It's not for kids but if you have a Wii you should probably also own this game.
The game starts you off searching a creepy village for signs of the President's daughter, you will spend most of the game in pursuit of her.
The graphics are descent though not quite what I would like them to be with its lack of sharpness. There are some pretty gruesome visuals as heads explode while the body it was on may continue to walk for a few moments. Scenes of operation tables with gruesome looking contents tell you that RE4 did earn its M rating so parents may want to watch out for this one.
The camera works well and is a non-issue as it remains diligently behind you just off your right shoulder.
The soundtrack is good, ranging from thrilling to downright creepy. The sound of that one enemy off in the distance is enough to add to the stress level because you know he's gonna show up about 3 inches from your face.
Sound plays a good part in the game and you must pay attention to them, since a loud clanging getting closer and closer might be a good thing to try and run away from or locate and kill...There were a lot of occasions when you can hear something but can't quite see what it is until its right up your bum which led to some nice creepy moments.
Voice acting of the various characters ranges from good to great providing some entertaining characters.
Controls were pretty good though I thought it felt a little sluggish at times, particularly when rotating your character. You'll be prompted at various times to shake the remote to complete actions such as sprint, cut rope or swim. Every once in a while you will have to react quickly to a button combo displayed on the screen in order to get out of a sticky situation. You can perform a powerful kick attack but only after "staggering" and enemy, this attack extra damage and also to conserve ammo (which is a constant theme throughout the game). You'll face several different types of enemies, using different strategies for each, whether its what weapon hurts them most or a soft spot to shoot at to bring em down.
You'll also deal with a lot of mini puzzles in order to advance. A lot of them being the standard "scour for key, insert key here" kind of situation. Puzzles were mostly pretty simple, the difficulty definitely lies in killing all the enemies before they kill you which can be a challenge in some situations as they might be coming at you in droves.
Every once in a while you will come across a Merchant who is usually accompanied by a save point. Here you can buy weapons, sell weapons and items and tune your weapons. With tuning you can increase power, firing and reload speed and ammo capacity. Also every once in a while the merchant will offer you a new weapon which are for the most part a good upgrade.
There were some pretty memorable fights as some of the boss fights would have you pitted against a rather large and intimidating foe. Even on your way to the boss you may run into one or two special enemies that are particularly tough.
The video clips could have transitioned more smoothly, such as going from cut scene to game or when Leon would have to talk on his radio.
I would have liked "kicking" and using knives was a more reliable way to advance. Many times I found myself taking a hit instead of dishing one when attempting this, though I'm sure if a person focused on it they could get better at it. I would also like to see more situations where these would be your optimal choices for combat.
It would also have been nice to be able to strafe left and right.
Clearing RE4 for the first time will unlock a new difficulty level as well as a few other goodies that give this title a descent replay value.
All in all a very solid title that I think you will have fun with. If you can't decide but have been thinking about it, at least give it a rent, it is worth it in my opinion as it is one of the best games I have tried thus far for the Wii.