You've all heard about the frequent and prolonged outages on World of Warcraft's high-population servers, so I'm not going to talk about that, even though that's exactly what I'm doing here in the office. Besides, Blizzard has already "...received many calls and emails from players telling us how much they're enjoying World of Warcraft and that they would just like to have a more consistent connection experience." Instead, I want to extol the virtues of Resident Evil 4, which is something which can't possibly be overdone. I think I've pinned down what's great about this game, and can now adequately describe it in 448x139 pixels:

While my feelings toward this game could be described as a mix of overpowering awe, visceral titillation, and irrepressible joy, sheer incredulity seems to be the overriding sentiment. How did Capcom manage to make this game so impossibly superior to its predecessors? Was it Shinji Mikami, or some some other unsung hero who decided that the Resident Evil series should suddenly feature enjoyable gameplay? Imitating the Resident evil character rotation is something I've enjoyed doing for years. Now, if I choose to move around in a stilted manner and periodically raise an invisible firearm, I'm either doing it out of nostalgia, or I'm doing my impression of Metal Gear's CQC.

More than anything, Resident Evil 4 manages to make killing its inhuman cultists tremendously satisfying. Conversely, whenever Leon catches a throwing axe to the chest, I become profoundly uncomfortable. Once again, I'm frantically pressing buttons—only, this time around, I'm not crippled by terrible, unresponsive control. The game has so far to instill the series with action, that it's even adopted a sort of "quick-timer events" system, à la Shenmue, that makes cutscenes almost as tense as general gameplay. I play Resident Evil to be frightened, and not having the slightest reprieve while those discs are spinning goes a long way to assuring that I am constantly on the verge of soiling my imported Italian chaise.

Also, although it should be abundantly obvious to anyone who's seen our footage of the title, Resident Evil 4 is easily one of the best looking and best sounding video games ever made. Dripping with atmosphere like an over-saturated sponge, Resident Evil is impressive from both technical and artistic standpoints. Its character models may not feature Doom 3's pixel shading, or Half-Life 2's emotion modeling, but Resident Evil 4 keeps pace with those high-end PC titles by establishing an appealing audiovisual style and flawlessly executing it throughout.

So, next time you're stuck in an hour-long server queue, remember that Resident Evil is waiting for you in the shadows, and will bring you unmitigated joy.