Surprising good horror/adventure game.
Gameplay: In a nutshell, you are a U.S. government agent sent to rescue the president's daughter from a evil cult in Europe. There are some minor intrigues going on and you'll likely get confused about whose working for whom, but for the most part this is a simple rescue/save-the-world mission. Your travels will take you through villages, an abandoned hospital, factories, sewers, a castle, and an island. The diversity of environments is actually impressive. There is some good loot to be found, but most of it is simply meant to allow you to buy better weapons from strategically placed weapons dealers. And you'll enough using the weapons, trust me. With a XBox 360 gamepad, this game plays well. It's one of those games truly meant to be placed with a gamepad, thus I can excuse the lack of mouse support (though it really should have been supported). The game offers a lot of good, creepy action, and there are no less than 10 great boss fights. Some of the fights are frustrating and will require repeated efforts. However, they are all satisfying and leave you with a sense of accomplishment when completed. The game lasted me about 30 hours (according to the in-game timer); however, its actually longer than that if you count all of the saved games that you'll have to reload after dying (and you'll die many, many times), along with the bonus missions unlocked after completing the main game. For the bargain price of $20 or less, it's money well spent if you are a fan of adventure and/or horror games.
Graphics: This is a mixed bag. You can adjust the resolution, and the game looks very good at 1600x1200. Character models are done well, though at least 75% of the opponents you'll meet will be zombies and cultists. Most of the cutscenes are not impressive at all and were not apparently touched up as the game was being set up for the PC. Still, the graphics are immersive and set the appropriate foreboding atmosphere.
Sound: The audio is creepy when it needs to be and sedate at other times. Really nothing special. There is some music in the game, but usually it's the kind of hurried ochestral stuff that typically plays in horror movies to get your pulse up. Voices of main characters--as well as their looks--are rather juvenille, which takes some of the seriousness out of the subject matter.
Technical issues: The game comes with a thin, but functional manual. There is no tutorial level as far as I can recall, but you'll learn the controls quickly. The game did hard lock my computer about five times, requiring me to reboot my PC. I consider this a serious technical issue, in addition to the few times it crashed to desktop. Still, I could usually play at least 3 hours straight before any problems occurred. I assume a patch could fix this.
Replay/value: For the price that I paid for this ($17.99), the game was definitely worth the money. However, I'm not one to replay a game that will have the same story line and ending, so I didn't find much replay value here. In sum, if you like a good scare with some wild-side adventuring, Resident Evil 4 is definitely worth a try. Pros: +Creepy and immersive gameplay
+Great weapons, with many upgrades
+Some fun puzzles and well-done levels
+30 solid hours of gameplay at a cheap price
Cons:
-Some repetitious fighting sequences
-Some boss fights are tedious and annoying
-technical issues
-should have had mouse support