Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 (Japanese: バイオハザード４, Biohazard 4) is a survival horror video game produced by Capcom as a continuation of the Resident Evil series. It was released on the Nintendo GameCube on the 11th of January2005 in the US and on March the 18th, 2005 in Europe. While no official date has been announced, it is believed it will be released for the PlayStation 2 at the end of 2005.

Tagline: Evil Evolves.

Story

Set in 2004, some six years after the events in Resident Evil 2, Umbrella has finally been destroyed, as news spreads of its involvement in the viral outbreak in and following destruction of Racoon City the share prices of Umbrella fall. Encouraged by the U.S. Government they go bankrupt and discontinue research. The player takes control of U.S. Agent and former Raccoon City Police Department rookie Leon S. Kennedy as he is sent on a mission to Europe to rescue the president's abducted daughter, Ashley Graham. During his adventure, he meets Ada Wong, a secret agent who appeared to have died in Resident Evil 2; other characters also re-appear: Krauser, a character who was with Leon at college and thought to be dead, returns as an enemy, and Luis Sera, a researcher involved in the Los illuminados movement.

Gameplay

This installment is a radical departure from the formula of the series in that it contains no zombies. The human enemies in the game are called "Ganados" (Spanish for "livestock"). Much more intelligent and faster than the enemies from previous games, they are capable of wielding melee weapons and firearms and often use teamwork to attack the player. While a departure from the game series, the concept of "intelligent zombies" was previously covered in the original novel Resident Evil: Caliban Cove. These enemies are the result of the infestation of the Las Plagas, which was revived by the Salvazar family to re-pay the debt to the religion assosiated with the parasite; the Los Illuminados.

Resident Evil 4 also contains changes to the inventory, camera, and movement control systems of earlier games. The perspective is an over-the-shoulder view similar to Max Payne or Silent Hill, creating a more action-oriented, shooter-style atmosphere (and also a more cinematographically scary frame). Aiming is possible with the inclusion of a laser-pointer for every weapon minus the ones with scopes. A major selling factor is watching how shots in different areas of the enemies' bodies provide different effects, a huge change from the static combat of the previous iterations. Ammo is plentiful and weapons can continually be purchased with pesetas earned from killing enemies, similar to the system used in the Capcom's Dino Crisis 2.

A feature of RE4 is the dynamic cutscenes, in which you must hit certain buttons to protect the main character's life. This is also sometimes used in boss fights against one-hit kill attacks to give the player a fighting chance. Loading times are kept to a minimum, unlike the previous Resident Evil games where every room was another load screen. In RE4, the game only loads between areas denoted by green action text. An area may feature anything from a few buildings to a huge military base. Doors are manipulated by hitting 'action' next to them, after which the character either opens the door slowly and quietly or gives it a kick (which can send enemies to the ground) if you press action twice. It is a far cry from the slow movie of a door opening in the previous games. Cutscenes load almost instantaneously, keeping the pace consistent.

The graphics are fully three-dimensional, everything is rendered as part of the area loading process, a change from the pre-rendered backdrops of the previous games. A suprising amount of detail is in every scene with raindrops bouncing off of the chracter's shoulders, casings ejecting from the weapons, realistic flames and explosions and little additions such as dead leaves fluttering in the autumn wind. Amazingly the game keeps a steady fram rate even in the most action-packed sequences, a fact that many critics and gamers have praised.

Reaction

The GameCube version was released on January 11, 2005 with US sales exceeding 320,000 copies in the first 20 days. The PlayStation 2 port is projected for an October 11 release date[1]. As of May 2005, the game has sold over one million copies, already twice as much as its predecessors Resident Evil: Remake and Resident Evil Zero managed to sell their entire shelf lives.

The game has garnered widespread acclaim for its innovative new elements and great graphics, and is credited with yanking the shambling, near-archaic survival-horror genre out of its 32-bit roots once and for all. Though there some diehard fans who bemoan the changes, preferring the clumsy tank controls, static camera angles, brain-dead foes, and convoluted Umbrella plot, most have been converted by the re-invention. Moreover, this fourth iteration has made fans out of gamers who would not otherwise have given the Resident Evil series a second glance [2]. It has been considered by industry insiders and the gaming public as a top contender for 2005's Game of the Year.

GameCube exclusivity controversy

In September 2001, Capcom announced three exclusive Resident Evil titles for the GameCube: a remake of the original Resident Evil, Resident Evil Zero, and Resident Evil 4. This caused a stir among longtime Resident Evil fans who owned the series on PlayStation and PlayStation 2. In fact, Capcom had previously announced Resident Evil 4 for PlayStation 2, but it became Devil May Cry. In addition to that, Capcom announced earlier that year they would become a platform agnostic company, a videogame model that focuses on producing the same content for multiple systems. The move clearly went against what most people were expecting, which was for Resident Evil Zero to be on the GameCube and Resident Evil 4 to appear in some form on the PlayStation 2.

Many gamers believed Capcom would follow their actions with Resident Evil CODE: Veronica, which was originally marketed as a Sega Dreamcast exclusive but eventually made its to the PlayStation 2 (and GameCube) in the form of an enhanced version. The fan's beliefs were helped by the financial losses Capcom took in 2002 and 2003 due to lower sales of Resident Evil and Resident Evil Zero on GameCube, as well as high sales of Resident Evil Outbreak on PS2 (see next paragraph). Despite this, Capcom, especially Shinji Mikami, touted the three new games as GameCube exclusives. In an interview with a Japanese magazine, Mikami even claimed that he would "cut [his] head off" if Resident Evil 4 came to the PlayStation 2.

After the announcement of the exclusivity policy, Capcom still announced two Resident Evil titles for the PlayStation 2; Gun Survivor 4 (Resident Evil: Dead Aim) and Outbreak. Capcom's justification for these titles appearing on the PlayStation 2 was that they were side stories and such, were not subject to the GameCube policy.

However, on October 31, 2004, Capcom officially announced that Resident Evil 4 would come to PlayStation 2 at the end of 2005, citing increased profit, changing market conditions and increased consumer satisfaction as the key reasons. Resident Evil and Resident Evil Zero will remain GameCube exclusives. Similar to the fans' outrage in 2001, a vocal minority of GameCube fans were angered that Capcom had remitted three years worth of exclusivity promises. It is rumoured that the decision was made against Mikami's consent and was one of the factors which led to his departure from Capcom to Clover Studios.

Resident Evil 4 prototypes

• Platforms: PlayStation 2, GameCube

Resident Evil 4 went through three different incarnations during development, each with a different premise, before Mikami decided to take directorial charge of the project.

The first prototype was ironically enough considered too much of a departure from the normal Resident Evil style and was subsequently revamped and released as Devil May Cry.

The second and most well-known prototype of the game, known to the developers as the "Fog Version", featured Leon fighting against non-living objects such as armors, dolls and deer-heads turning to life, as a result of his infection with the Progenitor Virus (first introduced in the Resident Evil remake and in Resident Evil 0).

The third proposed version reportedly featured zombies as enemies again and would have depicted the events leading to Umbrella's shutdown, which is only alluded to in the released version. This prototype was short-lived and was rejected by the developers as too formulaic.

External links

• Official site
• GameTab reviews