It's time to talk about the only game I liked on the damned Gamecube, Resident Evil 4! Giving what is technically the sixth game in the main series a "4" on the title is not insignificant. It's Capcom assuring us that this is indeed a Resident Evil game despite the radical departure from formula. It's like telling us that this is what the franchise is now and that there's no turning back. We should all just accept that the old and slow "survival horror" schtick is long dead and that this new "action horror" stuff is the way to go. This is what Resident Evil is now and will be for years to come.
Leon's epilogue in RE3 mentions that he was made an offer by the U.S. government. We never knew what this mysterious offer was or whether it was a good or bad thing. Well, it turns out it was just for a freaking job. Leon went from a rookie cop with reddish-brown hair to a blonde agent of the U.S. tasked with protecting the President and his family. Is Leon Secret Service now? It's not mentioned in game. Leon is just "some kind of badass" now so let's get that pansy rookie cop image out of our heads.
The daughter of the President of the most powerful nation on Earth has been kidnapped. How this actually managed to happen isn't explained. The U.S. responds by sending just a single man, Leon, into an undisclosed nation in Europe that speaks Spanish and uses Pesetas as currency.
When I first played RE4 on the Gamecube, I was amazed on how different it was from previous RE games. I had just played the remake and zero at that time. It was new and it was fresh. Right away the player is given an over-the-shoulder view of Leon as the player controls him. There's manual aiming now with a laser pointer guiding the player and Leon's shots. This makes the game more intense as it's about as in-your-face as an RE game could get barring the first-person shooter spinoffs. The character still moves about in tank-like controls but the manual aiming and the shoulder view makes it all work somehow. Leon interacts with the environment with a simple press of a button. There's also a button that allows you to draw out your knife for quick stabs if you want to conserve ammo. Some enemies can be dispatched by using special attacks available when they're stunned which rewards carefully aimed shots to the head or vital areas. Bosses also require special actions like rapidly tapping a button when their weak spot is exposed. All in all, the combat in this game was pretty sweet and well executed.
Ammo is no longer a finite resource. Sure, you get them at fixed locations but the enemies drop extra ammo pretty regularly. You'd have to be pretty bad at games if you ever find yourself short of bullets. A new feature, which is probably my favorite, is the merchant. Ever so often, a merchant will appear at certain points of the game to sell you weapons and weapon upgrades in exchange for the pesetas and treasures you come across. He speaks in a gruff voice and refers to you as "Stranguh". Who the merchant is or why he's aiding you is never explained. He's just there. Hell, he's everywhere. He'll turn up in caves, prisons, bottomless pits and so on. It's never explained how he got there or why he knew Leon would even turn up there eventually. Just buy your gear and sell your crap. You can kill the merchant but then he'll just inexplicably turn up later with no hard feelings. You can't loot his corpse though so killing him doesn't do anything but give you a tremendous disadvantage. He's like what HUNK would be if he didn't become a mercenary and just stuck to business school.
Backtracking is kept to a minimum in this game. You return to some areas after dark but it's a linear adventure for the most part. I find that this is actually a good thing as the focus is more on action. Keeping on moving forward to the next objective fits this game. A tedium and monotony of wandering around a mansion/police station just wouldn't fit now would it? The puzzles in this game are simple and often consists of putting special shaped thing into a special shaped hole or pulling some lever or something. The objects themselves aren't hard to find.
I wasn't excited about everything in this game. At some point when the player manages to rescue Ashley, the President's daughter, he'll come across what is considered one of the banes on video games; the dreaded escort mission. At first you would probably think, "Man, this is going to suck donkey balls." But the game mercifully allows you to just hide Ashley in a dumpster while you clear the room of bad guys. Seriously. At the times when there are no convenient dumpsters to toss her in, Ashley is surprisingly adept at dodging enemy attacks. She sticks close enough to you that she doesn't get left behind or forces the player to slow down. On the rare occasion when an enemy mook gets close to her, he'll just attempt to capture her by carrying her away. This is a lot better than her getting killed or getting an instant game over because at least you still have a chance to shoot the kidnapper before she's taken to another room. She gets taken to another room and that's game over right there. What I'm saying is that the escort portions of the game were well thought out and managed to avoid being too frustrating. There's nothing quite as aggravating as losing a game by having a character you can't directly control die through it's own programmed behavior.
While RE4 was widely lauded as the best thing since chocolate sundaes, and rightly so, I did find one aspect of the game bad. Players of RE4 might not agree with me but I thought that the "quick-time events" in the games cutscenes were complete bullshit. While playing the game, sometimes a small movie plays called a cutscene. These are typically used to move the story along or to tell the player about what he has to do or what important thing just happened. RE4 somehow thought it was a good idea to allow the possibility of the player dying during a cutscene.The way it happens is that the screen will flash showing a button the player has to press. If he doesn't press the button, he dies. Game over.
But the good news is that RE4 had a totally badass Mercenaries minigame that managed to top RE3. Have a look at this video showing the combat system and the awesome minigame. It has HUNK in it!
Look, I know the game is really focused on action but come on. The reason I don't like it is because it's cheap. You're just given a few seconds to react or else you die. Compare this to say. fighting monsters with one-hit kill abilities like Dr.Salvador. At least you're given fair warning like his chainsaw noise. At least you're given a chance to evade him. At least you're given a chance to use your weapons to actually fight him. But no, in a cutscene, you're reduced to just just pressing a damn button to live no matter how many bosses you've killed or what awesome weapons you bought from your pal, the Merchant. There's just no sport in it. It's cheap.
In summation, RE4 was a breath of fresh air to a stale series. The gameplay was more action orient with over-the-shoulder camera and aimed shots.The combat was excellent and felt very fluid and natural. Many of it's features were well thought out.
I still think the QTE feature was cheap though.
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