Take what you know about Resident Evil and throw it out the window!!
04/17/05 Written by Trevor Siemens
The Game: Resident Evil 4 is the fourth chapter in the ongoing saga of Resident Evil, or in Japan its known as Biohazard. First off the 4th incarnation of the survival horror series is in no way a revamp, of the previous games, it hardly even follows the any common ground laid out by the first three resident evils. This game is ground breaking to the series in almost every single way possible. First off no more static camera angles, god yes, giving a full 3d feel towards the game. Everything is done in real-time, so there is no big difference between the story line and actual gameplay, making the game look cleaner and crisper. Best of all the game features not one zombie, which was I wise choice, because honestly how many times can you just waste zombies over and over again, just another way capcom set the franchise spinning into another direction.
The story goes. The president Daughter (Ashley Graham) has been captured by cult group somewhere in Europe and your Job as Leon Kennedy (Resident Evil 2) is to head over to Europe locate Miss Ashley and bring her back to America safe and sound. The problem along the way is that the cult group is messing around with a rare strain of bacteria called Plaga, which once infected gives the leader complete control….needles to say the bacteria cause's for some unsightly mutations, clever, and beautifully done boss battles, and some pretty messed up thing along the way.
Gameplay:
You play as Leon S Kennedy the rookie cop from Resident Evil 2, except this time he is a Government Agent. He worked his way up to the secret service to help protect President Graham. Except his daughter has been kidnapped. So Leon's fist objective is locate her and bring her back to safety. That is pretty much how the game play's out, you scour over areas located in Europe such as, mines, abandon castles, small towns and secret underground research facilities located on an island. All in an effort to bring back Ashley Graham alive and well.
Visuals:
Breathtaking, honestly I don't think there is a word out there to describe them. I have never seen such a beautiful game to date. Everything is done in a very rustic feel, letting you experience a different type of visual horror. No more pre rendered background everything is done fully in real-time giving the game a depth it was lacking before. The water effects are gorgeously done, it actually makes you feel like your right there.
The difference between 4 and say 0 are this game is mostly played during day time, so you don't really get the horror feel from the darkness, but rather capcom makes that feeling more intense, using gloomy/dark colors and cloud cover over the sun at certain times, to bring that fear up In you and trust me it works. There where a few times where I jumped even though there was nothing there but I could of sworn I saw something.
The character modeling is top notch, the detail that went into each character is absolutely phenomenal, extremely life like. It almost looks like your watching a movie except in reality your control the outcome of the character. Facial features, mouth movements, even how certain characters walk, were taken into effect. Which produced possibly the scariest looking Resident Evil game to date. Even the mutations and blood effects, bloody and macabre as they are, they added extreme depth and realism to an already dominant visual palette.
Audio:
Beautifully orchestrated, from soft violin work to full orchestrated pulse pounding compositions, trust me it will scare the living crap out of you at times. I also liked how as in every resident evil there were parts of the game that were un scored just left quit nothing but Leon's foot steps and the sound of wind whirling around above. It just builds up the fear of what could actually be lurking around the next corner.
Now the sound effects were one dominant feature that I wanted to bring up, maybe it's just me but I never really noticed this to this extent in previous Resident Evil's. For instance, one part of the game your walking through some sort of research facility, and all you can hear is the hum of electric lights and something breathing and making pain full yet disturbing sounds, and you approach it the sound gets louder, scaring the hell out of you because you know damn well there is something there but where is it? Until finally you come face to face with. Stuff like that in the sound department adds a whole lot to the overall experience, and boy was it worth it.
Control:
Completely re -done. People in the past always whined about how previous Resident Evil's where handled in the control department. I mean it was hard to get used to but once you get on top of it, you wonder why you ever had any beef with the control system in the first place. Anyways you don't have to worry about that with Resident Evil 4. The control scheme was built from the bottom up giving you full analog control over your character all the time, and with Capcom's, use of full 3d environments, and static behind character camera view the controls are extremely easy to get used to and very easy to use. Allowing for full exploration of the gorgeous environments. Even in tight fights when you have 10 bad guys coming the game handles like a dream. Overall well done.
Replay Value:
Insane, I finished the game about 10 minutes ago, so I haven't really had a chance to view all the bonus features that opened up, but I did play around with a few. Once you complete the game, you get play a secret mission as Ada Wong, where you have to infiltrate the island base and retrieve Plaga samples. Another extra features is you have mini missions the one I tried out is you play as Leon and you have to kill as many villagers as possible before the Evac helicopter lands, and if you nail enough of them you can unlock other characters and other mini missions.
As with previous Resident Evil's you get your costume changes and unlimited ammo, so when you play the next time around its partly different. One thing that still bugs me and is actually making me want to replay Resident Evil 4. Is that of Albert Wesker, he used to work for Umbrella but since its demise, I don't know what he is doing. His name was listed in the credits but I never ran into him once during the game, so I am kind of curious as to what he was doing in it.
In regards to Reply value RE4 has extremely high one.
Overall:
Buy this game, immediately. If you only buy one game this year, make it Resident Evil 4. There is no way you will be disappointed. Its so good infect that in my mind we have already witnessed the game of year, and it was only released last January (2005). Some extreme competition for other games to come up against.
The in-depth story line will grab a hold of you and won't let go until you finish; the graphics are breathtaking, most beautiful of any game I have played to date. The gameplay is solid, an awesome cast of characters/weapons. Involving some downright evil conspiracies, constantly leaving you wondering what's going on, and when you find out the answer it's nothing that you even thought would happen, always leaving you hanging and wondering and wanting more.
For me playing this game re created the same feeling that was built up in me the minute I first turned on The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, and if a game can do that for me, that means there is something magical about it.
Written By Trevor Siemens
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