Resident Evil 4 Review

I loved Resident Evil 1, but for some reason I didn’t play Resi 2 or any after that. I couldn’t even name all the Resident evil releases... Code Veronica??... Nemesis?? The whole Resident Evil affair got lost in lesser consoles like the Sega Dreamcast, first person shooters and lack of originality.

Fast forward 8 years from the original Resident Evil and finally the game has landed back on the mother ship - the PS2. Raved and hyped about, Resident Evil 4 finally moves from pre-rendered static backgrounds to FULL 3D ENVIRONMENTS! YES!... I thought this had happened years ago?!?

So due to the good reviews and scores Resi 4 got, I decided to fire it up and have a go - expecting it to be something AMAZING - especially after some are saying its better than Metal Gear Solid 3.

The first thing I should say is: It's not better than Metal Gear Solid 3.

It's definitely got a great new shooting system with the camera angle being behind Leon's (the main character's) right shoulder, and blasting away the village people is very satisfying too. But Resident Evil 4 does not have the depth, visual quality, graphics, animation or storyline to get anywhere near to MGS3. If MGS3 is a 10 out of 10 (which it is) then Resi 4 is a 7 out of 10.

That’s not to say this is not a pretty great game. You start off the game with a very daring and creepy mission to investigate a nearby house. Its great stuff and has a good atmosphere and tense feeling to it. You kill your first couple of bad guys and its great!

From this initial high, the game generally goes into free-fall. Everything becomes far too repetitive and the story isn't worth the fag packet it was written on (you play as 'Leon' and you have to rescue the president's daughter 'Ashley'). There are some better parts throughout the game such as the boss battles and some of the Shenmue-style interactive cut scenes are nice, even if you do have to play through them more than twice sometimes. Miss a button press in a cut-scene... and you're dead!

Continue...?

Well if you want to get your money's worth from the game then you will have to continue eh? Stupid.

A message to all games developers - if Metal Gear Solid doesn't have it, DONT USE IT! Interactive cut scenes are STUPID! Particularly when you have to replay again and again until you get perfect.

So there are some great parts to Resi 4 and there are some bad parts. The good definitely outweighs the bad but its not enough to make this a supreme 'must buy' title. The controls are fine and the hero Leon moves about well enough but it could be better. He feels a little stiff at times - especially when fighting a certain ex-S.T.A.R.S member. The switches between playing as Leon and playing as the presidents big-titted little-girl Ashley are some of the best parts. The section where Ashley is in dark rooms with metal knight soldiers attacking her is genuinely quite scary. All the more tense because she has no guns or anything offensive at all! Apart from the objects around her that is...

So the great parts of the game are let down by a few bad points. The main negative being the crap storyline. A storyline so mind numbingly bad that I can't even remember why the baddies wanted Ashley in the first place!?

It's so bad that towards the last 1/3rd of the game, I can just remember thinking: "Jesus, when is this thing going to end?" When you finally do get to the ending last escape (on speedboat), the player is bitterly let down by poor unrealistic controls! The speedboat feels more like controlling one of those old grand prix game cars from the 80's. It's so bad that you will find yourself replaying that final part for quite a while. Unless you get lucky and/or can master the slider controls instantly. Which you wont.

So your final memory of Resi 4 is the piss-poor speedboat controls. Nice.

Speedboat shenanigans aside, overall you are still left with quite a cool experience from Resident Evil 4. It could have been a lot better with more indoor locations and more high-tech surroundings like the Resident Evil films had. But that said, this game feels like it is set in a sleepy Welsh village or something. So I guess that was the developers aim for the most part. They succeeded.

Resident Evil 4 would definitely be a good purchase, but there are better games available on PS2 for the casual gamer this Christmas 2005. If you are an avid gamer and play a lot of games a year, then Resi 4 is probably already in your PS2.

Overall: 8/10.

This review was added on 4th December 2005 by nGaming user fozzyfanatic1.