acking body parts off zombies is now officially passé, according to the fourth game in the definitive survival-horror Resident Evil series, which eschews much of the series' Night of the Living Dead roots and trades the Midwestern Raccoon City for a dreary and remote European forest filled with ... let's just say not zombies. Returning from the second tale in the series, smooth-talking U.S. government agent Leon Kennedy has been dispatched to Europe on a secret solo mission to rescue the U.S. president's daughter, Ashley. Kidnapped by a sinister group, Ashley was last spotted in a secluded Spanish village, but just as quickly disappeared again.
Resident Evil 4 commences as Leon is driven by a pair of Spanish policia along a rutted backwoods road toward the village. Arriving at its periphery on the far side of a decaying wooden bridge, Leon exits the vehicle and approaches a dilapidated house. Inside, Leon encounters a man standing before a fireplace, burning something indistinct and muttering in guttural Spanish. When Leon approaches, the man suddenly attacks him with an ax. From outside can be heard the babble of men shouting in strained Spanish as they converge on the house ... and the game is officially afoot.
Visualize a room filled with security cameras. Previously, players guided the main character through pre-rendered rooms where these "virtual" cameras changed automatically, depending on the player's location. In Resident Evil 4, the environments are fully 3-D and a new control scheme positions the camera in free-float just behind Leon's right shoulder, facing forward. As Leon turns, the camera rolls with him, though the secondary joystick can be used to pan the camera 90 degrees in either direction. The right trigger levels Leon's gun, and a laser finder acts in lieu of a floating crosshair. The Z-button accesses the game map, the A and B buttons confirm or cancel actions respectively, and the left trigger now allows quick access to Leon's knife without demanding a trip to the inventory screen.
Items in the game are collected in an attaché case that can be expanded to increase its capacity. Several familiar pieces and techniques are still here, such as the ability to mix different herbs, and the extensive munitions list includes weapons that can be combined with stocks and scopes to increase their potency. These include 9mm guns and .223-caliber rifles, but extend to such unlikely tools of mass destruction as mine throwers and rocket launchers, and Leon can upgrade indices like firepower and reload speed as he accumulates money.
Psychologically immersive
As movie sequels go, higher numbers fare worse. Video games have the opposite problem, and some of the idiom's most historic releases have a 2 or 3 after their name. Add Resident Evil 4 to that list. This is simply the most magnificent interactive cinematic experience in years, bar none.
Let me be clear: This is Resident Evil reborn, akin to the tectonic shift Nintendo's Super Mario series took when it emerged on the Nintendo 64 back in 1996. The creaky "tank" interface that relied on difficult fixed perspectives and klutzy directional control to heighten tension has been replaced with controls that are, for the first time, graceful and intuitive, and which unlock a continuous free-form environment that is strikingly lifelike. Instead of shuttling players from room to room and going "Boo!" to riffs from Psycho, the game world now evolves at a decidedly more subtle pace that is more H.P. Lovecraft than George Romero, but in a way that maintains ties to the series' firm science-horror roots.
Benefiting most of all from the change is combat, which is here less about the weapon selected than how it's used and where it's pointed. Damage-mapping now allows weapons to affect enemies uniquely, so that players can, for instance, blast the legs out from under a rapidly advancing opponent, knock the weapon from an opponent's hands, or even shoot projectiles out of the air. The enemy AI is delightfully unnerving, adjusting dynamically to players' styles and evolving as the game progresses, and the traditional "boss" battles that occur at the end of stages will rightfully drop jaws all the way to the floor—these battles will go down in history as some of the most memorable and celebrated in the history of gaming.
Powering the shift to this fully realized slice of virtual turf is a stunning—but not overpowering—3-D engine. Up close, textures tend to blur and lack the sharpness available on systems with more memory, but this is compensated for by a consistent physics engine and spectacular special effects. The level of violence is accordingly disturbing, perhaps only rivaled by the latter sequences in Doom 3 (and even then edging the latter for grisly realism). We have yet to see a horror film that comes close to matching the splatter-fu on display here, and parents are well advised to heed the Mature 17+ rating.
Few games manage to be as visually and psychologically immersive as this one. It takes courage to jettison a system that—despite its flaws—won gamers' wallets sequel after sequel, and producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi deserves kudos for pushing the envelope. This isn't just a game to enjoy, but one to admire and keep admiring long after the first run-through.
Put it this way—Resident Evil 4 is "the best game that just missed 2004 by 11 days," and probably the best of 2005 as well. As good as Half Life 2 and Halo 2 are, this one leaves them both behind.
—Matt
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