NintendoÂ’s Gamecube has been languishing in mediocrity and franchises ever since it was released several years ago. It has needed a cutting edge, mature, exclusive game for a long time, and Capcom thankfully delivers with Resident Evil 4. The newest entry in the venerable survival horror series, Resident Evil 4 is a welcomed departure from the usual kiddy fare Gamecube offers.

Resident Evil 4 mostly succeeds because it’s so unlike the past “Resident Evil” games. The problematic controls and limited camera angles that have plagued every installment have been completely redone; the backgrounds are no longer pre-rendered, instead rendered in 3-D, and the camera follows the player with an over-the-shoulder view, much like in Max Payne.

The inventory system has also been improved. In previous “Resident Evil” games, you were given a very limited amount of room to store weapons, ammo, and keys. “Resident Evil 4” lets you hold almost every item you’ll ever need, and it lets you hold unlimited puzzle pieces, treasures, and keys. As a matter of fact, there’s so much inventory space, that the infamous “inventory box”—the item storage bin that was always so inconvenient to manage in previous games—doesn’t even exist in “Resident Evil 4.”

There are many other improvements as well. Numerous save-points abound, so that you’ll be able to save every twenty or thirty minutes. Similar to “Halo”, checkpoints have been implemented, which makes dying much less frustrating. And, taking a nod from RPGs, you collect money throughout “Resident Evil 4”, allowing you to buy and upgrade weapons.

The streamlined improvements of “Resident Evil 4” are important because they complement the gameplay so well. If the interface hadn’t substantially improved over its predecessors, “Resident Evil 4” wouldn’t succeed as brilliantly as it does.

“Resident Evil 4” is like a continuous stream of the best action sequences from movies put into a videogame. Within the first ten minutes, your character, Leon Kennedy, has to fight off dozens of diseased inhabitants of a small European town where the President’s daughter has been kidnapped. And for the next twenty hours—by far the longest length of any “Resident Evil” game—the action never lets up. While this could have been monotonous, fighting enemy after enemy, the pacing is quick and changing, never using the same enemy too many times, and always introducing a new weapon just as an old one is becoming tiresome.

The graphics are the best the Gamecube has to offer. Everything in the game—the characters, the interiors, the weapons, the buildings—is accented by an outstanding lighting system, where shadows respond realistically to muzzle flashes, torches, and flashlights. The outdoor environments are expansive and the indoor environments unique and well-decorated. The character’s faces are the most detailed of any current console game.

“Resident Evil 4” falters in its plot and voice-acting, but this certainly doesn’t detract from the action in any way. “Resident Evil” has acquired a reputation for campy, over-the-top acting, and “Resident Evil 4” is no different. But the excellent pacing and action of “Resident Evil 4” make it one of the best titles available on Gamecube.