ESRB RATING: M
DEVELOPER: Capcom
PUBLISHER: Capcom
REVIEWER: A.D. Olson
DATE: 2007-09-08
GAMEPLAY REVIEW
Many of you played this a year or two ago on the GameCube or PS2, so you already know this, but I'll go over it again for the uninitiated. Resident Evil 4 takes place six years after Resident Evil 3. You play as Leon Kennedy, on assignment to rescue the president's daughter, Ashley Graham. Well, it turns out that Leon has worse luck than Jack Bauer through most of the game. You'll know what I mean when you play it... It kinda goes something like this: You find Ashley and rescue her. Ashley gets captured. You find her again and she's safe! Then she gets captured again! Oh, what happens next?! Luckily, predictable doesn't mean boring or not enjoyable.
Instead of zombies as in past Resident Evil games, you are facing people infected with a parasite, known as Las Plagas. The artificial intelligence used in them is fairly weak, but you do get snuck up on or surprise-attacked several times. The bosses all can be defeated easily once you figure out the strategy to use, but really, the somewhat easy difficulty level of this game does not detract from enjoyment whatsoever. In fact, if you find it too easy on your first play-through, there's always Professional mode to give you a run for your money.
The boss battles are a little unbalanced. There were a few of them that I died several times at, but then others, including the very last boss, were super easy and I was able to defeat on my first try. That's a good thing though, because I really hate it when I get to the last boss in a game and then it's super-impossible (Metroid Prime 1 and Knights of the Temple come to mind).
The one thing that I found missing, was the horror element. I wasn't scared at all while playing this game, which isn't a big deal to me since I generally don't like the horror genre. There was one exception, and that is when you sometimes bust open a crate and snake is waiting inside. After a half a second, it jumps out at you. In real life, I love snakes, but you sometimes can't tell that it's a snake on the screen until it jumps at you. Other than that, there wasn't too much tension, which is probably part of the reason that I enjoyed this game so much. I play games to relax and have a good time, not to be tense and get stressed out.
Throughout the game, you're going to find no real surprise twists and an overall weak story. However, Capcom has really proven that how great a game is lies in how much you enjoy actually playing it. When it was all over, which is somewhere between 20 and 25 hours if you carefully check every inch of every area, before playing the extra content, I was quite sad at the fact that Resident Evil 5 is not going to make it to the Wii platform.
Crave Factor: 10
GRAPHICS & ANIMATION
I'll start with the animation, because to me, it's top-notch. My wife looked at the screen several times and commented on how amazing it looked, and that she felt she was watching a movie. I agree, to a certain degree. It feels very cinematic, and very epic, largely due to the great animation of Leon and other characters. Sometimes the enemies are a little stiff, but hey, they are dealing with a parasitic infestation! What can you expect? Boss battles are fantastic, especially the battle you have while driving in the boat (sorry if that is a spoiler, but this game is two years old! Why haven't you played it yet?).
During the entire time that I played, I had mixed feelings about the graphics themselves. The environments look great and are very detailed, but I know for a fact that the Wii is more capable than this. I was a little disappointed that Capcom didn't at least include better resolution textures. That said, it's not very noticeable unless you get up-close to surfaces, and even then, some types of surfaces still look very good. At times, I found myself content with the graphics, and really. If even half of the Wii titles coming in the future had at least this much effort put in, maybe there wouldn't be so many people buying a second system just to have some decent-looking games to play (with last-generation control schemes).
There are lots of weapon upgrades and plenty of ammo laying around. If you ever run out of bullets, you are doing something wrong. Try actually aiming at the enemies before you bust off a dozen caps, and try to utilize your knife or kick ability whenever possible if you're really hurting on ammo inventory.
For anyone who worried about having blood replaced with rainbow happy sparkly confetti, like some other games, fear not. Capcom has left all of the gory bits in tact, decapitations included.
The cinematics in the main game are all rendered in real-time by the game engine, and show off what it can do - and it can do a lot. It looks great, and with some further tweaking to take advantage of the Wii hardware, it would easily please any Wii owner's thirst for prettiness.
Overall, the game looks fantastic, but when I let myself think about it, I still felt a little bit cheated because the GameCube pulled this off two years ago. At least to make up for this, the game was priced as a last-gen port should be (Ubisoft, take a lesson from Capcom, please).
Crave Factor: 8
MUSIC & SOUND
The sound in Resident Evil 4 is a very clear demonstration of how it should be done. Positional audio works very well on the Wii, despite the fact that Nintendo still opted out of using discrete surround sound channels. Plug your Wii into a good Dolby ProLogic II decoder to hear this game in all it's glory. Be sure to keep the remote nearby, because you're going to need the mute button once you get into a situation where Ashley is repeatedly calling out to Leon, which is the only real annoying part of the game. All of the other voice acting is great, and all of the sounds are great, and sounds the most authentic of any game I've played in recent memory.
I am also a fan of games that use music very effectively, which usually means that you don't even really realize it's there, but you would totally recognize it if you heard it out of context, and the game would feel very wrong without it. What Capcom has done with this game is created a musical score that fits very well and enhances the enjoyment and atmosphere of this game. It might make things a little predictable, and you can usually tell by the changes in the music when you're cleared an area. That isn't to say that there aren't surprises at all, but for the most part, you're going to have a bit of warning.
I am giving the audio for Resident Evil 4 a perfect score because together, the music, sound, and voice acting all worked very well together, and made for an extremely cinematic feel, beyond even the majority of movies I've seen Hollywood pump out lately.
Crave Factor: 10
CONTROLS
Since the launch of the Wii, it has been a rare treat to sit down and play a game with new controls that really redefine how we play games. This was the promise of the Wii since day one, and yet it hasn't been until now that a third-person game really delivered. But finally, Capcom made that happen, and it's a light year ahead of dual-analog sticks.
In fact, the controls are nearly perfect for this style of game. Everything from aiming, to the waggle controls, to the 180-degree turn feature - it all feels very good. Some people complain that you can't run-and-gun, but you can't really do that in real life either - not with any accuracy, anyhow. The only complaint I have is that the red laser aiming is missing. I am not a fan of reticles at all. However, it would be harder to control without a cursor on the screen, and so I can understand and accept the change. There is tactile feedback, and the green cursor turns red when it is over an enemy that you can shoot.
One standout feature that really helped make the controls great was the ability to do a quick 180-degree spin. To pull this off, you just press the Z button and pull back on the nunchuk thumbstick. It works very well and is practically required if you play on a higher difficulty level. To open doors, you tap the A button. But if that is too slow for you, you can just double-tap and bust it off it's hinges with a big kick square-on. It feels good, too.
Really, the controls of Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition are what separates and elevates it from Resident Evil 4 for GameCube or PS2. And yes, these controls are a big change, and it's for the good. But hey, if you hate the precision-aiming and would rather button-mash than arm-flail, you can always plug in a Classic Controller or GameCube controller and get your last-generation controller fix. And as an added bonus for being stuck in your ways and resistant to the revolution, you'd also get the red laser aiming feature back.
Crave Factor: 9
EXTRA VALUE-ADDED FEATURES
Right off the bat, you can view a high-quality trailer for Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, the upcoming Wii rails shooter game. And the game looks great. I was glad Capcom included this sneak peek on the disc, because I would rather see it on my TV, than a low-quality version on my PC.
Once you complete the game, you unlock several things. The Separate Ways mission set is a parallel story that you can play through as Ada Wong. There are some weapons in this portion of the game that Leon did not have access to, and it gives you a view of the story from a different perspective. This was absent from the GameCube version, and Capcom cleaned it up, graphically, for the Wii release. The gameplay here doesn't feel quite as tight and polished as the main game, but it's still impressive for an extra. Playing through the five Separate Ways missions also unlocks Ada's Report, which gives you more insight into the background of the story, and Ada's history with Wesker.
Also, if you save right after the end of the game, you can resume it to begin anew, but retaining any items and weapons that you ended the game with. You also unlock several new weapons and costumes, a new Professional difficulty level, as well as a cutscene movie browser. Furthermore, completing the game in Professional mode will unlock another weapon.
As you can see, there are tons of unlockable goodies, and the only reason I didn't give a full 10 out of 10 score here is because none of these extra features are exclusive or new to the Wii.
Crave Factor: 9
CONCLUSION
When all is said and done, an engaging story and realistic graphics are nice to have, but if you aren't having a good time, then you may as well be playing Chicken Shoot (which fails on all three fronts). Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition, on the other hand, does the gameplay so well that it more than makes up for any weaknesses in plot, along with those GameCube graphics.
Yes, this is yet another GameCube game re-made for the Wii. As much as you or I might hate it when companies do this, there's no denying that this is a great game - one of the best on the Wii yet. And at a budget price of $29.99, I don't know how you could pass it by on your search for expanding your Wii game collection. I can't wait for Umbrella Chronicles, and I hope that when Capcom sees the sales of both games, they re-evaluate their stance on future Resident Evil games for the Wii. We won't see Resident Evil 5, but there is a market for something more than an on-rails shooter and a re-make of a previous game. This engine is one of the best I've played on a Nintendo platform, and I hope Capcom makes extensive use of it.
Overall Crave Factor: 9 out of 10
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