Horror game review: Resident Evil 4 HD (2011)

in #gaming6 years ago

The game that I will be reviewing today is one which is quite near and dear to my heart. It also happened to be the turning point for the Resident Evil series and influenced a lot of what we see today in the action/horror genre, it's called Resident Evil 4 (HD edition). Resident Evil 4 is a Japanese dating sim game where you play as Donald Trump-San and try to find the best waifu survival/action/horror game that was developed and published by Capcom. The director of the game was Shinji Mikami, who'm you may know from his work on the first Resident Evil game as well as the first Dino Crisis game. Resident Evil 4 was originally released back in 2005 for the Playstation 2 and then saw release for pretty much every other console since then. 

Now, I'm sure a lot of you have played the original version of Resident Evil 4 at some point. It's hands down one of the biggest horror games to ever be made, and has influenced so many other games over the years that it's absolutely astounding. While I understand how people could dislike it since it departed so far from what we had previously gotten, I do think it was an amazing game. (Though it definitely was the start of a dark path for the next few Resident Evil games.) The pacing, story, gunplay, art design, puzzles and variety of creatures was just hands down well done. It totally revamped the survival/horror genre, and gave it a lung transplant basically with what it changed. Basically, I'm saying I'd be down to give a good old fashioned handjoe to this game in a back alley. But, would I do the same for this HD edition? 

The gameplay for Resident Evil 4 is quite simplified compared to most games we play today, yet it is done very gracefully and executed quite well. While the game shows its age a bit in regards to the gameplay, it's certainly nothing unpleasant and isn't a knock against the game at all. It keeps with the stop and shoot method of past Resident Evil games, though this time it's an over the shoulder camera view. There is no cover system to worry about, nor do you need to manage any abilities or combat maneuvers beyond melee combat from time to time. I actually don't mind this myself, as I've always thought the don't move and shoot combat system was very tension filled and worked well with horror games. 

With this iteration we had a huge change up with what we were up against as well. Instead of our typical T-virus zombies and other mutations caused by the different strains of the virus, we're going up against a group of depressed Spanish villages that have a bad case of eczema and just wanna go to church...Wait, that's not right cult of crazed villagers who wield weapons, talk, and of course are infected with a nasty parasite that can change them in horrific and dangerous ways. The enemies in this game were so different from the past games that it was just a crazy experience upon release. 

The game puts an emphasis on survival as you'll need to very carefully manage your ammo and combat strategies to stay alive. Sometimes, it's better to run past enemies instead of engaging them outright. Sometimes you'll need to lay down some well placed shots to shut your enemies down momentarily so you can run up and finish them hand to hand to conserve ammo and save some precious time. A lot of survival games these days don't put an emphasis on those types of things as much and don't really require you to actually manage your inventory well and pick and choose your fights. It was definitely a nice experience to play something again that does focus on that. 

Now, I'm not going to go too deep into the narrative points of the game or anything. You play as Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil  2, who is sent on a mission to rescue the presidents daughter. Beyond that, all I will say is that it tells a great story which is crafted well, with plenty of twists and turns. There is quite a bit of dreadful, dreary atmosphere to the game which works great and fits with the theme and tone. After you get about halfway into the game, the story shifts gears heavily and makes you change up your gameplay quite a bit to adapt and survive. I honestly think it was very innovative at the time it came out. The story, characters and atmosphere are just handled so well it's hard to top it. But, so far we've only really talked about the core of RE4, not the HD release specifically. So, lets get into that a bit. 

Now, I had hoped that some part of the gameplay would have been changed for this HD release, or perhaps some extra content would have been loaded in as a special feature. Whether that just be a new gun or a few new costumes added in, anything would have been welcome. Sadly, that was not the case and beyond the slightly modified graphics from the older version. I found this to be a bit surprising, honestly, since they're still asking $20 when not on sale for this HD release. All I can say is that I found this to be disappointing, and that I felt a bit let down. While there is plenty of content here, there's not anything extra compared to past released of this game. 

The graphical improvements, if you can call them that, are quite scarce as well. I wouldn't exactly call this an HD re-release considering that most of the graphics are in tact and unchanged from the original release. They've corrected color saturation and made things a bit more smooth along the edges. Honestly, that's about all there is. Certainly not enough to warrant the $20 price tag in combination with the lack of new content. While it's certainly some kind of improvement, it's just really not enough. At least for me personally anyways. 

The positive aspect of this re-release is that it has made it much easier to actually play the game. Having it ported over to the next gen consoles makes it much more widely available, versus having to pick up an old console as well as a physical copy of the game. Again, however, I don't think the "convenience fee" needs to have the price so steep. I purchased my copy of this game for right around $5 on sale, and for that price I can definitely recommend it just so you can play it. Especially so if you haven't actually ever jammed on it. 

If you already own a previous iteration of this game, then there isn't much of a reason for you to pick it up again unless you just want to be able to play it on your Playstation 4/Xbox One/Steam on PC, at least in my opinion. Nothing has been ruined with this port and there have been minor changes to improve it, but nothing with much substance. Resident Evil 4 itself is an amazing action horror game. But, it is quite old and would be more fairly priced at $5-10, even when not on sale. 

So, what is my overall opinion on this? Well, you'll have to find out NEXT TIME ON DRAGON BALL ZZZZZZZZZZ...Or, how about right now? I highly recommend you to try out Resident Evil 4 if you haven't already, but I wouldn't recommend you pick this version up unless it's got a big discount to its name. I'm pretty sure if you've been a fan of the older Resident Evil games, then you've already probably played this one and formed your own opinion. If you disagree that you enjoyed it, I'd honestly understand. It is quite the departure from the rest of the previous entries in the series. 

(Because, seriously, we wouldn't have the dumpster fire that is Resident Evil 6 if it wasn't for this game changing the path of the series. Even if this is a fucking rad game.) Though, I think for anyone who is younger who enjoyed games like Gears of War, Dead Space, Alan Wake, etc. I would tell you to try this out and see if you enjoy it, because there's probably a BIG chance that you'll find yourself loving it. 

So, yeah. Thanks for checking out my review. Hope you've enjoyed it! 


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Resident Evil 4 is precisely the point where I stopped caring about the series, because it went from 'cinematic survival horror experience' to 'action shooty-shoot boom-boom (now with 80% more escort mission!)'.

I've tried over the years, multiple times and on multiple systems, to enjoy RE 4, and it always fails. GameCube, Wii, PS2, none of it does anything except piss me off. I don't get whatever Resident Evil 4 was trying to do.

That's OK. I don't think it's a bad game, it's just not a game I like. This is clearly one of those times where I'm in the minority, and I don't think it's going too far to say Resident Evil 4 is why Capcom is still around today, with so many of its other franchise titles falling by the wayside.

Watching other people play it is a hoot, especially on speed runs where glitches are permitted. People who truly know what they're doing can take this game apart with such surgical precision it's like watching a combination vivisection and autopsy.

It's just not a fun game for me. Strange when you consider my opinion that Dead Space (which owes its very existence to the third-person, over-the-shoulder perspective Capcom pioneered with this title) is one of the finest horror games ever crafted, but there you have it.

I throw myself upon the mercy of the court! :)

Nah, that's a totally valid opinion to have, bro. I can understand why fans of the older games wouldn't dig this one. No one is going to get their pitchforks out and stab you in the ass with them or anything. I am curious though, do you still not care for the series now? Resident Evil 7 brought me back from the brink of hating the series after Resident Evil 6/Operation Raccoon City/Umbrella Corps, and with the HD RE 2 game coming soon I'm pretty hyped.

You say no one's going to do that, and yet the villagers in Resident Evil 4 are literally trying to do just that every time I play. Who's side are you on here, @deadspace? :D

I've not played Resident Evil 7, but from what I've seen of it, it seems Capcom would have been better served launching that as a new horror IP (like they did with Devil May Cry, which was also supposed to be an RE game when they started work on it) and abandoning the 'Resident Evil' name all together. It seems about as 'Resident Evil' to me as 'Silent Hill 4: The Room' felt like a 'Silent Hill' game.

Not gonna lie though, the footage from the RE2 reboot looks fan-friggin' tastic. :)

This game plays beautifully in VR using the oculus compatible fork of Dolphin.

Had no idea you could even play this on VR. Can't even imagine how crazy it would be, lol. Is there a way to get it to run on the Vive as well? I might need to harass talk my fiancee's brother into downloading it for his headset if so. I was gonna go visit him next weekend after my birthday so he could fix my computer (Keyboard died on my laptop, now I'm using a USB keyboard which sucks ass), so that would be something pretty fun I could do to pass the time.

Actually yes, now that I check, Dolphin VR supports Vive too. I wrote a guide for tweaking individual game settings to work ideally in it. The guide is for Metroid Prime but will show you your way around the relevant menus. The Gamecube version of Twilight Princess also works perfectly with almost no tweaking. Sadly, neither Mario Kart DD or 7 works properly, there's unfixable visual glitching.

Sweet, I bookmarked your guide. If I can talk him into downloading the game for me to play for a few hours while he fixes my laptop keyboard I'll make sure to bring it up and use it to alter the settings. (Well, I'll have him tweak them for me anyways since he won't let me touch his computer probably, lol.)

Also, my god, Mario Kart would actually be fucking nuts to play in VR. I would probably get sick as hell since I fall prey to motion sickness super easily. I can imagine people going ape shit for it though, hell, just look at how crazy people go for it as is on the 3DS/DS.

Congratulations @deadspace,
You and this post have been selected to be featured in this week’s Author Showcase. Thank you for creating outstanding gaming content and sharing it with Archdruid Gaming!

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