I’ve been picking up a lot of games from the used section at Eb, so here’s a review on Resident Evil 4!

Resident Evil 4
PS2

Presentation: (Resident Evil, more like Resident Badass)

Ok, let me start by saying that this is not a traditional Resident Evil game. First, the camera is placed behind your right shoulder for most of the game. Second, there are very few puzzles and running to find weird keys. Third, there are NO zombies in this game, not one. There are, however, parasitically controlled humans who act a whole lot like zombies, but they aren’t zombies and I’m not going to argue the point because I will win and you will cry. Now I can hear some of you die hard Resident Evil complaining that “this isn’t a TRUE Resident Evil game” and that “they’ve ruined a classic!”, and let me just tell you SHUT THE HELL UP! This game is great and I hope they never go back to the old Resident Evil style games because this new incarnation kicks that much ass.

Alright, now let’s get into the game; you play as Leon Kennedy, the guy from RE2. Leon is now employed as an agent for a government agency that protects the United States President and his family (sounds like the secret service to me but they never call it that so whatever). Before he starts his new job the Presidents daughter is kidnapped by unknown people who have yet to name any demands. The President called on you to go and rescue Ashley from whoever took her and bring her back safe and sound. The game starts with you going to a small European town in what looks to be in Spain (once again it’s never called Spain you just got to guess.). I can’t really get much into the story since I don’t want to ruin anything for you, but let’s just say “It’s a goodun”

Graphics (This is Ps2? Get the fuck out of here.)

Whoa, dude… I mean… Jesus… this is damn good. For a system that is nearly 6 years old this baby can pump out some visuals let me tell you. Everything in this game is done in a very spooky, almost medieval, style. It’s all very Frankensteinesque, what with the villagers with the torches and pitchforks. All the building also has that, build by hand, medieval, kind of look. It’s something new for the Resident Evil series but it works well. Personally I’ve always been a fan of the medieval meets the 21st century style, blending the Tec of now with the style of the past so this really appeals to me.

Graphically this game is top notch, better then I thought the PS2 was capable of for sure. The landscape is done very well in that it all looks like I would imagine a European town to look like if I’ve ever been there. Buildings also have a nice level of detail that fits into the landscape in a very natural way. Character models all look great, especially the main characters like Leon and Ashley. The villagers all look very 1820’s with their cool old style hats and petty coats and such… very 1820’s until they turn that pitchfork on you. Since they villagers aren’t zombies we miss out on cool bloody mangled heaps of flesh shambling around trying to bite your kneecaps off, but these villagers still look very grizzled and just plain mean.

Bosses in particular look great, as they should. There have been a few times where a boss has popped out or changed forms and I literally jumped off my couch and screamed “OHH EWWWW!! Look at that shit!” The bosses also tend to have this awesome sense of scale, since most of them are so large, that you almost wonder if shooting them will even work. Other bosses are just so disgusting that you want to kill them faster just so you don’t have to look at them. Very few games have ever been able to pull of the “ICK” factor so well. It almost reminds me of that movie The Thing, with all the wacky organic freak monsters, if you’ve seen the movie you know what I’m talking about.

This game is not just graphically appalling but it also holds a lot of little things that just make everything real. Flies buzz around dead people, maggots crawl in old food; blood will drip off people impaled to a wall and form a pool of blood. Torches mounted on the wall have little bits off wood in them that you can knock out and will continue to burn for a few second. There are even spiders that you can step on if you want. Fancy stuff if you ask me.

Sound (Other then the voice acting its pretty good)

Once again, we have another Resident Evil with not so good voice acting. While the voice acting in this game is way better then any other Resident Evil game it’s still holding back the whole sound department. Everything else sounds pretty much like I’d want it to. Music is probable the high point of this games sound, very spooky. No real surprise here to be honest, I don’t know maybe I’m too picky but when a game looks this good I kind of want it to sound just as good, you know? Whatever, I’m done here… NEXT!

Gameplay (Awkward at first, then great.)

When I first picked this game up I found it very hard to control, I don’t know why, but I was having problems walking strait. It must be that the behind the shoulder camera thing is a little disorientating at first, but once I got used to it I was busting caps directly into peoples faces. The other problem I had was switching weapons; I kept pulling out the knife (L1) when I wanted to raise the pistol (R1).

The game also took out a lot of the “walk around the wall and hit the check button over and over to find stuff” problems the other Resident Evil games had since this time around you getting a little pop up message at the bottom of the screen to tell you when you can pickup/check/open/use something. Inventory setup is pretty much the same as the other RE games other then this time you can get bigger suitcases to hold more stuff in.

The whole weapons system has been revamped as well. No more looking for a stock on the ground for your TMP, now you shop at a one stop black arms dealer. The arms dealer can sell you anything from new guns to items to upgrades for your current guns; oddly enough he doesn’t carry ammo unless you sold him some before. Upgrades can be done on reload time, magazine capacity, firing rate, and fire power. For the most part money is found on the ground after you kill bad guys or inside of boxes that you bust open with your knife, but you can also make some extra scratch by selling treasure items such as gold rings and jewels. Some items can be upgraded to fetch a higher price by adding a particular type of jewel or stone to it.

Remember how in all the other Resident Evil games you just kind of shot in the general direction of the enemy you wanted to kill? Well not anymore, in this game you can aim! Aiming at bad guys is done by first raising your weapon (R1) then using the left thumb stick to move the laser sight around and then by pulling the trigger (X) to fire. The villagers have a pretty good shot reaction system where if you shoot someone in the leg they’ll fall to their knees and if you shoot someone in the arm they’ll drop whatever weapon they have. Good stuff, good stuff indeed.

Oh, and one last thing, during cut scenes; don’t put down your controller. There are some cut scenes where you have you have to hit buttons to avoid being killed, much like Shenmue for Dreamcast.

Lasting Appeal (play it once? Nah play it 5 times!)

The first time you play this game it’ll probably take you between 12 and 22 hours to complete, which isn’t a bad length for this type of game and that’s if you don’t keep dieing or go looking for every last item. But you’ll want to play it again so you can unlock new weapons such as the Tommy gun and infinite ammo rocket launcher. Also the this game offers mercenary missions to play after you beat the game the first time, and the PS2 version offers an exclusive Ada mission that can take up to 6 more hours to beat which pumps this game up to a good 30 to 50 hours! Wow that’s a lot of play for $50.

Overall (Buy it, shoot stuff, be happy)

If you like Resident Evil you should pick this up without question. This is the definitive Resident Evil. It may be 75% new game play but it’s 100% awesome. People who have never played a Resident Evil, well I don’t know about you… do you like to shoot things? Do you like zombie-like action? Do you like giant-ass monsters? If you answered yes to any of these questions then you should play this game. If you answered no, well, then I’m afraid to say this but I probably hate you.

Posted in PS2 |