Resident Evil : Resident Evil 4
System: Wii
Release date: January 11, 2005
Where to begin with RE4? It’s one of the most controversial titles in the series, marking the change between the old style and the new one, it’s one of the best-selling games of the Gamecube and Wii as well as being one of the highest rated game on both systems. Critics have said it’s the best game of the series and a milestone game for all future 3d action and shooter games. In essence it was the first to use well an over the shoulder perspective that would be used by games like Gears of Wars, Uncharted and the recent Batman games.
So while everyone seems to be in agreement that RE4 is one of the best game of the 2000 decade, there was some fanbois out there that felt and still feel that Resident Evil died with RE4. The dissent is caused by two factors. First, it’s not about zombies anymore. There are zombie-like creatures but they’re not real zombies and it pissed off a lot of people. Second, the game is not so much about conserving ammo and running away but now there’s a lot more emphasis on action and not everyone liked that.
I don’t agree with the fanbois that say RE4 is a bad game. I do agree however that it’s not really survival horror but more action horror. That’s not a bad thing in itself but I do feel sorta sad that the series who created survival horror moved away from it. It did create the 3d over the shoulder action game so I guess we did gain something.
Something about bugs
I took a long time to get to the story of the game itself because RE4 brought a lot to the game industry but its story itself felt a bit more like a side tale than a main event… although it did find echoes in RE5 and one of the animated movie.
The president daugther has been kidnapped and it’s up to Leon Kennedy to go rescue her in some god forgotten hole in Spain. The kidnappers are an occult cult that we will never hear from again and by the end of the game they’re all dead and the present daugther is rescued. The T-virus, nemesis, hunters and all the classic monsters are absent and if not for the presence of previous game characters one could think this has nothing to do with Resident Evil besides featuring a few monsters.
To truly get the story of this game, its importance and how it relates to the Resident Evil series you must have played the previous games and have a pretty firm grasp of the characters and their motivations, namely Albert Wesker.
It was established in previous games that one of the main failings of the T-virus and related monsters was a lack of control. Throughout the games, numerous experiments are done to try to have a monster that one can control with various degrees of success. The whole backstory of Code Veronica was about one such experiement and how Wesker attempted to get the information about it.
Which brings us to RE4. Wesker is still looking for means to control his monsters and the crazy spaniards have found a way it seems through a parasite they call Las Plagas. Said parasite can turn people into docile zombie like creatures that one can control with the right “master” parasite with the added bonus of creating freakish mutations kinda like the T-virus. So while the bad guys have no relation to Umbrella, they are sitting on something Wesker wants and he engineers the events to make sure he can get his hands on the parasite.
We will have to wait until RE5 to see what happens when you mix T-Virus and Las plagas but RE4 really acts as the starting point of a new story arc in the series.
I’m on a boat
Next is Resident Evil Revelations on the 3DS, a story about how derelict boats and freakish monsters always make a good mix.
