Resident Evil 4 , A pleasure for the eye..
In RE4, the President's daughter, Ashley Graham has been kidnapped by cultists and taken to a remote region somewhere in Central Europe. Motives and demands aren't very clear at this point and it's up to Leon Kennedy to get to the bottom of this conspiracy.
Upon my arrival in Europe I'm greeted by two cops who are to take me to my destination. On the way, our car gets spoilt and being the hero I am, I volunteer to look for help. I come across this hut situated in the wilderness, in which I see a man staring intently at his stove. I ask him for help and he throws me a blank stare. Thinking this dude's a tad cuckoo (you come across people like this in remote villages), I apologize and am about to leave when he suddenly charges towards me, axe in hand, murderous intent in his eyes. I try to talk him out of it, since I'm apparently not the trigger happy type but my attempt at reconciliation seems to fall on deaf ears. Back to the wall (metaphorically speaking), I shoot him in the arm to disarm him. Surprisingly, he doesn't even flinch after being shot in the freaking arm. I'm thinking this guy is tripped out of his head and am about to suggest seeking therapy when he comes charging towards me once again. Instinct takes over and I squeeze the trigger blowing his head apart watching it explode in a beautiful yet gory shower of blood and brains.
Shaken, but not stirred, I tread on hoping to find some sort of help in this damned area. I continue roaming around some well detailed foliage (commendable for the PS2) looking for some help when I stumble across a village. The village exudes a "picture perfect" quality with men and women executing their daily chores, like in any Central European village. As I near the crowd the background score changes drastically and seems to reflect their hostile mood. The first thought that occurs to me is that they're probably pissed off since village folk don't take too kindly to city people, but once I saw them come at me with knives, pitchforks and axes I knew they weren't the Welcoming Committee and had a cruel fate in store for me. One thing was certain; the time for talk was over!
Swiftly I draw my handgun, and fire a few rounds at the villagers advancing toward me, slowly, yet in a most in-human manner. Bullets don't seem to stop them; and they seem to be coming closer at an alarming rate. One villager manages to get close enough to smell my aftershave and out of pure reflex I squeeze the trigger watching his head explode with glee. You'd think blowing some one's head off would stop them in their tracks, but this doesn't seem to be the case in RE4. The unfortunate villager lumbers toward me... headless. He falls to his knees, dying barely a foot away from me. Too close for comfort!
At this point all sorts of panic buttons are going off in my head. Frantically I look for a way out, but am cornered by villagers, whose sole aim seems to make seekh kabab of me. Thanks to the "not so player friendly" camera angle, I don't notice a guy who's almost managed to crawl up my butt. With a roundhouse that would put Jackie Chan to shame, I kick him to the ground and shoot him where he lies motionless... for 10 seconds. Soon, he's back on his feet, dragging himself towards me screaming in Spanish (or was it gibberish).
It suddenly dawns on me that the sneaky bastard's calling for backup. I start praying as there are too many to handle and to make matters worse my ammo's running low. All of a sudden I hear church bells ringing. The villagers stop advancing toward me and in a trance they stumble towards their houses, closing the doors behind them, leaving me standing alone in the Town Square... dumbfound. WTF was happening here? What happened to these people? How did a bunch of peaceful farmers become murderous, superhuman zombie wannabes? Where am I? Did they kidnap Ashley? Is she still alive? And did I mention this was just the first level?
Without a doubt, RE4 is one of the most intense survival horror games I've ever played (that could be because I don't play a lot of them to begin with). The story, which primarily revolves around rescuing Ashley Graham, the President's daughter will take you to places, those you've probably only seen in your worst nightmares. Throughout the game you'll battle not-so-human farmers and some fiendish monstrosities that'll defy any kind of logic. Like I mentioned earlier, these farmers (who you'll run into a lot) aren't zombies, so don't expect them to be as dumb as a doorknob, or move as slow as your grandma. They travel in packs, call for reinforcements and will flank you. Since the game focuses a lot on combat, RE4 has been given a major overhaul. No more crappy camera angles as RE4 now uses a Cold Fear-ish approach for combat. This means the camera will remain constant behind Leon (like any Third Person Shooter) during exploration and during combat, pressing a button will give you an over the shoulder view to make shooting the crap out of enemies very convenient. Another cool part in the game is that all your weapons are fit with a laser sight, giving you the accuracy you need to get those head shots. While the shooting system is solid, controlling Leon is a pain in the ass. He can only be controlled by the left analogue stick, unlike more traditional games where the right analogue stick controls the camera. Wait there's more; Leon cannot strafe while aiming (actually he can't even move) and turning him around takes forever.
Since controlling Leon is a chore (initially) RE4 will allow you to bypass certain enemy encounters by merely running through them. You'll find yourself sticking to this tactic on quite a few occasions as, unlike games like Serious Sam, you will not have an unlimited supply of ammo. You'll be able to upgrade your weapons and buy stronger firepower, courtesy of the local dealer (who seems hell bent on flashing you when he's showing you his stuff). These weapons/upgrades can be purchased with precious stones (rubies, spinals, etc) and gold coins you'll find by breaking various pots scattered all around the place. Certain enemies will drop gold and ammo once they dissolve. Keep an eye out for ammo as it cannot be bought from the dealers and remains a scarce commodity throughout the game.
Another problem RE4 possesses is the absence of cycling through your weapons in-game. If you run out of ammo or need a more powerful weapon, you'll need to access the inventory to equip a new weapon every single time. This becomes tedious and annoying in the heat of a battle. Talking about inventory, in RE4, you'll carry it in an attach case which has limited storage space and so organizing your supplies and weapons seem to be the order of the day here. As you purchase bigger guns or more supplies you could buy a bigger case from the dealer.
To compensate for these annoyances, RE4 packs a whole lot of Context Sensitive action. During exploration Leon can scale fences, jump across bridges, climb down ladders, kick ladders down so your enemies don't reach you, jump through windows and more at the touch of a button. Like in God of War, boss fights do consist of a lot of contextual action. Reduce your opponent's health to engage in a mini-game of sorts. Perform well and it's Wham-Bam-Bye-Bye-MR.Boss-Man. Screw up, and pay the price with your life.
I've heard a lot of people **** about the fact that Resident Evil games have a Save system that's worse than an Elton John song (horrifying!). In RE4, saving is extremely user-friendly as you can now save your progress by accessing typewriters that are scattered all over the place at regular intervals.
As most of you may or may not know, Resident Evil 4 was a Gamecube exclusive title, but some where along the line Capcom probably realized the fan base Sony's product enjoys and ported it to the PS2. I haven't played the Gamecube version (which I've heard looks brilliant) but the good part is that PS2 owners do get a pretty game, if not an OMG-LOOK-AT-THE-VISUALS game. Locales look menacing and desolated, enemies look macabre and ominous, and characters look pretty well detailed. A few sacrifices were made by the developers like the textures on Leon's hair or his jacket, but it's all good, as we aren't here to stare at him. Bosses look absolutely terrifying with many of them, at least five times your size and even during these boss encounters, your frame rate rarely takes a hit. Headshots are absolutely visceral, yet incredibly beautiful. Every well placed head shot will result in your opponents head bursting into a beautiful shower of blood. I know I've mentioned this before, but the head shots in this game do deserve credit. There is a good variety in enemies; while most are murderous peasants, you'll often bump into chainsaw wielding psychos and some extremely unpleasant things.
RE4 excels in the sound department as well. The farmers will speak in their mother tongue and even without understanding a word they say, you know they're not pleased to see you. Just like in Painkiller and Serious Sam, the ambient background score will suddenly change when some poop's about to hit the fan. Guns sound real and head shots sound chunky, which is the way it should be.
Fans of the survival horror genre may get a bit disappointed with RE4, as unlike games like Silent Hill, RE4 is a bit more combat oriented. RE4 does have a fair share of puzzles, but most may seem too easy to veterans of the genre. Besides a lengthy single player campaign the game also packs loads of extra content like Mercenaries (time based mode where you have to survive the onslaught of crazed villagers to unlock different costumes) and Separate Ways, a mode that allows you to play as another character through five new chapters that'll explain quite a lot of the story. If all this doesn't warrant a purchase, I don't know what will.