Resident Evil 4

"It's not the same Resident Evil anymore, but it's still so freaking awesome."

In 2004, the Resident Evil series had lost most of it's importance that it once had. The first Resident Evil was not only the most important game in the survival horror type of games, but it was also one of the first really good 3D adventure games to be made which still makes it as a great classic. Then Resident Evil 2 was made and it turned out to be even better in everything. Even Resident Evil 3 got a lot attention when it was new and now Resident Evil: Code Veronica is considered to be one of the best games on the Sega Dreamcast.

So what happened after that? Well after a lot of spin offs and movies, the first Resident Evil got a Remake on the Gamecube and was one of the non Nintendo games that was interesting on the Gamecube, and after that the game that almost no one except the real hardcore Resident Evil fans talk about was also released on the Nintendo Gamecube. I'm not sure if Resident Evil Zero is considered as flop, but no one I know cared about it when it came out and now you don't hear anyone talk about it. The Resident Evil series had to change in someway in order to be able to compete with other top series.

Fans from Resident Evil 2 will be pleased to know that the main character in this game is no other than Leon S Kennedy, the same Leon that escaped from Raccoon City in Resident Evil 2. 4 years have passed since "the Umbrella accident" and Leon have quit being a cop and instead became a agent under the U.S Secret Service. While Leon acted like a real rookie on the first day on his new job in Resident Evil 2, he now feels like a much more mature dude. When the game begins, he is on a mission to save the President's daughter Ashley Graham from a cult called "Los lluminados" which is located somewhere in Europe.

Leon gets a lift to a mysterious village in Europe by two what seems like Spanish cops. This mysterious village was the last place where Ashley Grahman were seen. Leon finds a house and decides to go in and talk to the farmer in the house to check if he have seen the Presidents daughter. Since Leon and the villager don't speak the same language, Leon don't find out if Ashley is in this village or not. However the villager attacks Leon and Leon has no choice but to take him out. If you search the corpse it says that the villager is NOT A ZOMBIE. The police car also gets attacked by these villagers who seems to be under some mind control and the two policemen gets killed. Now Leon S Kennedy is all alone in this village and has to survive using his skills in how to handle a weapon.

A lot of changes have been made from the previous games in the series. For one thing the previous games had locked camera angles and the character moved from one screen to another, but in Resident Evil 4 the camera is always right behind Leon. Another great improvement is that in the previous games the game had to load every time you opened a door and entered a new room, and in Resident Evil 4 there are a lot of doors that needs to be open. However when you open most of them you just see Leon open it (or even better he kicks in the door) and then you can just walk in to the room without a loading screen.

But the most important improvement of them all is now how you fight. When you want to shoot an enemy you still have to press the aim button in order to aim and you can't move while you are aiming. But now you can aim just like in any FPS, and the enemies actions depends on where you shot them. If you for example shoot them in the leg there's a good chance that they will fall down and then they are much more vulnerable,. If you shoot them on the hand that they are carry a weapon in then they might drop their weapon and finally you might blow their head of if you shoot them in the head. They might also be unable to see for a while when you hit them in the head and then you can kick them, which is a great way to save ammo.

Another great way to save ammo is the use the knife instead of a gun. In the previous Resident Evil games it was almost suicide to use the knife unless you were a pro to handle it, but in this game even people like me find them to be really useful. Just like how you aim with your gun, you can aim the same way with the knife, you just have to press a different button. The Knife takes no place in your inventory so you will always carry it with you.

When an enemy dies, there's a chance that it will drop something. It can either be some ammo, a healing item or cash. Yup in this game you get cash that you can use when you find a merchant. They either sell new weapons and items, buy stuff from you so you get more cash, or they upgrade the weapons you already got for some cash. I strongly recommend that you get one of each kind of weapon and instead of upgrading the cheapest of a weapon you buy the better ones and then upgrade them instead. There are a lot of different weapons which gives you a lot of different type of game play.

In the previous Resident Evil games there were a lot of different riddles and puzzles that you really had to take some time to figure out what you should do. They are not completely gone in Resident Evil 4, but this game focus a lot more on action than horror unlike the previous games so here most of them are really easy. Like a door is locked, so you have to go and find the key. The challenge in this game is more to survive because the enemies really do a lot of damage.

You would expect that you had finished the game when you have rescued Ashley, but you actually do that pretty early in the game and then she will follow you for quite some time. She can't defend herself against the enemies in anyway so you really have to take care of her. Also this is very well done since you can give her commands to either wait, hide somewhere if there's a good place where she can hide, or just to follow Leon.

One final cool thing is that in many cut-scenes you have to press some buttons to not be killed. For example if Leon runs away from something, then you have to press X in this game to make him run faster. This means that you have to always be ready to press the right buttons when you are watching a cut-scene, or you might die.

I agree with the fans of the old games that it's a shame that many now consider the games released before Resident Evil 4 to be boring, and I hate when I read on game sites when they praise Resident Evil 4 with "It's usually hard to make a sequel better, but it took Capcom 4 tries to get it just right". Most of the previous games in the series are also great, but Resident Evil 4 gets the highest score because it just feels so fresh. This is not a scary game, but it sure is one of the best games that was made for the 128 generation, no matter if you play the Gamecube or the Playstation 2 version.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/09

Game Release: Resident Evil 4 (Platinum) (EU, 10/13/06)