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What Are You Doing to a Series? Resident Evil 4 By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman In 1996 Capcom shocked and terrified the world with the release of Resident Evil on the Sony Playstation. The game was revolutionary for its time, as it created a new genre known as survival horror (depending on your game history interpretations this is actually debatable; however, the Resident Evil series did solidify the new genre). Survival horror type games are quite strange in their implementation. They’re slower based games that follow a similar pacing and puzzle factor as a point and click/text based adventure game. However, the major addition to the genre is the aspect of real time combat and the high possibility of death in the games. Due to the amazing success of Resident Evil, Capcom began pumping out the sequels (and prequel) to the game eventually leading to a collection of 7 main story arc games and 12 spin-offs dabbling in multiple genres. Aside from the spin-offs (which mostly ended up as mediocre titles trying to cash in on the RE name), the Resident Evil series have all been very well made games that forced you to focus on the long term plan of your survival. Though the release Resident Evil 4 marked a huge change in the series; a change that was ultimately for the worse.
Resident Evil 4 continues the story of Officer Leon Kennedy (protagonist of Resident Evil 2), in which he sent to Spain in order to rescue the president’s daughter and do some reconnaissance of the holding facility. As he travels around the Spanish countryside he begins to realize that this isn’t any ordinary rescue mission, since the zombies from his hometown Raccoon City have seemingly made their way to Spain (I’d honestly dive more into this story, but it’s so convoluted that I’d be sitting here for days describing it to you).
The first big change you’ll notice in Resident Evil 4 is the overall game dynamic. Gone are the set camera angles of the older games in the series and in come this over the shoulder view making the game feel like a first person shooter. In fact, the game is a lot more action based than its predecessors. This change of pacing is a huge strike against the game, as it nearly changes everything we’ve come to know about Resident Evil. Many times in the game we’re actually made to kill everything on the screen in order to progress. This is a huge step away from the classic Resident Evil strategy of conserving ammo whenever possible. The game plays more like Left 4 Dead or House of the Dead than a standard Resident Evil game. Even fallen foes will sometimes drop ammo boxes, making this game more of an action horror game than survival horror. The new game mechanic is ultimately upsetting and takes away that feeling of helplessness and anxious terror found in the older games.
Another step away the developers took from the classic formula is the addition of quick time events. I must admit, I don’t just hate the quick time events in this game; I pretty much hate all quick times events that have been popping up in games lately. While I can see why the developers would add QTEs to their game (I guess it’s to keep a game with extensive cut scenes from being like a movie), they’re quite distracting and ironically ruin the cut scenes the developers were originally trying to make shine. Also, a lot of the times the QTEs just don’t work in this game. I’ve died so many times trying to escape the stupid rolling boulder in this game like some gimped up Indiana Jones because the stupid game will not pick up my mock masturbation motions (and I know this is not my fault, since I’ve had 14 years of pre-Wii experience with this hand motion).
Finally, the part of the game that really kills me is the dumbing down of all the classic Resident Evil puzzles. Even though there are those “examine item X and combine it with item Y” brainteasers in this game, I honestly felt like my brain wasn’t being very teased. The puzzles are way too straight forward. I’m almost led to believe that Resident Evil 4 (and possibly Resident Evil 5, we’ll know when I buy it and review it) is made for a younger generation of gamers. Kids that live and die for Call of Duty 4 and World at War, kids that just like to shoot and kill stuff rather than devising a concise strategy in a game. Not that this is a bad thing, since 8 million Halo players can’t be wrong (well, they very well could be, but they’re probably less wrong than a crack smoker). To say that I hate Resident Evil 4 would be a lie; it’s a very good game. However, it doesn’t deserve a place in the main Resident Evil series. If Capcom would have made this game a spin-off called “Resident Evil: Los Muertos” or something, I’d have respected the game a lot more. However, as it stands it really makes me ask, what are you doing to a series?
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