Reviewed by CL on 3/22/2006
Resident Evil 4 is now my most favorite of all the Resident Evil games in the series. It is a true revolution which has so many new features that I can't even begin to start describing them all. The most notable is the fact that the shooting is now done from an over the shoulder perspective which greatly increases accuracy and drama. In the previous games, when you raised your weapon, it was still a third person view and you had to just guess at where your shots were going to land. Also, you could only aim down, straight, or up. In this game, you get to aim at any direction and every enemy has location specific damage. Another innovation is that all the guns can be upgraded and purchased from randomly scattered merchants. This adds a nice RPG feel. Speaking of feel of the game, this game seems to move the series away from the survival horror genre to more of an action adventure. In the original Resident Evil, you had to save every last bullet and green herb because there were barely enough to scrape by. But in this game, you can get away with being more liberal with you ammunition and healing. This makes the game a lot more fun because you don't have to worry about conservation so much and you can just have fun blasting things.
The game has great replay value with a whole new scenario to play, unlockable costumes and weapons, and a Mercenaries game (similar to the one in Resident Evil 3) once you beat the game once. It's great to play it a second time through with some of the ridiculously powerful unlockable weapons.
Once again, I feel that I can't do this great game justice with the few short paragraphs I have here. You really owe it to yourself to play Resident Evil 4, it is the best of the series by far and possibly one of the best games of this generation.
