Resident Evil 4 GameCube Review

Wow! This is just one of the words you will use when playing through this game. It’s the 15th game in the series, and after all that time they decided to change the style of the game now, which is certainly no bad thing.

Gameplay

Instead of using the fixed camera angles, that are famous throughout most of the series (apart from the light gun games.) The developers have now decided to use a camera that is set behind the player’s shoulder. This gives the game a whole new dimension, and gets the player involved even more. There is also a new aiming system which zooms in closer to the player’s shoulder, which allows the player to aim with more accuracy. And there is no excuse to miss, because each gun comes with laser sighting, so you can aim for different areas of the enemies.

This brings me to the new enemies, which is another big change in the series. Instead of the classic zombies that have been used in every game throughout the Resi series, we now have crazy villagers that are a lot more difficult and advanced to play against. They are a lot better than zombies for many reasons. Number 1 they can run; number 2 they can use various weapons from pitchforks to chainsaws; number 3 they are a lot stronger than zombies, and take a lot of bullets to kill. Headshots won’t do the trick straight away, which leads to you having to be more tactical. Perhaps a shot to the knees to knock them down will work first, and then a shot to the head when they’re on the floor to finish them off.

That’s what most of this game is about – shooting. There are barely any puzzles at all; this game is all about action, which may disappoint some veteran Resi fans but not too much because they will find the shooting so good, they won’t care about the lack of puzzles. And this will also please other gamers who found the other Resi games too slow paced, because whenever there’s any silence, you know it won’t last for long as you expect an enemy will burst through that door, or jump down from the ceiling. Also there are tons of weapons at your disposal, which range from magnums and shotguns to rocket launchers. More weapons can be bought or upgraded at merchants that are placed in some of the weirdest places. But if you want to get these weapons you will need to kill enemies to gain money, or items that you can sell.

Story

Anyway now onto the story. The President’s daughter, Ashley has been kidnapped, and taken to a remote area in Europe. The man sent to save her is Leon S. Kennedy from Resi 2. It’s been 8 years since the destruction of Raccoon City and Leon is now working for the President. So he travels to Europe to a small village up in the hills to try and find her. But when he gets there the villagers don’t take kindly to his presence and try to kill him for an unknown reason. Now, you may be wondering why these seemingly normal villagers have become crazed, murderous, suicidal maniacs. Well it’s because they have all been injected with Las Plagas, which turns normal people into crazed killers, much like the T-Virus in the other Resi games. Now if you have been following the making of the game then most of the screenshots and videos you would have seen would be of Leon killing hordes of villagers, but there is a range of many different enemies, so don’t be mislead into thinking that this is a repetitive game.

Graphics

This now brings me to the awesome bosses that you will encounter. They are the best bosses in any game ever. You have never seen any bosses like these, and they will definitely blow you away. They range from huge sea-monsters, to troll-like enemies that could have been out of a Lord of the Rings movie. The bosses and all the enemies look amazing. You couldn’t have thought that graphics this good could come out of such a small machine. It really makes you appreciate the Gamecube; the development team has put so much detail into the game. Each building looks just as amazing as the last, and so does each enemy, especially the bosses. The main characters also look amazing. You think Solid Snake looks good on MGS 3? -Well, he’s only 5,000 polygons, while Leon is 10,000, that’s how good he looks.

Sound

The sound is also amazing, long gone is the cheesy voice-acting from the first Resi. Although there are still some cheesy lines from Leon, each enemy sounds amazing with moans and groans. And all of the weapons sound brilliant as well, with each weapon sounding very real. As does the splatter of blood as someone’s head gets blown off. You can hear the crunch as the skull explodes into pieces, and the music really gets you involved in the game and builds up the tension.

This is a 25+ hours game, and once you complete it there are plenty of bonus features to unlock, which include some mini games, and spin off storys with some of the other characters, but I won’t give too much away.

Overall

This game is one of the best ever, and should be played by everyone, unless you’re five and will probably need a couple of pairs of underwear. It is a good reason for people without Gamecube’s to buy one, but whatever you do don’t miss out on this amazing experience.

10 out of 10