Topic: Uninformed Reviews: Resident Evil 4

[couchmonkey]

Hey everyONE (emphasis on the one person who reads this. ) I've noticed the reviews section is pretty empty, but while I love to write reviews, I don't finish enough games to write many complete, honest ones.  So I had an idea to do a regular post I'll call the "uninformed" review.  These reviews will hopefully be short, and they'll be based on little (maybe even no) play time.  It will be fun!

Resident Evil 4 is a great game to start my uninformed review posts with since
(A) it's hugely popular, and
(B) I've never been a fan of Resident Evil or horror in general
I rented the game this weekend and put about 4 hours into it.  I made it most of the way through chapter 1, part 3.

The Good:

The graphics are amazing, these guys could write a book on how to model realistic dirty windows.  RE4 will probably go down in history as having the Cube's most technically impressive graphics.

The controls have been vastly improved.  This is possibly the first Resident Evil game that would be fun to play even if it wasn't scary or really good looking.

The sound is great, very creepy and intense - as is almost everything in the game.

The game's redesign has been very positive all-around.  The widescreen, over-the-shoulder perspective is possibly the best implementation of 3rd person shooting I've ever seen.

The Bad:

The controls are still not that good.  Specifically, there's no way to look around corners, Leon has to stand still while he fights with his knife, and there's no analog control.  To the point, I just didn't feel "in control" when the game got hard.  This is where the controls for RE should have been five years ago.

At times the game starts to feel a bit like a generic first person shooter.

The Ugly:

The graphics.  They're technically amazing, but after a while it seems like everything is covered in the same brownish-grey texture.  It's the right atmosphere, but it was hard to tell where I was going at times and my own personal taste tends towards lots of pretty colours.

If you're not too queasy to play this game it's definitely worth a rental just to see the best graphics the GameCube can muster and to experience some really intense, horrifying battles.  It's a great game that makes me shut my eyes and clench my teeth a lot, but as a non-horror fan, Resident Evil 4 still isn't a "must-have".

Score: 9

Edit: I mistakenly said I was most of the way through Chapter 3, but I meant Chapter 1-3.

[WuTangTurtle]

I was in your same position, I have never really got into the Resident Evil games.  I played this game at E3 last year and was blown away.  I automatically knew this game would be a big Game of the Year Contender.

Here's where i stand:

Graphics 9.8
After hours and hours, things seem to look alike.  Although the graphic style sets one of the best atmosphere in almost any game.  Overall Best Graphics on Gamcube and rivals the best on XBOX if not better than XBOX games.

Controls 8.5
A huge step from other RE games (I've only played REremake).  Things become more easy to manage but in tight situations you still have a feeling that Leon has a broken foot or something.  Aiming is more realistic and more simple but can prove to be difficult at times when enemies are further away, due to the laser not being straight (it's always a bit diagonal due to the camera angle).

Sound 10
The sounds add so much to the games atmosphere and it always makes you afraid of whats next.  Whether its enemies running at you through water or villagers yelling at you in Spanish you always have that feeling like your in the game.  It really draws you in.  All the sound effects like bear traps going off or shotgun blasts decapatating enemies sound beautiful.  Everytime a head is blown off you always get that "ooh!" feeling.

Gameplay 9.5
The first time through is always tough, but i found that the 2nd or 20th try ends up proving that it was actually not as hard.  It is great watching different ppl play the game because everyone will play it differently.  The first level for instance, you can run around shooting ppls heads or aiming at their knees, run for cover in "House A", "House B", or the "Tower", or Shotgun room, barricade the doors and windows.  There seems to almost have a open ended feeling in a linear type of game.  The cabin scene with Louis is remarkably intense!  Overall the gameplay is great because every moment in the game has you hooked in.  If your very own mother was being slowly killed beside you while you where playing this game, $100 says you wouldn't even notice!

Overall 9.8 (P.S. if you love your mom too much, try not to play it while she is home)