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Resident Evil 4 Review for GameCube
Posted on Tuesday, April 05, 2005 @ 11:27:36 am E.S.TCapcom has a knack for eroding their key franchises. They’ve drowned poor Mega Man in a torrent of derivative sequels, and there have been so many different versions of Street Fighter that they could release a compilation of compilations (get Street Fighter Collection, Street Fighter Collection 2 and Street Fighter Anniversary Collection all on one disc!). They were dangerously close to killing Resident Evil as well, but with the (official) fourth installment in the landmark survival horror series, Capcom has shown that they’ve learned their lesson. They set out to make Resident Evil 4 a reinvention for the series, and the result is staggering: this game is a masterpiece. Not only is it a stunning achievement as a shake up of the stagnant RE formula, but also in its state-of-the-art graphics and cinematic presentation, and simply on its own terms as an awesome horror-themed action/adventure game. It’s amazing that only a few months in, there’s already such a clear contender for game of the year.
If you know your games pretty well, you’ll immediately notice many influences Capcom drew on when crafting RE4. By the time you finish the first chapter in the game, you’ll have avoided traps and spoken with your superior on a codec-style radio straight out of Metal Gear, done your best House of the Dead impression by shooting down hatchets and grenades thrown at you by your enemies, and dodged boulders by rapidly pressing certain buttons during a cutscene, Shenmue-style. It’s as if Capcom took the RE foundation and sprinkled on some of the best aspects of these respective games to make the whole thing that much more varied and fun.
Also immediately noticeable is that RE4 has, hands down, the most realistic, haunting, and horrifying graphics ever. Every aspect of the visuals stands up to scrutiny, from insanely detailed textures to lighting that is neither too dramatized nor too subtle, but is only completely natural. Even the really tough things that so many games rarely get right are done astoundingly here, such as facial expressions. Along with Half Life 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3, this is one of the few games where in-game character models can actually act, and sometimes do it subtly. It’s a revelation for the GameCube, showing just how capable it is at generating gritty, realistic visuals, which isn’t usually the thematic norm on this system. It’s a shame there haven’t been more games that truly tap the GCN’s powerful potential, like RE4 has.
Right about the time you finally get over the benchmark-setting visuals—which doesn’t happen quickly—you begin to realize just how effective the new perspective is. Pre-rendered backdrops and fixed camera angles have finally been nixed, as all the environments in RE4 are rendered in real-time and the camera permanently trails behind Leon. But rather than going for a standard third-person viewpoint employed by games like SOCOM or Splinter Cell, RE4 puts the camera right up against Leon’s back, slightly offset to his right, and the entire game is played in widescreen. The result is a totally original perspective for a video game, giving the game an astonishing cinematic quality at all times while limiting your periphery vision just enough to constantly evoke a claustrophobic and intense atmosphere.
What’s even more impressive about the new perspective is that it finally makes RE controls work. Movement in RE4, interestingly, hasn’t really changed at all. Up still moves you forward, back backwards, and left and right turn you left or right. While this “tank” style scheme felt stiff and restrictive in past games, the simple fact that you’re always looking in the direction Leon is looking makes it instantly more intuitive. The lack of strafing might feel unnatural at first, but you soon realize why this was a conscious choice by the developers. It’s much scarier to turn almost blindly around corners than it would have been to strafe by them.
The combat in the game is also vastly improved, which is a good thing since this is a considerably more action-packed game compared to its predecessors. Half of the improvement lies in the new “analog” shooting mechanic, as opposed to the “digital” mechanic of past games, where you could only aim up or down with no gradation in between. The added precision allows you to aim for specific body parts to shoot weapons out of enemies’ hands or tumble them to the ground by popping their kneecaps. The other half of the improvement lies in the enemies themselves. There are, in fact, no zombies, and the deranged villagers you encounter exhibit many more signs of intelligence. They’re constantly dodging and weaving while attacking you in packs that actively try to surround you. And yet, while they may be smarter than a throng of zombies, they still maintain the same frightening sense of determination and ambivalence to their own safety—they just don’t stop, no matter how many you kill. Rest assured there are many more enemies to face throughout the game, with boss battles being one of the highlights. Every boss in the game is a thrilling and remarkable challenge, with the possible exception of the last boss, which is only slightly disappointing relative to how awesome every boss was that came before it.
Yu Suzuki was on to something with the Quick Time Events in his Sega Dreamcast game Shenmue, where button sequences would flash on the screen during cinemas and the player had to input them correctly or face certain consequences. RE4 takes this concept and gets it right. Whereas Shenmue used “QTEs” to, um, have you chase a person down a street or dodge a kick ball, RE4 has you knife-fighting mercenaries and deftly dodging laser-filled hallways. The quick-button-press-events (they don’t seem to have a cute name and acronym in RE4) allow the game to portray and involve you in so many things you've always wanted to see in a video game, but were perhaps too complex to do with basic in-game play mechanics, no matter how good they were.
For long-time fans of the series, one the pleasures in playing RE4 is discovering all the little improvements Capcom has made to their survival-horror formula. The biggest improvement is the inventory system. Rejoice: there are no more item containers in the game, because you don’t need them anymore. If you’ve never played an RE game before, realize that this is a huge deal. Instead of having six slots to carry six items with you, no matter how big or small they were, RE4 now uses a system similar to Blizzard’s Diablo games—your inventory case is a grid (which can be upgraded in size as you progress through the game), and items take up space in it relative to how big they are. Handgun ammo takes up just two units, for instance, while the handgun itself takes up a 2x3 space. It’s an extremely intuitive system, so much so that it almost makes you angry it took Capcom this long to use it.
Other joys lie in the ways Capcom fools with your expectations by twisting longstanding RE traditions. Gunshots to enemy’s legs are actually more useful than shots to the head (although those can still be satisfyingly squishy). Not only can you open doors in the moment, without cutting to an awkward loading screen of a door slowly opening, but you can kick them open violently and knock down anything standing too close on the other side. Then there’s the dog you find early in the game that… well, no spoilers here, but it’s remarkable how Capcom manifests a sense of fear simply by playing on the knowledge fans have of Resident Evil dogs.
We’re so early into 2005, and the behemoth that was the ’04 holiday season is still so fresh in our minds, that it's tough not to think of RE4 as just another titanic title that emerged from that pack. But the fact is that Capcom did something quite daring. Instead of releasing RE4 in November, along with every other game that was released in 2004, they chose to wait a couple months, polish the game to perfection, and release it at a time when no other high profile blockbuster could steal their thunder—and it was a move that only reflects brilliantly on them. It's as if every major developer in the industry decided to show off the best they had in a two-month flurry, each attempting to one-up their peers and stand tall as masters of the video game medium. Then when the dust settled and while everyone is still squabbling about who won, Capcom says, "Listen, shut up. This is how it's done." It would behoove many of them to listen. Review By: Kris Pigna - 1863 Reads
Resident Evil 4 Review Scores for GC :
| Gameplay |
| 9.5 |
| Graphics |
| 10 |
| Sound |
| 9.5 |
| Replay |
| 9.0 |
| Overall |
| 10 |
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