Was like 5 hours into this when my sister wanted to play so I created a new game for her and she accidentally overwrote my save file đ. Thatâs life ig but Iâm not feeling motivated to start this again tho so Iâll just leave it be for now. What I played definitely was good! Just sucks about the incident.
Iâm currently going through a whole lot of critically acclaimed classics and decided to give ff7 a go today and holy shit! Definitely gonna be hooked to that one for a while so thatâs what imma be playing now
Iâm currently going through a whole lot of critically acclaimed classics and decided to give ff7 a go today and holy shit! Definitely gonna be hooked to that one for a while so thatâs what imma be playing now
I will continue to stand by the fact that RE4: Wii Edition is one of, if not the best way, to experience this game. It's the same cheesy, over-the-top narrative we know & love but with surprisingly well-implemented Wii controls. No gimmicks here ---- just a nice, comfortable way to aim your weapons & swing your knife at enemies. Combine that with what made RE4 memorable to begin with & you've got a great deal here.
Nesse aqui eu nĂŁo vou escrever da mesma forma que escrevo as outras reviews porque eu realmente sĂł fui jogar isso aqui pra testar como Ă© a versĂŁo de Wii, e cara ela Ă© realmente muito boa tanto em grĂĄfico e em gameplay, sua mira Ă© bem melhor do que a dos outros consoles e o jogo envelheceu muito bem no Wii
NĂŁo zerei essa versĂŁo porque to muito enjoado jĂĄ de jogar essa versĂŁo clĂĄssica do RE4 mas pra quem nunca jogou e tiver um Wii, vai nessa que Ă© sucesso
NĂŁo zerei essa versĂŁo porque to muito enjoado jĂĄ de jogar essa versĂŁo clĂĄssica do RE4 mas pra quem nunca jogou e tiver um Wii, vai nessa que Ă© sucesso
Really enjoyed the game. This was the first Resident Evil game that I completed and it got me hooked on the series. Since it was my first Resident Evil game I played with a prima strategy guide that I probably didn't need looking back.
I wish it was just a bit shorter. The game drags on a bit towards the end. I was satisfied when I finished the game so I didn't play through Separate Ways.
I had saved a bunch of rocket launchers for the end so the final few bosses were extremely easy.
I wish it was just a bit shorter. The game drags on a bit towards the end. I was satisfied when I finished the game so I didn't play through Separate Ways.
I had saved a bunch of rocket launchers for the end so the final few bosses were extremely easy.
I played this first on my wii. And glad i did cause i actually enjoyed it more here than the pc version. Controls felt more natural.
Controls aside it's a fantastic game, i've completed it multiple times and stands as my favorite survival horror. And maybe even one of my favorite wii games of all time :D
Controls aside it's a fantastic game, i've completed it multiple times and stands as my favorite survival horror. And maybe even one of my favorite wii games of all time :D
El Ășltimo gran survival horror de la "Ă©poca dorada" del gĂ©nero. Un juego que ya de por sĂ es muy bueno, la Nintendo Wii lo mejora aĂșn mĂĄs con las mecĂĄnicas de disparo, de recargar y de los Quick Time Events.
Es divertido y sabe ser muy exigente, con oleadas muy opresivas y enemigos con mucha durabilidad que te hacen pensar meticulosamente en tus municiones.
El guiĂłn es un poco tosco y edgy rozando la comedia accidental, pero de a ratos se siente como una pelĂcula de acciĂłn que te encontrarĂas mientras haces zapping en la TV a cable.
Es divertido y sabe ser muy exigente, con oleadas muy opresivas y enemigos con mucha durabilidad que te hacen pensar meticulosamente en tus municiones.
El guiĂłn es un poco tosco y edgy rozando la comedia accidental, pero de a ratos se siente como una pelĂcula de acciĂłn que te encontrarĂas mientras haces zapping en la TV a cable.
La mejor forma de jugar RE4. Realizar los QTE con el wiimote se siente mas intuitivo y mas comodo. Y el acto de disparar es genial, al apuntar tambien con el wiimote. Un excelente port que trae consigo los extras de otras versiones y de tener buenas graficas. Sobre el juego en si es una obra maestra de acción y horror. Desde la mecanica de disparo, arreglar las armas, el diseño de niveles, la historia con mucha personalidad y personajes increibles como Leon, Ada y Luis. El Peak Gaming.
Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition takes the acclaimed survival horror and injects it with fresh Wii controls. The intuitive motion controls for aiming and slashing enhance the action, making headshots and knife fights feel thrillingly responsive. While the visuals haven't aged perfectly and some may find the tank controls cumbersome, this edition offers a unique and exciting way to experience this genre-defining classic.
The best version of one of the best games ever made.
If you've never played this, what is wrong with you? You should know by now what makes this special. The innovative camera perspective. Adaptive difficulty, memorable setpieces, great boss fights, tense music. Awesome monster design. The hammy but fun story. Merc mode and other avenues of content. Just so much to love here.
This is all compounded with excellent motion controls that are snappy and responsive. They make the experience tons of fun. Even then, you can just use a classic controller and play it like the original game. So it really offers you everything.
This is a game that shouldn't work as it is. It's stupid and hard to take seriously. Yet it just works so perfectly. Truly lighting in a bottle.
I think what makes it work is that it has infinite replay value. No matter how many times you play through the game, it is so flashy and so fun to blast through enemies that you don't mind. Mechanic wise it is so tight and polished. All the little things around it help to make it fun too. The attache case, looting for items, the various weapons, etc.
Merc mode is just so fun too. everything about this game is perfectly realized.
Masterpiece.
If you've never played this, what is wrong with you? You should know by now what makes this special. The innovative camera perspective. Adaptive difficulty, memorable setpieces, great boss fights, tense music. Awesome monster design. The hammy but fun story. Merc mode and other avenues of content. Just so much to love here.
This is all compounded with excellent motion controls that are snappy and responsive. They make the experience tons of fun. Even then, you can just use a classic controller and play it like the original game. So it really offers you everything.
This is a game that shouldn't work as it is. It's stupid and hard to take seriously. Yet it just works so perfectly. Truly lighting in a bottle.
I think what makes it work is that it has infinite replay value. No matter how many times you play through the game, it is so flashy and so fun to blast through enemies that you don't mind. Mechanic wise it is so tight and polished. All the little things around it help to make it fun too. The attache case, looting for items, the various weapons, etc.
Merc mode is just so fun too. everything about this game is perfectly realized.
Masterpiece.
text by tim rogers
â â ââ
âDANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO 'THE NEW RETRO'.â
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Biohazard (Resident Evil) 4 to the âFive years or less away from being considered âRetro Gaming'â club. The third version of this game (after the Gamecube original and the PlayStation 2 port) is for the Nintendo Wii, and the inclusion of precise, snappy motion controls simultaneously perfects the beautiful skeleton thatâs existed for three years and exposes all the tiniest flaws to new scrutiny.
First, know this: if you or someone you trust has recently expressed doubts about playing Resident Evil 4 on the Nintendo Wii because youâre ânot sure how the motion controls could add anything to the experienceâ, or maybe because youâve âplayed that Red Steel (1/2*) game, and boy that sucked assâ, you need to wake up and smell the wrong and/or get the heck over yourself. Motion controls make this game control perfectly. I do not use that word lightly: perfectly. If you want to shoot a zombie in the head, you point the remote at his head and you press the B button (on the bottom of the remote) to command Leon S. Kennedy to whip out his firearm and aim it right at that nasty Hispanic cranium, and then you press the Action Button to fire the shot. Some will puzzle about this game, and declare with a weird degree of mouth-breathing fetishism that they need not possess in order to continue living that this game was perfect with the Nintendo Gamecube controller so theyâll only buy the Wii version for its true 16:9 video output, and only if you can play it with the Gamecube controller. Really, though, this isnât Zelda, with motion controls shoehorned in cutely: this is a game about shooting mobs of deranged men in the head in rapid succession, and the point-and-shoot interface here is about as good as it gets. If youâd rather consider holding a big pillowy shoulder button down and moving an analog stick to aim âperfectâ, be my guest, and be also wrong. Youâre probably the kind of person who wanted a dual-analog-stick control scheme in Metroid Prime, because the auto-lock thing is âso fakeâ and âfor babiesâ. Yeah, Iâm sure the boys in the foxholes in World War I enjoyed drawing figure-eights against the starry skies of Germany with their gun muzzles.
Wii remote aiming is visceral and weirdly real; it feels like a lightgun shooter felt before you were too mature to realize how vapid Duck Hunt was â and itâs deep, because youâre controlling the characterâs movement, as well. The sound of a spent shotgun cartridge hitting a wooden floor echoing out of the speaker in the middle of the videogame controller in your hands is worth the price admission to anyone with a Shadow of the Colossus limited-edition print poster on his wall. Pointing, aiming and shooting with the Wii remote is unabashedly fantastic stuff. No, itâs nothing like aiming with a mouse and a keyboard. Itâs not that tacky. It feels real â you aim, you shoot. Moving Leon with the nunchuk is pretty smooth as well. Sometimes the position of the nunchuk shifts around in my hand so that Iâm holding it a little funny, and I accidentally press it to the left or right when I mean to go up, though I guess thatâs my fault for not knowing the palms of my own hands very well, or my fault (again) for not buying the rubber sweat-grip-thing for the nunchuk, or even Nintendoâs fault for not making the nunchuk out of a surface more conducive to gripping ecstatically while hip-deep in the semi-undead.
If pressed to mention a negative aspect of the Wii remote controls, Iâd have to say that the lack of an option to turn the aiming reticle off is kind of stupid. I mean, itâs so intuitive as-is. You know when youâre pointing at a zombieâs head, because you can see the remote pointing at the television. Hell, the remote even thumps in your hand when you aim the gun at an enemy. Why canât we rely completely on the tactile feedback? Wouldnât that add a neat little element of challenge? Instead, thereâs the aiming reticle, crowding up the screen. Hey, at least itâs not as bad as the enormous HUD in Zelda: Twilight Princess.
And thatâs about it. As the old saying goes, it takes only one blinged-out young man with diamond-encrusted platinum teeth (we call those âice teethâ) to steal a tricky ho off an old playah, and Gears of War has long held Resident Evil 4 over its thigh and spanked the ever-loving stuff out of it. If the game industry were working correctly (Protip: itâs kind of not), this is how it would be for the next couple of years: game A revolutionizes a genre, and then game B arrives, taking the revolution into account, while marrying the genre back into the family where it belongs and rendering game A pretty much irrelevant. Gears of War has perfected the Resident Evil 4 formula: the challenges are faster and the enemies are more thrilling to kill. The set-pieces are simple and more honest; in Gears of War, climbing up a staircase into a mansion feels meatier and more meaningful than the original Resident Evilâs entire zombie-infested mansion. After Gears of War, Resident Evil 4 feels more like a frequently-interrupted stroll through some rustic horror film scenery.
Dead or Alive producer Tomonobu Itagaki once somewhat-famously quipped, of Resident Evil 4, that though he appreciated the game for its integration of concepts, he couldnât exactly stand playing it for too long because of how the main character had to stop and stand in place every time he fired his pistol. âWhat kind of man stops to fire a pistol?â asked Itagaki, to the fist-pumping, aww-yeahing, and hilarity of much of the internet. The truth is, a man who doesnât want to throw his back out is the kind of man who stops to fire a pistol. Though you know what? I can let Itagakiâs ignorance slide; heâs obviously the kind of man who learned everything he needs to know about real life from Contra III: The Alien Wars. He knows what this world is about: brawny men hefting two-ton beef-cannons and strut-rushing into the collective face of the red-fleshed alien bitch-menace. And you know what else? Maybe heâs kind of right. Thereâs a certain avant-garde love to be found in this recent art-like obsession with detailing, in fiction of whatever format, the real-life-like reactions of ordinary people to fantastic situations. Weâre a couple half-decades away from âsummer blockbusterâ being synonymous with a film about a labcoat-wearing scientist defeating a Hummer full of werewolves with a champagne glass full of orange Skittles.
Either way, why not let Leon move when heâs firing his gun? Really? The situation around him is already pretty hecked-up; disbelief all over the place is going to be suspended through the roof. Weâve got hundreds of psychic Spanish-speakers sharing a half a dozen faces, starting fires and brandishing pitchforks, over here. Leon is able to pause the action whenever he wants, and eat one of many green herbs that he finds conveniently lying all over the place. Why stay dead-realistic about the gun aiming, then? Iâm not asking for rocket shoes and X-ray vision or anything. In fact, I could hardly even care less about being able to walk and shoot simultaneously. Iâm sure it would be nice, though, really, Iâve played this game before, and I think I can handle it.
âIâve played this game before, and I think I can handle itâ. Thatâs a pretty meek way of putting it, though hey. There you go.
What other game-design misdemeanors do we put up with in the name of âenjoyingâ a âclassicâ? How about the completely, terribly bullstuff story? Resident Evil 4âs story is pretty bad. Sorry to have to break it to you, kiddo. Does its story have to be good? I guess not; Super Mario Bros. had a lame-ass story about a guy rescuing the princess of a fungus fairyland from a turtle-dragon, though it manages to ascend to the status of almost art because it carries itself with noblest distinction.
Resident Evil 4 is not so noble. Itâs lazy, in fact: it begins with a man named Leon S. Kennedy, who once fought zombies on his first day as a police officer (because a rookie cop was a good choice for a main character of a game (Resident Evil 2) set during a zombie outbreak in a small town), now on his way to a city in a Spanish-speaking country the name of which was omitted because Capcom Japan feared legal action from a tourism department or two, to rescue the presidentâs daughter from an unknown organization with unknown demands. âThe presidentâs daughterâ is the primary goal of this mission at the start because âThe presidentâ seemed too difficult for the story planners: on the one hand, the United States of America Tourism Department might end up suing Capcom because of the implication that the American Presidentâs bodyguards are weak enough to allow him to be captured, which might increase the possibility of terrorism attempts; on the other hand, this is a Japanese videogame, and there is significantly less opportunity to show the presidentâs panties than there is to show the presidentâs daughterâs panties, because the president probably wouldnât be wearing a skirt, even on vacation.
Right from the start, the storytelling is hokey; the little secrets and somethings theyâre not telling us are either groaningly obvious or sighingly contrived. The âpresidentâs daughterâ could be a brilliant MacGuffin, though in order for that to happen, it would have to stay a MacGuffin. You rescue her, because the planners were eager to get a skirt on the screen, and the âreal plotâ begins. That a âreal plotâ exists at all is kind of &^#$#ed; in the end, all theyâre doing is giving Leon reasons to shoot beastly men in the head (or reasons to shoot them anywhere except the head), and each longwinded radio conversation screen functions something like a ten-minute cut-scene between world 2-4 and world 3-1 of Super Mario Bros., during which Super Mario meets a gnarly old man in the woods, eats sausages while discussing the meaning of life until sundown, and is eventually driven, on the old manâs bitching Harley, to the castle gates at World 3 under cover of midnight: thus, the sky being blue in World 2 and black in World 3. In other words, who the heck cares? In other words: donât you dare say to me that Resident Evil 4 is a silly action game, and the story âdoesnât matterâ. The simple fact that it has a story is confirmation enough, straight from the developersâ mouths, that they believed a story was necessary.
This weird, cautious self-importance manages to seep into the gameâs soil and poison its reservoir in the tiniest spots. The storyâs âchaptersâ are made up of large, ingenious interconnecting set-pieces teeming with the semi-undead; usually, to get from one section to another, you need to open up a few treasure boxes and find magic items â crests or whatever â to open doors. The first time I played this game, Iâm pretty sure I didnât ever once reach a door and find I didnât have the right items. Why have the items at all? Why advertise the gameâs genre as âSurvival Horrorâ on the box (yes, thatâs what the genre is listed as in the Japanese version), if itâs more of an âAdventure Horrorâ? Sure, âsurvivalâ in this case indicates that we must move forward at all costs, which means finding those crests, keys, or whatever. The menu screen is pretty nice â Diablo-like, space-based, kind of a mini-game in and of itself â though really, why have herbs and whatnot, anyway? This game lets you continue at the beginning of an area when you die, just like any old FPS. And death normally comes pretty suddenly, after a short burst of hard hits. Why not just have a Gears of War-esque ârun away, take cover, and waitâ healing system? I suppose that would be because the enemies arenât very smart, and running away from them isnât always difficult.
Letâs see how many more times we can mention Gears of War: how about the radio communication segments? Why does this have to take up the whole screen? Iâm sure that the little camera whirling around Leon as he detaches the radio from his belt and holds it up to his ear has become something of a gaming archetype in recent years, though really, letâs look at this, here. When the screen fades to the radio correspondence mode, Leon is holding the radio up to his ear. Yet now we see a video image of him. And we see a video image of whoever heâs talking to. Of course, as heâs holding the radio up to his ear, this means that the camera in front of Leon must be hovering on an invisible wire over his face, and that the image of his current conversation partner is kind of sitting against his cheek. At first, the gameâs eagerness to show you the radio is kind of understandable, because youâve never seen the person that Leon is going to be talking to, so they might as well show you. Eventually, though, little things stick out like gangrenous thumbs: why the hell is the name of the character speaking displayed above the (huge) subtitle window? There are obviously only two faces visible at any given time, and if we canât tell the difference between the two charactersâ voices, then itâs not our fault â itâs the storytellersâ. Why, in Gears of War, the main character only ever converses on the radio with someone heâs seen in person before, and even then, itâs only in voiceover. Sure, radio transmission also forces the main character to stick his finger in his ear and slow his trotting pace down to a crawl, though hey! At least it doesnât swamp up the whole hecking screen and make our trigger fingers itchy. Dead Rising did something kind of right smack in the middle of Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War, with the walkie-talkie banter being displayed only in text and requiring the main character to hold the walkie talkie up to his head powerlessly. Either Gears of War 2 or Resident Evil 5 will have fixed this Iâm guessing.
Either way, here it is, broken as can be, stinking up several parts of Resident Evil 4; the break-ins arenât as frequent as in, say, Metal Gear Solid 3, though I dare say that they are also not one-tenth as well-written.
And here I will also compliment Resident Evil 4, by saying that even though the interruptions are not frequent, they are terribly painful, because I want to continue playing the game.
And now I will frown: the voice acting, as per Capcom, is pretty bone-chillingly atrocious, which may or may not have been for âcampâ value, or maybe not. If the bad voice-acting, the stuffty story, and the weird inconsistencies like the radio-screen video-image paradox are, in any way, ever confirmed to be throwbacks, elbow-nudges, or send-ups of other âvideogame clichesâ, then I will be boarding an airplane with a pair of ceramic brass knuckles in my carry-on baggage, I swear. Resident Evil is already a send-up of horror movie cliches, now made thrilling because Iâm in control of the action. We donât need âironicâ videogame references stuffting in the game design gene pool, please.
If you read the internet (Protip: Youâre doing so right now), you might have seen a story with âOMGâ in the headline, which detailed the censorship of the Japanese version of this game. The censorship is not new news; the previous Gamecube and PlayStation 2 versions were censored in exactly the same way. Namely, thereâs no blood (none, of any kind, at all, et cetera) and the satisfying, explosive pop-splash of shooting a man in the head is deleted in favor of making every single location on an enemyâs body cause the same amount of damage when shot. Yes, this means you can shoot an enemy in the head five or six times in a row. Yes, this kind of breaks the game as the story starts to develop. Capcom is a fan of doing this to their games on both sides of every ocean: here in Japan, for example, where the content rating system consists of four ratings that are not âenforcedâ (A (all ages), B (12-13), C (13-17), D (17 and up)) and one rating that is âenforcedâ (Z (ages 18 and up only)), companies like Capcom are left with no other choice than to cast a vote of no-confidence in the system, and censor their games out of âsocial responsibilityâ. The simplest way of looking at it is this: the ratings board is stating from the start that none of their ratings matter except the one that does, so why should retailers trust the one rating that does, if the board is admitting that all of the other ratings are bullstuff? And, ironically, as with anything containing âmatureâ content (blood, alcohol, cigarettes, sex, income taxes), games like Resident Evil 4 are mostly popular amongst snot-nosed twelve-year-olds, anyway. Itâs a shame, then, that the censorship practices have to kind of break the game â not as bad as in the US release of Monster Hunter, though, where the blood was removed because the enemiesâ similarities to animals elevated the game to something of an animal-cruelty simulator, which is not to be chuckled at in this time of hooker-killing-simulators. Unfortunately, blood was also the gameâs indicator of when you were hitting an enemy in the right spot (Monster Hunter keeps numbers out of the gameplay), so the game was essentially broken.
Itâs a weird culture-clash, I tell you. The best solution, probably, is to just leave the games how they are intended to be, and everyone will be happy. Iâll be damned if the mere sight of a realistic man pointing a gun at a realistic man-monster wasnât enough to cause an actual girl who dresses mostly in pink to avert her eyes from the screen. Should she keep her eyes on the screen after the âbangâ, even she would raise critical questions about the absence of blood.
Like Ninja Gaiden on the PlayStation 3, Resident Evil 4 is getting a somewhat-deserved second wind on the Wii. Itâs a breezy game despite its heavy subject matter, and despite the intrusion of some nasty game design archetypes and some groan-worthy narrative choices, it has exceptional flow, some awesome bosses, and tons of visceral crunch. The Wii version is the best version available, and Iâm trying real hard to not mention how heart-breaking it is that the game canât display in at least 720p resolutions, or how I wish Gears of War could use this control scheme, because hey, these things just arenât possible. You have to make do with what you have.
Iâve saved the best for last: you know those brain-dead quick-timer events in the Gamecube and PlayStation 2 versions, where you have to press a button quickly in order to make Leon cinematically avoid chains of certain perils? If you answered âYes, thatâs one of the dumbest trends in videogames todayâ, then youâre correct. Theyâre all gone in the Wii version â kind of. Rather than press buttons in time, all you have to do for every quick-timer event is shake the controller from side to side as vigorously as possible. Even long, elaborate sequences require no more than a vigorous controller shaking. I was prepared to call this the worst part of the game, and bemoan it as the lamest possible forced implementation of the Wii motion controls. I was going to say that, in a game where the motion controls are used so maturely and cleanly, they really didnât have to put this in here. That was until I figured out the secret â you donât have to shake the controller side-to-side. No, no, if youâre a man, you already know the best way to grip the controller. I tell you, I was sitting here in the middle of the night, window open, cool spring breeze wafting in, jerking this Wiimote like it was a pretty plastic penis, and there, on the screen in front of me, not some hot babe engaged in pornographic pleasure â no, it was Leon S. Kennedy running toward the screen, huffing and puffing, a boulder hot on his heels. There was a sudden, electric disconnect between Leonâs huffing and puffing and the jacking-off-like motion of my hand on the Wiimote, and a big spark jumped up in my throat and I had what was probably the best laugh Iâve had in months. Of course, I thought, of course. Thank you, Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, for making that perfectly clear to me. Iâd been on the fence about it for years.
â â ââ
âDANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO 'THE NEW RETRO'.â
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Biohazard (Resident Evil) 4 to the âFive years or less away from being considered âRetro Gaming'â club. The third version of this game (after the Gamecube original and the PlayStation 2 port) is for the Nintendo Wii, and the inclusion of precise, snappy motion controls simultaneously perfects the beautiful skeleton thatâs existed for three years and exposes all the tiniest flaws to new scrutiny.
First, know this: if you or someone you trust has recently expressed doubts about playing Resident Evil 4 on the Nintendo Wii because youâre ânot sure how the motion controls could add anything to the experienceâ, or maybe because youâve âplayed that Red Steel (1/2*) game, and boy that sucked assâ, you need to wake up and smell the wrong and/or get the heck over yourself. Motion controls make this game control perfectly. I do not use that word lightly: perfectly. If you want to shoot a zombie in the head, you point the remote at his head and you press the B button (on the bottom of the remote) to command Leon S. Kennedy to whip out his firearm and aim it right at that nasty Hispanic cranium, and then you press the Action Button to fire the shot. Some will puzzle about this game, and declare with a weird degree of mouth-breathing fetishism that they need not possess in order to continue living that this game was perfect with the Nintendo Gamecube controller so theyâll only buy the Wii version for its true 16:9 video output, and only if you can play it with the Gamecube controller. Really, though, this isnât Zelda, with motion controls shoehorned in cutely: this is a game about shooting mobs of deranged men in the head in rapid succession, and the point-and-shoot interface here is about as good as it gets. If youâd rather consider holding a big pillowy shoulder button down and moving an analog stick to aim âperfectâ, be my guest, and be also wrong. Youâre probably the kind of person who wanted a dual-analog-stick control scheme in Metroid Prime, because the auto-lock thing is âso fakeâ and âfor babiesâ. Yeah, Iâm sure the boys in the foxholes in World War I enjoyed drawing figure-eights against the starry skies of Germany with their gun muzzles.
Wii remote aiming is visceral and weirdly real; it feels like a lightgun shooter felt before you were too mature to realize how vapid Duck Hunt was â and itâs deep, because youâre controlling the characterâs movement, as well. The sound of a spent shotgun cartridge hitting a wooden floor echoing out of the speaker in the middle of the videogame controller in your hands is worth the price admission to anyone with a Shadow of the Colossus limited-edition print poster on his wall. Pointing, aiming and shooting with the Wii remote is unabashedly fantastic stuff. No, itâs nothing like aiming with a mouse and a keyboard. Itâs not that tacky. It feels real â you aim, you shoot. Moving Leon with the nunchuk is pretty smooth as well. Sometimes the position of the nunchuk shifts around in my hand so that Iâm holding it a little funny, and I accidentally press it to the left or right when I mean to go up, though I guess thatâs my fault for not knowing the palms of my own hands very well, or my fault (again) for not buying the rubber sweat-grip-thing for the nunchuk, or even Nintendoâs fault for not making the nunchuk out of a surface more conducive to gripping ecstatically while hip-deep in the semi-undead.
If pressed to mention a negative aspect of the Wii remote controls, Iâd have to say that the lack of an option to turn the aiming reticle off is kind of stupid. I mean, itâs so intuitive as-is. You know when youâre pointing at a zombieâs head, because you can see the remote pointing at the television. Hell, the remote even thumps in your hand when you aim the gun at an enemy. Why canât we rely completely on the tactile feedback? Wouldnât that add a neat little element of challenge? Instead, thereâs the aiming reticle, crowding up the screen. Hey, at least itâs not as bad as the enormous HUD in Zelda: Twilight Princess.
And thatâs about it. As the old saying goes, it takes only one blinged-out young man with diamond-encrusted platinum teeth (we call those âice teethâ) to steal a tricky ho off an old playah, and Gears of War has long held Resident Evil 4 over its thigh and spanked the ever-loving stuff out of it. If the game industry were working correctly (Protip: itâs kind of not), this is how it would be for the next couple of years: game A revolutionizes a genre, and then game B arrives, taking the revolution into account, while marrying the genre back into the family where it belongs and rendering game A pretty much irrelevant. Gears of War has perfected the Resident Evil 4 formula: the challenges are faster and the enemies are more thrilling to kill. The set-pieces are simple and more honest; in Gears of War, climbing up a staircase into a mansion feels meatier and more meaningful than the original Resident Evilâs entire zombie-infested mansion. After Gears of War, Resident Evil 4 feels more like a frequently-interrupted stroll through some rustic horror film scenery.
Dead or Alive producer Tomonobu Itagaki once somewhat-famously quipped, of Resident Evil 4, that though he appreciated the game for its integration of concepts, he couldnât exactly stand playing it for too long because of how the main character had to stop and stand in place every time he fired his pistol. âWhat kind of man stops to fire a pistol?â asked Itagaki, to the fist-pumping, aww-yeahing, and hilarity of much of the internet. The truth is, a man who doesnât want to throw his back out is the kind of man who stops to fire a pistol. Though you know what? I can let Itagakiâs ignorance slide; heâs obviously the kind of man who learned everything he needs to know about real life from Contra III: The Alien Wars. He knows what this world is about: brawny men hefting two-ton beef-cannons and strut-rushing into the collective face of the red-fleshed alien bitch-menace. And you know what else? Maybe heâs kind of right. Thereâs a certain avant-garde love to be found in this recent art-like obsession with detailing, in fiction of whatever format, the real-life-like reactions of ordinary people to fantastic situations. Weâre a couple half-decades away from âsummer blockbusterâ being synonymous with a film about a labcoat-wearing scientist defeating a Hummer full of werewolves with a champagne glass full of orange Skittles.
Either way, why not let Leon move when heâs firing his gun? Really? The situation around him is already pretty hecked-up; disbelief all over the place is going to be suspended through the roof. Weâve got hundreds of psychic Spanish-speakers sharing a half a dozen faces, starting fires and brandishing pitchforks, over here. Leon is able to pause the action whenever he wants, and eat one of many green herbs that he finds conveniently lying all over the place. Why stay dead-realistic about the gun aiming, then? Iâm not asking for rocket shoes and X-ray vision or anything. In fact, I could hardly even care less about being able to walk and shoot simultaneously. Iâm sure it would be nice, though, really, Iâve played this game before, and I think I can handle it.
âIâve played this game before, and I think I can handle itâ. Thatâs a pretty meek way of putting it, though hey. There you go.
What other game-design misdemeanors do we put up with in the name of âenjoyingâ a âclassicâ? How about the completely, terribly bullstuff story? Resident Evil 4âs story is pretty bad. Sorry to have to break it to you, kiddo. Does its story have to be good? I guess not; Super Mario Bros. had a lame-ass story about a guy rescuing the princess of a fungus fairyland from a turtle-dragon, though it manages to ascend to the status of almost art because it carries itself with noblest distinction.
Resident Evil 4 is not so noble. Itâs lazy, in fact: it begins with a man named Leon S. Kennedy, who once fought zombies on his first day as a police officer (because a rookie cop was a good choice for a main character of a game (Resident Evil 2) set during a zombie outbreak in a small town), now on his way to a city in a Spanish-speaking country the name of which was omitted because Capcom Japan feared legal action from a tourism department or two, to rescue the presidentâs daughter from an unknown organization with unknown demands. âThe presidentâs daughterâ is the primary goal of this mission at the start because âThe presidentâ seemed too difficult for the story planners: on the one hand, the United States of America Tourism Department might end up suing Capcom because of the implication that the American Presidentâs bodyguards are weak enough to allow him to be captured, which might increase the possibility of terrorism attempts; on the other hand, this is a Japanese videogame, and there is significantly less opportunity to show the presidentâs panties than there is to show the presidentâs daughterâs panties, because the president probably wouldnât be wearing a skirt, even on vacation.
Right from the start, the storytelling is hokey; the little secrets and somethings theyâre not telling us are either groaningly obvious or sighingly contrived. The âpresidentâs daughterâ could be a brilliant MacGuffin, though in order for that to happen, it would have to stay a MacGuffin. You rescue her, because the planners were eager to get a skirt on the screen, and the âreal plotâ begins. That a âreal plotâ exists at all is kind of &^#$#ed; in the end, all theyâre doing is giving Leon reasons to shoot beastly men in the head (or reasons to shoot them anywhere except the head), and each longwinded radio conversation screen functions something like a ten-minute cut-scene between world 2-4 and world 3-1 of Super Mario Bros., during which Super Mario meets a gnarly old man in the woods, eats sausages while discussing the meaning of life until sundown, and is eventually driven, on the old manâs bitching Harley, to the castle gates at World 3 under cover of midnight: thus, the sky being blue in World 2 and black in World 3. In other words, who the heck cares? In other words: donât you dare say to me that Resident Evil 4 is a silly action game, and the story âdoesnât matterâ. The simple fact that it has a story is confirmation enough, straight from the developersâ mouths, that they believed a story was necessary.
This weird, cautious self-importance manages to seep into the gameâs soil and poison its reservoir in the tiniest spots. The storyâs âchaptersâ are made up of large, ingenious interconnecting set-pieces teeming with the semi-undead; usually, to get from one section to another, you need to open up a few treasure boxes and find magic items â crests or whatever â to open doors. The first time I played this game, Iâm pretty sure I didnât ever once reach a door and find I didnât have the right items. Why have the items at all? Why advertise the gameâs genre as âSurvival Horrorâ on the box (yes, thatâs what the genre is listed as in the Japanese version), if itâs more of an âAdventure Horrorâ? Sure, âsurvivalâ in this case indicates that we must move forward at all costs, which means finding those crests, keys, or whatever. The menu screen is pretty nice â Diablo-like, space-based, kind of a mini-game in and of itself â though really, why have herbs and whatnot, anyway? This game lets you continue at the beginning of an area when you die, just like any old FPS. And death normally comes pretty suddenly, after a short burst of hard hits. Why not just have a Gears of War-esque ârun away, take cover, and waitâ healing system? I suppose that would be because the enemies arenât very smart, and running away from them isnât always difficult.
Letâs see how many more times we can mention Gears of War: how about the radio communication segments? Why does this have to take up the whole screen? Iâm sure that the little camera whirling around Leon as he detaches the radio from his belt and holds it up to his ear has become something of a gaming archetype in recent years, though really, letâs look at this, here. When the screen fades to the radio correspondence mode, Leon is holding the radio up to his ear. Yet now we see a video image of him. And we see a video image of whoever heâs talking to. Of course, as heâs holding the radio up to his ear, this means that the camera in front of Leon must be hovering on an invisible wire over his face, and that the image of his current conversation partner is kind of sitting against his cheek. At first, the gameâs eagerness to show you the radio is kind of understandable, because youâve never seen the person that Leon is going to be talking to, so they might as well show you. Eventually, though, little things stick out like gangrenous thumbs: why the hell is the name of the character speaking displayed above the (huge) subtitle window? There are obviously only two faces visible at any given time, and if we canât tell the difference between the two charactersâ voices, then itâs not our fault â itâs the storytellersâ. Why, in Gears of War, the main character only ever converses on the radio with someone heâs seen in person before, and even then, itâs only in voiceover. Sure, radio transmission also forces the main character to stick his finger in his ear and slow his trotting pace down to a crawl, though hey! At least it doesnât swamp up the whole hecking screen and make our trigger fingers itchy. Dead Rising did something kind of right smack in the middle of Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War, with the walkie-talkie banter being displayed only in text and requiring the main character to hold the walkie talkie up to his head powerlessly. Either Gears of War 2 or Resident Evil 5 will have fixed this Iâm guessing.
Either way, here it is, broken as can be, stinking up several parts of Resident Evil 4; the break-ins arenât as frequent as in, say, Metal Gear Solid 3, though I dare say that they are also not one-tenth as well-written.
And here I will also compliment Resident Evil 4, by saying that even though the interruptions are not frequent, they are terribly painful, because I want to continue playing the game.
And now I will frown: the voice acting, as per Capcom, is pretty bone-chillingly atrocious, which may or may not have been for âcampâ value, or maybe not. If the bad voice-acting, the stuffty story, and the weird inconsistencies like the radio-screen video-image paradox are, in any way, ever confirmed to be throwbacks, elbow-nudges, or send-ups of other âvideogame clichesâ, then I will be boarding an airplane with a pair of ceramic brass knuckles in my carry-on baggage, I swear. Resident Evil is already a send-up of horror movie cliches, now made thrilling because Iâm in control of the action. We donât need âironicâ videogame references stuffting in the game design gene pool, please.
If you read the internet (Protip: Youâre doing so right now), you might have seen a story with âOMGâ in the headline, which detailed the censorship of the Japanese version of this game. The censorship is not new news; the previous Gamecube and PlayStation 2 versions were censored in exactly the same way. Namely, thereâs no blood (none, of any kind, at all, et cetera) and the satisfying, explosive pop-splash of shooting a man in the head is deleted in favor of making every single location on an enemyâs body cause the same amount of damage when shot. Yes, this means you can shoot an enemy in the head five or six times in a row. Yes, this kind of breaks the game as the story starts to develop. Capcom is a fan of doing this to their games on both sides of every ocean: here in Japan, for example, where the content rating system consists of four ratings that are not âenforcedâ (A (all ages), B (12-13), C (13-17), D (17 and up)) and one rating that is âenforcedâ (Z (ages 18 and up only)), companies like Capcom are left with no other choice than to cast a vote of no-confidence in the system, and censor their games out of âsocial responsibilityâ. The simplest way of looking at it is this: the ratings board is stating from the start that none of their ratings matter except the one that does, so why should retailers trust the one rating that does, if the board is admitting that all of the other ratings are bullstuff? And, ironically, as with anything containing âmatureâ content (blood, alcohol, cigarettes, sex, income taxes), games like Resident Evil 4 are mostly popular amongst snot-nosed twelve-year-olds, anyway. Itâs a shame, then, that the censorship practices have to kind of break the game â not as bad as in the US release of Monster Hunter, though, where the blood was removed because the enemiesâ similarities to animals elevated the game to something of an animal-cruelty simulator, which is not to be chuckled at in this time of hooker-killing-simulators. Unfortunately, blood was also the gameâs indicator of when you were hitting an enemy in the right spot (Monster Hunter keeps numbers out of the gameplay), so the game was essentially broken.
Itâs a weird culture-clash, I tell you. The best solution, probably, is to just leave the games how they are intended to be, and everyone will be happy. Iâll be damned if the mere sight of a realistic man pointing a gun at a realistic man-monster wasnât enough to cause an actual girl who dresses mostly in pink to avert her eyes from the screen. Should she keep her eyes on the screen after the âbangâ, even she would raise critical questions about the absence of blood.
Like Ninja Gaiden on the PlayStation 3, Resident Evil 4 is getting a somewhat-deserved second wind on the Wii. Itâs a breezy game despite its heavy subject matter, and despite the intrusion of some nasty game design archetypes and some groan-worthy narrative choices, it has exceptional flow, some awesome bosses, and tons of visceral crunch. The Wii version is the best version available, and Iâm trying real hard to not mention how heart-breaking it is that the game canât display in at least 720p resolutions, or how I wish Gears of War could use this control scheme, because hey, these things just arenât possible. You have to make do with what you have.
Iâve saved the best for last: you know those brain-dead quick-timer events in the Gamecube and PlayStation 2 versions, where you have to press a button quickly in order to make Leon cinematically avoid chains of certain perils? If you answered âYes, thatâs one of the dumbest trends in videogames todayâ, then youâre correct. Theyâre all gone in the Wii version â kind of. Rather than press buttons in time, all you have to do for every quick-timer event is shake the controller from side to side as vigorously as possible. Even long, elaborate sequences require no more than a vigorous controller shaking. I was prepared to call this the worst part of the game, and bemoan it as the lamest possible forced implementation of the Wii motion controls. I was going to say that, in a game where the motion controls are used so maturely and cleanly, they really didnât have to put this in here. That was until I figured out the secret â you donât have to shake the controller side-to-side. No, no, if youâre a man, you already know the best way to grip the controller. I tell you, I was sitting here in the middle of the night, window open, cool spring breeze wafting in, jerking this Wiimote like it was a pretty plastic penis, and there, on the screen in front of me, not some hot babe engaged in pornographic pleasure â no, it was Leon S. Kennedy running toward the screen, huffing and puffing, a boulder hot on his heels. There was a sudden, electric disconnect between Leonâs huffing and puffing and the jacking-off-like motion of my hand on the Wiimote, and a big spark jumped up in my throat and I had what was probably the best laugh Iâve had in months. Of course, I thought, of course. Thank you, Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, for making that perfectly clear to me. Iâd been on the fence about it for years.