With Resident Evil coming out soon, I felt it was high time to go back and check out what it was about this series that incites such passion in the fan base. So I started at the one game I tend to hear the most about, the 4th entry in the series. Often hailed as the best, and credited with single-handedly revolutionising the survival horror genre (for better or worse), with it's recent HD re-release I figured it was finally time to see what all the fuss was about.
I'll briefly mention the pros and cons of the HD dressing here, as it's barely relevant to anything I want to say. If you've ever played any of the earlier releases, there's really no reason the buy this. The "HD" only means they upscaled the resolution, all the original graphics are left entirely untouched. Characters look alright, and the environmental designs are interesting, but the textures themselves are very blurry and stretched, and the whole aesthetic and colour palette is very washed out. Sound is an issue, too, with a lot of the audio and music coming across low quality and grainy. Outside of the upscale, the HD re-release bundles together all the post release content, including the Ada Wong side missions and the Mercenary mode, which I still haven't had much of an opportunity to check out.
Story wise, RE 4 plays out like a B-grade horror movie, filled with bad dialogue, over-the-top voice acting and ridiculous plot contrivances. Leon S. Kennedy, no longer the cocky, young cop who survived Raccoon City, has grown up and joined the Secret Service. His first job is to protect the president's daughter, who is conveniently kidnapped. And so Leon is sent to an unnamed European location, coming across as a weird blend between Transylvannia and South America. It turns out that the locals aren't to friendly here, and are in fact being controlled by a mysterious parasite called Las Plagas, providing faster, more intelligent "zombies" for Leon to fight. The plot jumps around from ridiculous, to terrible, to insane as character motivations are revealed, plot twists fly fast and furious and villains posture and pontificate all their wonderful plans for world domination. And with both Leon and Ashley, the president's daughter, both infected, it soon becomes a race against time to find the cure and escape. Leon delivers a suitably action-hero performance, rife with one liners and sardonic dialogue. Paul Mercier is a much more competent voice actor than the original Leon, providing some nuances to a basically one-note role. During story moments, Carolyn Lawrence manages to convey a sense of strength and sophistication, mixed with vulnerability to Ashley, but during gameplay her dialogue devolves to a series of shrieks and incessant squeaking of "Leon! Help me, Leon!". Potentially the most frightening part of the game. Ada Wong is a stand-out again, both character and voice-over wise. Her motivations are more clouded than ever, and the femme fatale relationship with Leon is well fleshed out. Outside of voice acting, the sound fx are decent. The guns have a decent weight to their shots, and the "zombie" dialogue, although low quality and repetitive, feels sufficiently alien and creepy. The music is horror cliche, but effective within the setting.
Gameplay, however, is where the game's strength lies. The camera locks over Leon's shoulder, and pulling your gun pull up a laser sight for precision aiming. Moving and shooting is non-existent, forcing you to dispatch enemies quickly, but precisely, before they close in on you and force you to move again. For the modern gamer, it can be a bit of an adjustment. The quick turn, pressing "X" while moving backwards, is the greatest tool in your arsenal. Once you learn to use this properly, the pace can actually be quite fast. Gameplay is constantly tense, with many different types of enemies often rushing at you from all directions. Some enemies carry melee weapons, while later ones carry ranged weapons from crossbows all the way up to rocket launchers. There's also mini-bosses, like the hulking El Gigante, or the creepy flying insect types. Thankfully, Leon is armed with an ever increasing, fully upgradable, arsenal. A lot of fun lies in choosing and perfecting your arsenal. A new game + mode allows you to carry all your inventory across, with bonus cash and items, allowing you to upgrade and perfect your arsenal to your heart's content. There's also boss fights, but these suffer with age. The often employ cheap tactics, and always devolve into avoidance and repetition. They're big, flashy, but unfortunately probably one of the worst parts of the game. There's some basic puzzle solving, too, but more of the push block, or fetch quest variety. Consider yourself warned, however, that the sections with Ashley are escort missions. There's not a lot of them, thankfully, but they can be very frustrating, You need to manage her health, protect her from enemies and basically do everything for her. See, enemies won't only just attack her, but also try to kidnap her as well, meaning you can never stray very far from her. Friendly fire is also a big problem, meaning you have to be even more careful with your shots and anything explosive is basically out. She won't move out of the way of explosions, but at least she ducks under shots. Mixed in is the mid 2000's quick-time events that Capcom loved so much. While normally a small annoyance, there are some that fly by crazy fast and are often instant failure, bumping you back to the last checkpoint, however far away that was.
I found myself enjoying the game much more the second time around. As I got used to the controls, and started to understand conserving ammo and health, I finally started to uncover why everyone praises this game so much. The gameplay is addictive, and a lot of fun. The story, provided you don't take it too seriously, is a lot of fun. It's a shame the HD uplifting didn't extend past the upscale, but the game itself is still pretty good looking and at the end of the day, horror games shouldn't be all squeaky clean anyway. This is a game that appeals to both survival horror fans and third person shooter fans. It's only $20 on the PSN, it's really worth the download. I can whole-heartedly recommend this one.
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