the game, because it gives you enough stuff to beat the game thoroughly, just so long as you play it intelligently.
In total, Resident Evil is one of the most perfectly-designed packages I can think of in the entire history of videogames. I haven't become this addicted to a title's gameplay since Viewtiful Joe. A week ago, I was sitting at work, absent-mindedly going over how to re-organize my attache case once I got home. I sat there, strategizing and planning at work because I couldn't get the game off my mind. That's how amazing it is.
Graphics
As I stated above, one of the main apsects of the survival-horror genre is the focus on rationing your equipment. That aspect makes up the "survival" portion of the title. The "horror" relies on atmopshere to convey a sense of dread and terror. Some games, like the Silent Hill franchise, rely more upon subtlety and ambience to create a constant state of discomfort in the player. Previous games in the RE series, however, took a much more visceral route, giving you buckets of horror and atrocity in order to make you sweat and jump out of your seat at the drop of a hat.
Resident Evil 4 proves that those two aspects are not mutually exclusive. Sure, there are plenty of jump-scares, as they are a convention of the entire series. However, when you're not being hunted by Verdugo or being swallowed alive by Del Lago, the game presents one of the creepiest and most atmospheric experiences I have ever bore witness to. While spying the center of Pueblo from a distance, you can see the villagers absent-mindedly going about their daily rountines, shoveling hay, feeding the chickens, talking to one-another. However, looking more closely at the center of the town, you see a large bonfire, and in the middle of said fire, one of the policemen that escorted Leon to the town is impaled upon a massive hook, roasting in the flames. As you approach the town, one of the villagers might see you, and upon doing so, will call out to the rest of the people and point to you. Suddenly, you watch in horror at the villagers drop their shovels and bags of chicken feed and start to pick up pitchforks and scythes. You watch as these seemingly-normal people, going about their everyday chores suddenly turn into ravenous, flesh-rending killers intent on cutting Leon into pieces.
That is atmosphere.
The whole game just gets more and more loaded with it too. You will creep through the rain-drenched hills of a nearby cemetary, you will stalk through the giant insect-infested underbelly of a massive castle, you will fight off a horde of villagers in the dead of night as they swarm a lone cabin that you've holed yourself up in, in the middle of a field. The game is soaked with atmosphere and provides the eeriest, most disturbing and most downright terrifying experience I have ever seen. No movie, book, or videogame that I have made my way through has scared me worse than this one. You will have nightmares, you will lose sleep and you will want more.
However, that says little about the technical aspects of the game, which again, are some of the best graphics I've ever encountered. Character models are as close to photo-realistic as I have ever seen, environments are massive and loaded with detail and the effects are some of the best I've ever encountered. Villagers are crawling with filth, caked in dirt and raving with visible lunacy. The village is a crummy, dilapidated collection of old buildings falling apart at the seams. Fire looks like real burning fire and heads explode with visible chunks of skull and brain matter. Visually, I am more impressed with this game than any game I have ever played. Incredibly enough, all of this visual masterwork runs at a solid 60 frames per second. No skipping, no lagging, no glitches. It is seamless.
One last visual aspect to make note of is the large selection of cinematic sequences in the game. Of the entire bunch, the only one that is presented in CG is the first part of the intro sequence, and it is composed almost entirely of the FMVs from previous games. After that point, all of the cutscenes are done using the in-game engine, and they look better than most full-blown FMV that I have seen. These sequences do a lot to push the plot forward, and the vast majority of them feature some really great action and suspense. My favorite scene in the entire bunch is a knife-fight between Leon and one of his old military rivals. It is one of the most stylized and perfectly choreographed fight arrangements I've ever seen in a game.
In conclusion, the graphics are perfect. Without flaw.
Sound
I should probably just type up *fap, fap, fap* and not write anything in this section, but I'll do it anyway for the sake of covering all my bases.
The music is fantastic. A lot of it has genuine ties to the overall style of the rest of the series, but much of it is a lot more intense and more interesting than music from previous games. When enemies spot you, for example, the music becomes this poudning cadence of hellish noise and it makes enemy encounters feel that much more claustrophobic and suffocating. Calmer parts of the game might not feature any music at all, and the use of total silence in this game is utilized to maximum effect. There's nothing more threatening than fighting your way past a group of enemies only to enter a long, darkened hallway that is dead silent. On the flipside, there is nothing in the entire game that elicits a sigh of relief as heavily as hearing the calm, serene theme that plays when a merchant is nearby, meaning that you're free from enemies for the time being.
The effects are also handled extremely well. All of the guns crash and roar with the appropriate noise, bullets tear through flesh with a sickeningly wet smack and all of the other ambient and exuberant noises and effects found in the game fit perfectly. My favorite sound effect in the entire game, however, would have to be from one of the enemies. You see, as you creep through the levels, any nearby enemies will usually make some form of noise, be it coughing, mumbling, breathing, or grosser stuff like squishing or buzzing to let you know that there is an enemy in the vicinity and what kind of creature it might be. My favorite of the bunch comes from a creature called a Regenerator. These guys are humanoids with soggy, grey elephant-like skin, two tiny red pinpoints of light where their eyes should be and a mouth overflowing with dagger-like teeth. As they approach you, they shudder and convulse, and as they do this, they emit this horrible gurgly breathing noise. It sounds like a drowning victim who just got up and walked out of the morgue. Shuddery and hitching in wet gasps of breath. Uggh.
Then you have the voice acting. A standard concession of most every Resident Evil game up to the point was that you had to slog through some of the worst voice acting in history in order to learn the story. This is not the case with RE4. In this installment, the line dialogue is believable and full of character. Leon exudes confidence, although he doesn't go over the top and talk like a cocky jackass. He's like a more down-to-Earth, more coherent Dante. Ashley sounds exactly how you'd imagine: a scared, confused, unskilled 17-year-old girl with enough steel in her spine to make it through this situation alive. Then you've got the more mysterious or villainous characters like the Village Chief, Bitorez Mendes, an inhumanly tall and imposing man with a gravelly voice and very curt line delivery. The villagers are also very well handled, emitting genuinely scary and inhuman growls while still speaking fluent spanish. If you actually find out some of the things that the villagers are saying Leon as they try to kill him, it can make the game exponentially creepier.
The one flaw in the game's voice cast is the primary villain, Osmund Saddler. He's not of spanish descent, I don't believe. I can't place his accent, but it's not english, and I doubt it's spanish. Regardless, he doesn't become an interesting character until far too late in the game. He speaks to Leon as though the hero is a puppy, or a baby, almost cooing at him. It's supposed to sound as though Saddler sees himself as superior, but it comes across as just annoying. I would have genuinely preferred a villain that displayed honest confidence and egotism, rather than having to treat the hero like a child. The way he interacts with Leon just made him feel like he wasn't entirely sure of himself and that he had to verbally diminish his opponent in order to gain the upper hand. Bitorez Mendes and Jack Krauser were much better in their exchanges with Leon. Mendes treated the agent like a bug, easily squashed and forgotten. Krauser regarded Leon with respect for his skills and for their past with one-another, but constantly taking jabs at him in a darkly playful manner. Saddler just felt like he was all talk, and it isn't until near the end of the game that you finally see he's got more than just big words up his sleeve.
So, aside from the game's primary villain, the sound is impeccable. Great music, great use of silence, genuinely creepy and appropriate sound effects and a very solid voice cast.
Flaws
1) I didn't list this one above, because I saw no place to put it. This is my biggest issue with the entire game. Resident Evil 4 is composed of what basically amounts to three massive regions: the Village, the Castle and the Island. The Village represents the evolution of the series. The first half of the Village segment takes place in broad daylight, for crying out loud. The Island does the same. Both are very different and very progressive locations that push the series forward in a new direction. My problem is with the middle third of the game, the Castle. Now, I'm not saying that the Castle is bad. Far from it. It's a genuinely creepy, massive location with a lot of things to see and do and kill. However, in my opinion, the Castle adheres far too much to the standard feel of the previous games. Seriously, basically every damned game in this series has a "castle" of some sort. Yeah, this one is much bigger and much cooler than any previous mansion or castle in the series, but that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't feel like as much of an evolution as the other two regions do. The middle third was still awesome, but it didn't knock me on my ass like the other two. This is 90% of the reason why the game won't score any higher than what I give it.
2) Saddler, as I mentioned above, wasn't what I would have hoped for. He doesn't become badass until the end of the game, and until that point, he always struck me as a dog with a lot of bark and very little bite.
Overall
Whew. Well, that took me quite some time to write, and I imagine it's taken you quite some time to read it. The summary of my opinion of Resident Evil 4 is this: it is the scariest, most atmospheric game I have ever played. It has near-perfect gameplay, perfect graphics, near-perfect sound, a fantastic story and it represents a genuine, honest-to-God rebirth of the Resident Evil franchise. It has surpassed my wildest expectations, and if gaming experiences of this caliber are what I have to look forward to from the future of this series, then you can count me as a newly-forged lifetime fan.
I don't care if you weren't a fan of the series to begin with. I honestly do not give a shit. You have no excuses for not picking this game up unless you have serious moral issues with blood and violence. However, if you are reading this review, there is a 99% chance that you're not Jerry Falwell, and that you should be on your way out the door to pick this one up immediately. This is worth buying a new console for, this is worth driving to another state to obtain. Go. Now. Buy. Seriously. You can thank Capcom later.
Score: 9.8
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