Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube)

As the name might suggest this game is EVIL and it is the fourth in the series. This game is the breath of fresh air all previous Resident Evil games needed. This is the turning point in the series and one hell of a game. This game presents the player with a whole load of stuff such as gore, amazing graphics, things that are just wrong, and things that are so disgusting they will probably make you sick. This game is NOT for the squeamish.

Resident Evil 4 game is set in some weird village somewhere in europe. You are Leon Scott Kenedy, a police agent who is on a mission to save the president's daughter who has been kidnapped and is held in this unknown village. Upon your arrival you will notice that the village seems quiet, too quiet. After three minutes have passed and you have sort of gotten used to the controlls you will encounter your first enemy. Unlike the old Resi games there are no zombies here, eventhough they dont seem to die if you shoot them in the face. We cannot tell you what they are as that may sort of ruin the story so you'll just have to play through it to find out. Throughout the game you will journey through three major locations. The first is the village itself, next you will move onto a massive castle, and lastly you will be on an island. Your enemies will also change depending on the location you're in. In the village you will just get villagers with pitchforks and scythes chasing after you. In the castle you will get vampire looking bald monks and on the island you will encounter mutated and stronger villagers.

This game is all about fluidity and therefore handles much better than the older titles. The action is fast paced and thrilling. There is nothing more satisfying than blowing the head of a mad villager clean off his body. You have a knife in this game which you will probably only use for smashing boxes and crates open for items. The knife is not very effective against enemies as they will just run at you and bite your face. In various part of the game you will encounter a weird looking merchant who seems to be able to hold a rocket launcher in his coat pocket. This guy is very important. He is the one you buy and upgrade your weapons from. He also sells much needed items such as a larger suitcase so you can carry more guns and items and a kevlar (bullet proof) type jacket. As I mentioned earlier he also sells rocket launchers. Unfortunately you can only use them once and thats it, unless ofcourse you complete the game which allows you to buy a rocket launcher with UNLIMITED ammo. He sells sniper rifles, shotguns, handguns, you name it. He even sells a revolver which, if you look at its stats, is meant to be twice as powerful as your sniper rifle or shotgun. If you do buy or find this gun the only use it if you must as it is VERY hard to come across ammo for it. Furthermore you can upgrade your weapon's performance meaning you can increase it's reload rate, its ammo capacity, its power and so on. Think about what you need to upgrade because it does cost quite abit and you wont be able to afford it all as you will still have other weapons and items to buy. We would strongly advise you to upgrade your weapons' ammo capacity, then you will have to reload much less and if that gun currently has no ammo increasing the capacity will give you FREE ammo. Pretty clever that, what with us being the ones who came up with it and all.

Now when you start playing this you may notice that the visuals/graphics on this game are good. In fact you will start wondering if this game is really a gamecube game as the graphics are just too good for it. Well this IS a gamecube title and that shows you what the ol' cube is capable of. What really won us over graphics wise were the environments. These are just incredible and you can tell that a lot of work has gone into this game. Villages filled with decaying walls and ruined houses. Marshland filled with mist. This all looks gorgeous and combined with the creepy music this is sure to send chills down your spine. The sound efects on this are as great as the graphics. Ok maybe not THAT good, but they are still quality. When you are walking down a claustrophibic hallway with nothing but a faint light at the end to guide you, the last thing you want to be hearing are groaning noises followed by a repeated 'thud'. You turn around to see whats there and suddenly some mutation jumps on you trying to eat your face. The sound is there for no other reason than to create a creepier environment than the one youre already in and its done a hell of a good job with that. A small negative point though is that this game is not actually scary. Its scary in the way that there is some content in it which makes you think the developers were watching babies die when making this. By it not being scary we mean it's not very jumpy and you wont get many sudden attacks comming at you from the dark which will make you jump.

Tjis will be played as a third person title where the camera will move right behind Leon's shoulder when he takes aim. The game controls very simply. You move forwards and backwards and look left and right with the D pad and you hold the B button to run. The C stick is used for zooming in when using a sniper rifle. To take aim you hold the R button and fire your weapon with the A button. Simple. However here the aiming system differs slightly from other shooting games. Instead of having a crosshair your weapons will all have a laser. This will take about a minute to get used to as you will first feel that the laser is too far right. You can use your knife with the L button, but like we said you wont really be needing it that much.

One final thing you should know about this game is that it has bosses. These arent exactly frustratingly hard. In fact they arent exactly hard although that doesnt mean they dont put up a challenge. Here is where the game will make you question the developre's sanity. The bosses look putrid, well most of them. The least disgusting boss is a mercinary named Hack Krauser (our favourite character) who just grows and massive metal wing type thing from one of his arms. Appart from that the other bosses will usually be oversised and resemble bugs in some way. They will also spew up yellow slime or blood (we're not really sure what it is).

All in all this game is fluid, fast paced and the levels are beautiful and eeire especially with the great sound effects. This is was a horror survival game, but with a new formula it is more of horror action adventure game. This will definately appeal to Resi fans looking for something different and to sadistic manics who enjoy watching people slowly die.

Sound 9/10 - Creepy and engaging althouh it can be a little too quiet at times.

Graphics 10/10 - So far the best on the Gamecube. You wont believe this is a gamecube title.

Gameplay 10/10 - Fast paced and action packed, this game will gives you chills just by playing it.

Value 9/10 - Theres a good 20 hours of gameplay here plus when youi complete it you will unlock two new modes which are very fun and add to the longevity of the game.

Final Score: 9.6