GregHowley.com

I finished playing Resident Evil 4 last night - a game I'd been looking forward to for a long, long time. At first, I didn't play it because I didn't have a Gamecube or Playstation 2. After I got a Playstation 2, I didn't play it because I'd gotten a copy of Resident Evil: Code Veronica X, and I wanted to finish that first. But when I got hopelessly stuck for the second time in Code Veronica, I decided to forget about that game. I'd already started over from the beginning once, and I wasn't about to do it again.

Resident Evil is a departure from the previous games in the series, and that makes for both its greatest strengths and my biggest complaints about it. I was an enormous fan of Resident Evil 2. I liked the first one, and the game called "Resident Evil 3" was only a sad copy of Resident Evil 2, but Resident Evil 2 itself was the best of them by far. I've also come to the conclusion that Resident Evil: Code Veronica X should have been called Resident Evil 3, and Resident Evil 3 should have been some crappy side-title.

But to get back to what I was saying about the game being a departure from its predecessors, Resident Evil 4 is, at its heart, a third-person shooter rather than a horror game. The game is action-packed and a lot of fun, but is missing my favorite component from Resident Evil 2: the scare factor. Only once that I can think of did something jump out at me unexpectedly, and it failed to scare me the way that Resident Evil 2 did. Despite that, I've got to say that I loved this game.

The most annoying thing to me about the game was trying to aim with the analog stick. Gamepads are not the best controller for shooters. Nothing matches a mouse. Luckily, this game is being released for the PC within a few months. When that happens, I may buy a PC copy and sell my PS2 copy. While the PS2 version gives you a laser sight which makes aiming with the analog stick much easier than it would be without, it's still not as good as a mouse.

During parts of the game, you've also got a second character along with you, and she's essentially helpless. So you get two lifebars, and you've got to protect her. Your only controls for her are in the R2 button, which toggles "follow me" and "wait here", although you'll occasionally hit places where you can instruct her to hide. I liked sending her into dumpsters just to make her spend time in a dumpster. Heh heh. There are also some other cool two-character mechanics and puzzles.

The game takes Resident Evil 3's dodge mechanic and makes it actually usable. In this game, when fighting certain bosses, you'll be prompted onscreen with "Dodge" or "Duck" verbage, along with the button combination you need to press in order to dodge. As the game progresses, this will even happen during cutscenes, which completely caught me off guard at first. I died many times. But it's pretty cool when you're walking up a trail on a hillside and some crazy villagers roll an eight foot boulder down at you, and you're prompted to mash X to run away, then L1 + R1 to jump out of the way.

The game creates a number of novel situations, such as the harpoon battle against a sea monster, the jetski chase, the fight in which you need to protect a distant companion with a sniper rifle, and an extended shootout in a series of moving minecars, in which you need to duck periodically or be clotheslined by passing beams. The game's creators really got creative with some of these, and they're a ton of fun.

The game also allows you to find money and treasures, and has merchants placed periodically throughout from whom you can buy new guns, bigger inventory cases, and optional parts for your weapons. You also can upgrade the weapons you have, individually improving the rate of fire, damage, and amount of ammo it can hold.

The Playstation 2 version has an extra shooting gallery minigame, but I couldn't find any point to it. It wins you "bottlecaps", which have no point whatsoever. Whoop de freaking doo.

What is cool are the extra missions after completing the game. I'm in the second of five missions in Separate Ways, in which you play Ada Wong as she follows Leon Kennedy through the game. It's remniscient of Resident Evil 2 in how the two characters encounter each other throughout the game, and that I like. There are also extra games called "Mercenaries" and "Mission Ada", but I haven't yet given them a try.

I'm not sure if I'll replay the game on the PS2 or wait for the PC version, but this is a game I'll definately go back to.