Resident Evil 4

So I've been playing it a lot lately. Yes, I know I'm over a decade late. Whatever. It's pretty fun. In some ways, I'm reminded of Doom. Interesting and varied environments, cool monster designs, satisfying weapons, lots of gore, moody lighting. It's great. However, being that this was the first (I think?) RE game to put a lot of emphasis on action, there's something that bothers me about the fact that you

• Can't run and reload.
• Can't run and aim.
• Can't run and shoot.
• Can't run and change weapons.
• Can't sidestep. At all.
• Can't duck.

This kind of thing would be beyond unacceptable in a FPS setting, but RE4 is survival horror, so it gets a pass. But so many times I find myself wanting to pull off moves from Doom. Is this really a wise way to present 3rd person games with a fair bit of action? I also found RE4's story to be laughably stupid and/or boring. Hard to feel engaged. Still a blast to play though. Thoughts?

Here's the thing, though: RE5 and 6 gradually lift those restrictions on movement. In RE5, you can walk sideways (when not aiming), and in RE6, you can move while aiming, just not run. And yet, RE5 and 6 are almost universally considered worse than RE4.

WildWeasel said:

Here's the thing, though: RE5 and 6 gradually lift those restrictions on movement. In RE5, you can walk sideways (when not aiming), and in RE6, you can move while aiming, just not run. And yet, RE5 and 6 are almost universally considered worse than RE4.

it's true, RE6 is truly shit. i played co-op on it with my friend a few years ago, and it was just ugh. worse thing was that when we came back to play the game another time, i had forgotten what account i used for my character, so i was stuck playing through the last chapter of Leon's story with my starter weapons. they didn't even bother to give me an approximate amount of weapons and ammo for that point of the game, i got nothing. what a fucking flaw.

Doomhuntress said:

it's true, RE6 is truly shit.

Eh, I liked RE6.

Resident evil 4, now this was a fun but tense resident evil if one is susceptible to is creepy nature. I have it for the gamecube which had a fair amount of better image quality than the playstation 2. Interresting characers with more in them than your average zombie, but the stand still and shoot around part was a bit iritating.

One level which stuck with me was some kind of bunker.

I played resident evil 4, but I haven't played the others for more than a couple minutes at a friends house. A little less than halfway through the game I got much better at timing when to stop aiming and run. I got pretty comfortable with it, but it did get increasingly gamey when I was finding boxes of submachine gun rounds on the dining room table in a castle or shotgun shells inside destructible pottery.

I felt that it was weird that you literally traverse through every single remotely horror themed setting in one game.

There's the dark woods, deserted ghost towns, swamps, graveyards, medieval castles, caves, abandoned mines, mansions, dungeons, sewers, and weird hospital/science labs. I was only about a third of the way through the game before I started wondering when the hell this game was going to end.

Here's the thing, though: RE5 and 6 gradually lift those restrictions on movement. In RE5, you can walk sideways (when not aiming), and in RE6, you can move while aiming, just not run. And yet, RE5 and 6 are almost universally considered worse than RE4.

Correlation does not imply causation. Granted I haven't played RE4, but from watching people play RE5 I'd assume the long QTEs with instant death, awkward co-op mechanics and ridiculous plot were more likely to be the culprit than movement freedom (which nobody ever seems to complain about).

Turning a good (?) horror series into a bad action game doesn't mean action game mechanics are bad. Dead Space has all those movement features and people liked it pretty well as action-horror. Well, ok, once you cull out the tryhards who believe loudly asserting their manliness in not being scared will earn them internet points. Save for that, complaints had more to do with not *enough* control, actually (i.e. poor mouse acceleration).

RE5 is also an awesome game and got pretty good reviews. it's pretty much a sequel of RE4 gameplay-wise but with more focus on action. and the replayability is great due to different difficulty settings, speed ratings, unlockable extras/cheats and pileable equipment by playing levels again.

I friggin' loved RE4... Never played 5 or 6, though, but honestly, I didn't mind the controls. I played the Wii version, though, so the aiming mechanic more than made up for the stiff controls. But yeah, I appreciate the fact that if the controls had been done differently, the game would've been way too easy, and the only way to compensate would be to change the enemies so much that it wouldn't even be the same game. Honestly I think if you approach the game more like a light gun game with more freedom of movement, rather than treating it like a 3rd-person or FPS action game, it puts you much more in the proper mindset to approach the game.

I played the game when I was like, 10 or something and I had no idea it was a science fiction game, or that it had anything to do with Resident Evil DX on the PSX. I thought all the villagers were like, crazy possessed dudes or something.

Especially when the "Peter Pan" statue as I called it magically came to life and chased Leon around. Also,

40oz said:

I felt that it was weird that you literally traverse through every single remotely horror themed setting in one game.

There's the dark woods, deserted ghost towns, swamps, graveyards, medieval castles, caves, abandoned mines, mansions, dungeons, sewers, and weird hospital/science labs. I was only about a third of the way through the game before I started wondering when the hell this game was going to end.

This is literally and exactly how I felt about DooM 2, funnily enough.

I enjoyed RE4 and 5, I played the hell out of them. Beating them on professional was among some of my most challenging feats in a video game, plus, earning unlimited ammo added some replay value for me.

I hated RE6, I felt like alot of it was phoned in. The only parts I remotely enjoyed were hiding from the Ustanak. IMO, it really lacked the whole horror vibe and was more action oriented. Boo!

Ohhhhh fuck. Time to nerd-out over a series I've been onto since Day One.

Going to be honest here; gameplay-wise (by which I mean what you can do in-game in response to what's happening) I think RE6 genuinely shits all over RE5 and RE4.

RE4 is actually fine within itself, as the enemies don't run rings around you (or even come close to being able to do so) and it's impossible to find yourself 'unfairly' outmanoeuvred by something that just takes your head off and sends you to the YOU ARE DEAD screen (let's forget about Ashley's stupid suicidal ass for a moment here); it's usually because you've done something dumb, such as holding a horde of angry Spanish peasants/monks off in a tight location with a puny weapon, allowing Dr. Salvador/Garrador to just run on in while you're stuck reloading (and he murders you for it). For all intents and purposes, it's near enough the same familiar RE control scheme, just with a shiny new camera perspective (and what comes with it). And yet there were dickheads crying from atop the mountains, "you ruined muh RE!"

RE5 however can often leave you at the mercy of things which are far more mobile than the player (and which can occasionally just OHK you with it), which is something I consider to be artificial difficulty at times. I like challenge, and this game does have it, but shit like this is just not fun. Picture it. Fighting a load of Majini only for some cunt of an insect to appear out of fucking nowhere and ruin your shit, because Chris/Sheva (and anyone else in The Mercenaries) are stuck with the trait of lumbering around at a slower-than-suitable pace. Yeah you can sidestep, but only at a walking speed; hardly a useful application for something generally considered as a method of dodging incoming attacks. Then of course there's the weirdness of melee attacks being far more powerful than most of your firearms, relegating them to being mere tools to set up a series of uppercuts and kicks. First time I went through this game it left a hollow feel of disappointment thanks to all of the above, although recently replaying it did allow me to appreciate some of the finer things it introduced (actual co-op with another human being one of them -- it's so much better when your partner isn't an incompetent AI that keeps wasting every fucking box of ammo it finds).

TL;DR -- A game that gets unfairly bashed at times, but it's certainly got a share of teething problems with the further shift to even more action-oriented situations.


RE6 goes and rebalances this by giving you oh-so-much more freedom to do more than one thing at a time (move while aiming/reloading, various ways of moving, etc.), without making the enemies seem like a load of idiot dumbshits that have a chase/attack pattern even more predictable than our beloved Doom in the process (they're actually even more mobile and aggressive than in either of the above games). Melee attacks are still powerful, but you're no longer able to just bludgeon your way through everything because there's a stamina bar of sorts for such attacks. There's now a balance between knowing when it's safe to close in and literally kick the shit out of something, or to play it safe and carrying on putting a wall of lead between you and whatever the fuck's trying to eat your face. And in this game, getting cornered because you wanted to go punch something only to get tired and beaten to death is all your own fault.
Yet the game gets shat on for being 'dumbed down' and a load of other stuff which I can't quite understand. It's not perfect, but given the direction that things have gone with regards to a focus on action (which actually makes sense when you consider a fucking city full of zombies), would you rather be stuck with Ye Olde Tanke Controles while 50+ abominations leap and crawl at speed along every surface in sight? No, you probably wouldn't, unless you're a dumbass. The game's not shit, it's just that some people only know to start slapping their head and howling at the walls when confronted with change in a series. The same fucking retards that decried Doom 3 as a terrible shitty game shat from the arse of Beelzebub himself because it wasn't another Classic Doom game and they couldn't wallrun or SR50 over gaps, or some other bullshit reasoning.

One thing they all manage to get on my fucking tits with though is QTE dogshit. RE4 is easily the worst for this one in my experience, with one particular cutscene being a series of millisecond-timed button presses that go so far as to ruin the fucking scene itself because you're not watching what's going on or listening to the characters; you're waiting for that fucking A/B/L+R bastardry to flash up and you'd better fucking pray that you don't need to blink at that precise moment or you're FUCKED.

Story-wise, IDGAF when the gameplay manages to be engaging enough. The Resident Evil series has always been pretty ridiculous with the story (although it started off half-believable to a degree), and to say that the newer ones are ruining everything is stupid; don't even get me started on RE:0. That's one fucking ugly can of retcon worms.


(And before someone calls me an actionfag or some other retarded term, I practically know the classics inside-out and still play and love them to bits to this day. I've never really been against the progression of the series either though; there are only so many times you can run around a location solving puzzles while a frequent zombie or occasional mutant shambles around in your path after all (in my opinion, Code: Veronica is where the classic formula started to show severe signs of turning stale).)

And so ends my poorly-thought out essay on this trivial matter. I have too much time on my hands today.

RE4 was that tipping point when the series went from survival horror to action game. It was quite enjoyable, lots of options for upgrading equipment. Cultist killing galore and weird parasite shit.

QTE weren't too terrible. You'd get respawned less than 30 seconds from the QTE if you screwed it up. The one I could've done without was at the end.

RE5 was annoying at first. Then I learned I just could leave the AI with the pistol and upgrade the crap out of it. Then things got playable. It never misses so it never wastes ammo for a weapon which is plentiful.

RE6 I struggle to feel motivation to finish it. They tried to put more emphasis on the multiplayer aspect. I do like the chapter segmentation so it tells a broader narrative, but earning exp points for COD loadout perks is just silly. The game intuitively knows if you're low on ammo and will drop it for you. Which is nice, but ruins the survival resource management which partially remained intact for RE4 & RE5.

Resident Evil 1-3 and the REmake are all I care about.

Piper Maru said:

Resident Evil 1-3 and the REmake are all I care about.

Speaking of the classics, Code Veronica was pretty good.

Piper Maru said:

Resident Evil 1-3 and the REmake are all I care about.

Du Mhan Yhu said:

Speaking of the classics, Code Veronica was pretty good.

I don't normally jump on the "hurr teh clasiks r bettar" bandwagon, but when it comes to the RE games I must admit that I lost interest in the series when it went in a new direction with RE4. I'm happy that other people think it's a good game, but it wasn't for me. The RE4 vs. 5 vs. 6 debate is pretty meaningless to me.

I have enjoyed resident evils up until res6. I only managed to play it through once, mercenaries mode was more enjoyable with crossbow ada

.

Honestly, despite being more of an action game than its predecessors, I feel like RE4 really had some good scare moments thrown in. I really felt like a lot of people overlooked that fact in their criticisms of the game (yeah, I know on the whole, the game got tons of praise, but there were some naysayers who thought it was too different from the traditional Resident Evil formula). I mean, at the beginning there's that scene when the whole friggin' village attacks you until they're called away by the church bell (first time playing, I had no idea if the onslaught was ever gonna end, so that was pretty tense). You've got the big dude who transforms into the giant monster in the barn, the giants (OMG, died so many times in the first giant battle), and those weird slime monsters that would go all spiky and were almost impossible to kill (even if they were easier to kill, they still looked freaky as hell, but that combined with only having a very tiny vulnerable spot made them that much more terrifying). Oh yeah, and who could forget the boss fight with Salazar? Really just wanted to nope right out of there. And the first time a villager's head explodes only to reveal a giant centipede thing? I mean geez...

And yeah, the farther you get in the game, the better weapons you get, some of the tension goes away as you become able to just plow through hordes of enemies, but yeah, I really thought the game had some pretty damn tense moments.

Oh, the fish monster, how could I forget that?

EDIT: Oh, but screw Ashley... gave me friggin' flashbacks to Natalya in Goldeneye.

geekmarine said:

EDIT: Oh, but screw Ashley... gave me friggin' flashbacks to Natalya in Goldeneye.

"LEEEEOOOOOON!! *runs off to get taken away by men in robes*

BaronOfStuff said:

"LEEEEOOOOOON!! *runs off to get taken away by men in robes*

Jesus man, trigger warning!

The one thing tha bugs me is that, with all the previous titles before RE4 i'm actually pretty good at playing. RE1 Has and will always be my favourite one of the series. However, i absolutely suck at RE4.

I got too used to the tank controls it became second nature. Although the controls in RE4 aren't perfect, it was still miles ahead of the previous titles. Coming into this game with the experience i've gained with the series over the years, it really threw me off.

Some would say it would take time to get used to, or that it's in fact, way easier. But for some reason i just can't play it.

I suck at the aiming.
I can't dodge for shit.
With survival horror i've learnt to preserve ammo. This is something i didn't really need to do here.
I couldn't tackle the multitude of enemies in a strategic way and got my shit rekt.
I couldn't handle half the weird shit thrown into this game.

I really wanted to like it because it looked leaps ahead of the previous titles, but i couldn't get into it. It was a big change in the franchise and it was the moment i knew the old ways have moved on and i'll never see the pre-rendered, tank controls in a new RE again.

Du Mhan Yhu said:

Speaking of the classics, Code Veronica was pretty good.

I agree, it was not a bad game. Somethings about it though, had sort of upset me. let Wesker, just be dead. And the fact that he had remote activated Hunters, was also a bit silly, IMO. Nevertheless, I liked the game a lot.

Six said:

I really wanted to like it because it looked leaps ahead of the previous titles, but i couldn't get into it. It was a big change in the franchise and it was the moment i knew the old ways have moved on and i'll never see the pre-rendered, tank controls in a new RE again.

they've re-released the remake of the first RE game on Steam. and wasn't there a classic-styled RE game on a handheld console, i recall?

I tried playing RE4 a few months ago, but I just couldn't get into it.

Doomhuntress said:

they've re-released the remake of the first RE game on Steam. and wasn't there a classic-styled RE game on a handheld console, i recall?

If you're referring to Revelations, then nope. Great game though, especially if you have a mate to blast through Raid Mode with.

RE: Deadly Silence was essentially a re-release/re-tune of the original game for DS though. Does that count?

Kontra Kommando said:

I agree, [Code: Veronica] was not a bad game. Somethings about it though, had sort of upset me. let Wesker, just be dead. And the fact that he had remote activated Hunters, was also a bit silly, IMO. Nevertheless, I liked the game a lot.

Story-wise, this was what pretty much killed RE for me. Bringing Wesker back from the dead like that and then retconning it all to make it seem like he had some master plan... a master plan which involved getting the fucking contents of his torso splattered across the room thanks to a set of 4ft claws going straight through his ribcage. Regenerative capabilities or not, I don't think there would have been anything left of certain organs for them to fucking regenerate!

But hey, here I am over a decade later and I'm still buying main games because I'm admittedly somewhat attached to said (ridiculous) story and the characters. Ho-hum.

BaronOfStuff said:

Story-wise, this was what pretty much killed RE for me. Bringing Wesker back from the dead like that and then retconning it all to make it seem like he had some master plan... a master plan which involved getting the fucking contents of his torso splattered across the room thanks to a set of 4ft claws going straight through his ribcage. Regenerative capabilities or not, I don't think there would have been anything left of certain organs for them to fucking regenerate!

As much as I actually like RE5, I find it's much more entertaining to pretend that Wesker is actually Liquid Snake instead.

Doomhuntress said:

they've re-released the remake of the first RE game on Steam. and wasn't there a classic-styled RE game on a handheld console, i recall?

Sadly they're all just re-releases. More of a cash in than anything.

I crave a brand new game with the original set-ups the old titles had, but i don't have my hopes up, despite how successful the old games were.

well there is Revelations 2 now which is supposed to be more classic than the main series.