If you were considering selling your Gamecube, slap yourself and say, "No!"
User Rating: 9.7 | BioHazard 4 GC
This absolutely wonderful achievement of Capcom serves as the pinnacle for launching into the next year of delightful next generation console gaming. This game is an utter joy to play, look at, listen to, and almost feel, as it is simply the Gamecube's most beautiful game and ranks up there with anything the Xbox has to offer, bar none. Allow me to pick apart this exceptional game piece by piece. Gameplay: 9/10 First off, this is one of the few games that will ever have you going back through it as soon as you finish, just because it is one of the most fun games you will play this year, guaranteed. After all, if our good old Gamespot gives it a 9.6/10, chances are it's got to be good, right? But what makes it good? Simply the new changes to the stale, static, and otherwise boring yet enjoyable Resident Evil formula. For starters, you are now able to aim your weapon from an over the shoulder perspective, and are able to turn in all directions while you aim. Indeed, this may seem like a logical first step for this style of game, which it certainly is, but the inclusion of it makes it feel like an utterly new thing, not something that should've been in the series to begin with. Now you can shoot your enemies practically anywhere, and their reactions are varied, humorous, and awesome. Shoot an enemy in the head and they'll stagger backwards or forwards, allowing you to kick them out of your way and hit other enemies nearby. Shoot them in the knee and they'll drop to the ground for you to exact some easy punishment. All in all, it's going to take a little getting used to, but you'll come to love it so much that you'll wish the whole game was full of the same styles of enemies all the time, so you could practice your shooting. However, the game comes with a wide variety of enemies to kill, ranging from your normal possessed villagers, known as "ganados" (cattle), your Cerberus style dogs (or are they wolves, it's rather unclear), your ominous, repetitive, annoying monks, and a host of other creatures and things to kill. There are also plenty of bosses and mini-bosses that fill the game, and all are supremely fun to play. Another change to the traditional Resident Evil system is that it is no longer necessary to carry ink ribbons with you to save. This is a huge relief, as now you can save every time you get attacked if you're worried and not have to worry about whether you're about to go into a boss battle and whether to expend an ink ribbon or not. All in all, these 2 required changes are made all the more awesome by the fact that they are incorporated into such a fun game. This is one you can seriously sit and play until you fall asleep. If anything bad can be said about the gameplay, it's that it does still get a little stale at parts, but most of the time a mini-boss or boss will come in at just the moment you start to get bored to spruce it up again. Another complaint is that the story drops out for a bit at around the 8th hour and never picks back up too much, but most Resident Evil fans come to expect this. Graphics: 10/10 The sheer and utter beauty of this game is almost unparalleled by anything else on the Cube and certainly puts most beautiful looking Xbox games to shame. I hesitate to say it is the best looking game out among the three consoles, but it certainly is beautiful enough. Suffice it to say that everything in this game looks awesome and proves that the little Gamecube is truly a most powerful machine. Every environment is gritty (not grainy, but it just has that unclean look which heightens the experience) and heavily detailed. In the village, wheelbarrows and wood will lie splintered all around, providing an eerily real atmosphere. The castle is appropriately ratty and pockmarked. Everything in this game obviously went under some tender loving care by the graphics team at Capcom, as it looks absolutely fantastic in every respect. Shoot a ganado in the head and score a headshot, and you are treated with a beautiful, yet somewhat sickening explosion of flesh and blood, which is wholly and unequivocally satisfying. If any one complaint can be found about the graphics, it is that there are only maybe 5 or 6 different villager models, but this also sort of adds to the experience because it makes the ganados seem all the more like some genetically bred race, with only a few hosts to start with. You'll have to learn for yourself what the truth is. Sound: 10/10 If you do not have a surround sound setup and a receiver which can decode Dolby Pro Logic II signals, go out and purchase one before you purchase this game, as it really will seem like an all-new experience. The sheer aural quality of this game is certainly one of the better efforts for the Gamecube, and proves that you don't need Xbox's Dolby Digital to have a great sounding game. From the realistic sounding weapons, to the appropriately gooey sounds of flesh being eaten, ripped, and shot, to the creepy environmental sounds, to the roars, screams, and wails of the monsters and creatures you will meet, Resident Evil 4 certainly shines in making you feel like you are actually there, in the game. The voice acting, while not perfect, is certainly a step up even over the fairly good quality voice acting found in the Resident Evil remake. Leon and the other characters all have voices that seem to fit their characters for once, and the ganados sound appropriately creepy. If you understand Spanish, this game certainly is a lot more fun, though the things that the enemies shout out at you will be fairly obvious even if you do not speak the language. Altogether, the audio aspect of this game is truly astounding, and will have you always searching for the remote to just turn it up one more notch. Value: 10/10 Although some may feel differently, as I have stated before, I truly feel this is one of those games you can just go back to again and again and it will feel just as fun as the first time. It is truly an awesome achievement in the fact that it makes you want to repeat it numerous times, just so you can have the satisfaction of beating it one more time. And that's just the main game. There are two minigames unlocked by completing the main quest: Assignment Ada and Mercenaries. The former is a mission in which you play as Ada to recover 5 of the Las Plagas parasites and reach an extraction point before you are killed. It is fairly fun, and allows you to see just how much more agile and maneuverable Ada is over Leon. The latter is sort of a shooting simulator in which you pick a character, then have 2 minutes to kill as many ganados as you can before a helicopter comes in to extract you. These games are both fun little diversions that will keep you playing on after the main quest is done. Another nice feature is once you finish the game once, you can go through on a harder difficulty, adding even more tension and fun to the game. Plus, as an added bonus, if you complete the game on this harder difficulty, all your guns and upgrades will transfer to the next play-through, adding more incentive to play again so you can gut those easy ganados at the beginning with an extremely powerful shotgun. Tilt: 10/10 Resident Evil 4 is the game that finally takes the series in a new direction, and that makes it all the much better than it would have been had the other games not preceded it. For a while, everyone who loved Resident Evil thought the series would never change, but it did, and it was certainly for the better. The unparalleled quality of this game truly cannot be expressed in words, so all I can say is, "Go out! Rent it now! Heck, forget that, buy it! Now!!!" If you do not like this game, then I am sorry, but the fault cannot lie within the game, but within your own tastes. I have never come across a game I liked more than this, save one, and the two are so alike in quality that it is extremely hard to rank them as #1 and #2, but moreso #1-T and #1-T. That game is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and though I made a vow that I would never replace it on my top games of all time list, it will certainly have to share its top spot with Resident Evil 4, truly a wonderful achievement if there ever was one. Recap: Gameplay: 9/10 Graphics:10/10 Sound: 10/10 Value: 10/10 Tilt:10/10 OVERALL AVERAGE: 9.7/10 My Score: 10/10 
