Buy Resident Evil 4
at Amazon ($19.99 or less)
For those of you that do not already know, I have been playing Resident Evil 4. This is entirely do to persistent pressure from one, Wesley “Abcess” VanLandschoot. While chatting, he constantly spoke about what a great game it was, and how I had to get it. Well, it took some time and careful evaluation of reviews before I finally broke down and purchased it. I was able to cash in on some horrid games in my collection (Phantasy Star Online, Jet Set Radio Future, etc…) to get a decent deal on the game: $24.58 after tax. I have to say that it is one of the few games that I have ever played that is worth $50.
Today, I finally beat the game. Let me tell you this, it is no Ninja Gaiden, but it will definitely give you a run for your money. The best part of the game is when you are holding up in a shack of a house while “possessed” villages beat on the doors and windows. Without a doubt, I would say that the village section of the game was the strongest. If you are a fan of the original Resident Evil game, you will probably like the Castle the most. I am a fan of out door environments, so I really disliked this section.
Now, I have only played the first Resident Evil game before this, because I struggled with the camera so much. I can say with certainty that all the problems I have with the series before have been fixed in this title. There was however an element that I did not care for at all, and that was reflexive button pushes to avoid instant death. Most notably this occurred during a cutscene, when you are relaxing, and trying to prepare yourself for the next undead invasion. I do not remember these in the first game, and am not sure if they were in the second or third game. There is one particular sub chapter where you have a cut scene with several of this things, and if you fail one, you die. Dead. Dead. Horrible. Then, immediately following that sequence you go into a hallway from hell, where you have to do more of the same, just not in a cut scene. This brings me to my next point; the wonder of checkpoints. The thing that bothered me the most about the original is that you had a limited number of saves. That was just awful, I hated dieing and having to return to a point from hours before. That problem has been completely removed as you can now save as many times as you want at one of the many save points throughout the game. Though late in the game, you will be wishing there were more, but I digress, back to checkpoints. The new checkpoint feature allows you to instantly return to a section without penalizing you by making you return to the last save point. I honestly do not know if I could have made it through the game without these, because would have gone insane repeating specific scenes over and over again.
I have had a GameCube for a long time, and I consider this to be the only must have title. I would qualify it as the Halo 2 of the GameCube. I have only had a PS2 for a short period of time, and have not found any game that really stands out, so I cannot comment there. I know that this title will be coming out for it later this year, but there is not way that it can be as good as it was for the GameCube.
Here are my final stats:
Accuracy: 48% (my favored weapon was the TMP for most of the game)
Kills: 927
Time: 12:40:28
Deaths: 38 (Krauser, you bastard!)
I agree with everything other then the reflex dodges. I loved that. It kept you on your toes and made boss battles and cut scenes 100% more interesting.
I loved the village part and I loved the helicopter part. Wow that game kicks total ass. The greatest part of the game really was the lack of back tracking and how EVERY PLACE your character went was a totally new enviorment. It really is the GCN’s best game.
I would not have minded the reflex dodges so much, if it were not for two issues. The first, and most irritiating is the “instant death” penalty. I am a firm believer that no matter what happens in a game, you should not be instantly killed. If you were kill by massive damage, or something of that nature it would be fine. But, instant kills, just say no.
The second problem is that cut scenes that require you to “dodge” cannot be skipped. When I am playing through a section in subsequent play throughs I do not want to watch a two minute cut scene because I have to dodge at one point in it.
The reflex dodges in boss battle that result in massive damage rather than instant death are ok by me. You usually die as a result, or soon thereafter, but you do not instantly die. So that is A-OK with me.
I like the interactive cutscenes. So we disagree on something. I always though the Final Fantasy games f/ the PS1 were so BORING and you couldn’t do anything. For RE4 cinematic graphics are strong enough to be done with the ingame engine and I like them being interactive and I like you DON’T get a chance to rest. The one hit kill I look as a punishment for not paying attention enough
The other thing that sets RE4 apart from the rest is the death sequences. Many times I just allowed my charcater to die because it’s so cool watching Leon get destroyed. Most games just have canned death sequences. RE4 went above the call of duty on that one.
“I like them being interactive and I like you DONT get a chance to rest.”
Clearly, we have diametrically opposite views.
“The one hit kill I look as a punishment for not paying attention enough”
My problem wasn’t that I wasn’t paying attention, it was that I did not react fast enough. I almost always got kill the first time I encountered a reflex dodge that I did not know was coming.
P.S. I don’t like not being able to skip cutscenes. And, when it does let you skip them, a lot of the time it punishes you for skipping them. For example, when the clock is ticking down, if you skip a cutscene it automatically removes the amount of time as if you watched the scene.
video game posts= booooring :-*
/\ coming from somebody whos main content on his site for a month is something we drink
water water water water…..
bun, you are just jealous that you do not have any sexy console systems on which to play video games.
i have owned one console in my life, and that was the ps2 i sold to landw for a pitiful some of $. i used it for one game- FFX- and never used it again. it was horrid for dvds, and pretty much everything else. warn video games- especially consoles. the only game i really care about is CS- and i own everyone when i actually play- just as vanlandw.
? Holiday-4-lyfe!
rusty…i would like for you to inform me “who you are”