Resident Evil 4, for me, is a couple of things; it is the first Resident Evil game I have ever played (although I did see both movies... har har), and it is without a doubt the best action-survival-horror game I have ever had the pleasure to experience. Yes, I know I'm a little late on this review as the game came out at the end of 2004, but I really wanted to take my time with the game, and also with this review.

I'm not exactly a veteran of the survivial horror genre, and as I said I have never played any other Resident Evil games before (but I have seen a few of them being played for short times). My background in this area comes from an earlier franchise known as "Alone in the Dark", which by all measures in my book are great games, albeit a little old-school and not quite as hardcore.

The biggest departure from previous RE titles to RE4 (that I have noticed) is the control/camera scheme. The older RE games I have seen have 3D environments with static cameras pre-placed which gives a feeling of limited mobility. This is certainly not the case with RE4, but I will get back to that.

Let me back up a bit... when I first heard about RE4, I wasn't particularly excited because I had never played a RE game, and that genre wasn't particularly my cup of tea. Then it was finally released (after many delays I understand) and it was garnering rave reviews from gaming websites and shackers alike. This peeked my interest a little, and one day walking through Target, I decided to pick it up. When reading a bit about the game, I found that the story was a new off-shoot utilizing one of the main characters from RE2, Leon Kennedy. The story wasn't based on the Umbrella Corporation which I knew of from the movies, or even the typical zombie phenomenon. Apparently there were throwbacks to previous RE games in smaller elements of the story, but in whole this was a new plot. I was very happy about this because after I read IGN's *massive* Resident Evil plot summary, I was thoroughly confused. This way I could break into the game knowing very little about past characters/plots and not be confused as the story unfolded.

The game starts off with a pretty nice opening cinematic explaining a little about what happened to the infamous Umbrella Corportaion after the events of the previous games, and what our main character Leon is doing now. He works for the President of the US, and is basically a kick-ass bodyguard for the President's family. Leon has some badass training backing him up... special forces or something. And unfortunately after only a day or two on the job, the President's daughter gets kidnapped. Leon then receives an anonymous tip that the girl, Ashley, was spotted somewhere in rural Spain. This is where the game begins, with Leon being escorted by two Spanish cops into a farming village in the BFE of Spain.

When I think about how to categorize RE4, I have a bit of trouble. Is it a survival horror game? Yes. Is it an action game? Yes, to a degree. Is it an adventure game? Well, I wouldn't call it an "adventure game" per se, but this game definitely takes the player on quite an intense adventure. Therefore, I am classifying RE4 as a survival-horror-action-adventure game. It is played entirely in a third-person perspective with the camera behind Leon's right shoulder. There are no static cameras placed throughout the levels that force you into specific perspectives. The camera is free looking wherever you face Leon. Aiming is very well done as whatever weapon you're using (of which there are plenty from grenades to a rocket launcher) has a laser sight putting a nice little red dot on your target. The rub is that you can only fire and reload while you're standing still and aiming, and there is no strafing. This may surprise and/or disappoint some people, but the game is designed for this type of control and it works flawlessly. You can run or walk, although most of the time you're running for a variety of reasons, and you can pull out your knife for some close combat (but in all honesty, the knife is primarily used to break boxes and barrels for extra health, ammo and precious items that you can later sell for special goodies). However, the most interesting actions are implemented by way of what I'm calling "environment/situation triggers". For example, you could walk up to a window on the second floor of a cottage, shoot out the glass, and the option for jumping out the window by pressing "A" will appear on the screen when you move close to it. That is the most basic of examples. Another example would be Leon just chilling, walking down a spooky stone staircase in the middle of a ravine... all of a sudden, a short and to-the-point cinematic will show some villagers trying to push a boulder over the top of a ledge right onto your melon! In this case you would have about a second to hit the correct combination of buttons shown on the screen, such as "L+R" or "A+B" in order to enable Leon to perform a dodge... otherwise you're a pancake! This may seem a little gimmicky at first, but it is prevalent in every part of the gameplay and is actually integrated into it very well. The two examples I have given are fairly simple and give the basic idea behind these situation-trigger actions, but are pretty indicative of what to expect throughout the game. They do become somewhat more complex and are even interwoven into the boss fights and several of the in-engine cinematics (which are very well done by the way). One of my favorite things about these actions is that the button combinations are not always the same. There were many times where I would get killed by one of these fast-acting button actions, reload my save, get back to the part expecting the event and find myself getting killed again because the buttons to avoid death changed! This really keeps you on your toes, but it rarely gets you more than two or three times. These situation-trigger actions are one of my favorite aspects of the gameplay because they work very well for the "survival horror" sense of the game because at any time you need to be expecting the worst (which is a very cool feeling for a game), yet they aren't overused. These events are strategically placed and make the pacing of the action just about perfect. Here's a great example of how it all fits together in a larger sequence: Leon gets on a train of three mine carts connected together. As he travels through the caves, crazed villagers are jumping from ledges into the mine carts. As they attack, you are fighting them off and hopping from one car to the next (by pressing "A" once you get near the edge of the cart) to avoid the most dangerous enemies while picking up ammo and health that the dead villagers are dropping. You're not paying attention to the cave ahead because a maniac with a chainsaw is trying to cut you in half, but a cross-board is nearing, level with your head! Just as you turn around to see it you duck out of the way (by pressing "L+R" within one second or so) just as it clips two of the villagers and sends them flying over the railing. The carts begin to pick up speed as the cave twists and turns. As you turn the final corner, you realize that the track ends just over a cliff into a ravine! You place one final shot into the nearest enemy and leap from the cart ("A+B" within a split second of seeing the ravine) only to grab the ledge with one hand as you see the mine carts and remaining villagers plummet into the darkness. You barely pull yourself up (by pressing "A" repeatedly) before your arms give out. You're safe... for now. Trust me, it's cooler than it sounds :)

Now this is usually the part where I try to break the game down into a few categories such as graphics, sound, gameplay etc. I'm not going to do that with RE4, at least not like I normally do. The reason for this is because the game doesn't really allow itself to be dissected like that... it just feels like one cohesive chunk of awesome.

I do need to say a word about the graphics of this game, however. The game is simply beautiful. The character models are especially stunning, and the animations that go along with them are fantastic. The way the enemies move is very natural (well, as natural as they can be given the story) and Leon's animations for his special actions are great. But the most stunning aspect of RE4's visuals comes in the way of atmosphere. The combination of eerie sound effects, nicely placed suspenseful music, and the overall extremely high visual quality and detail of the many creepy environments creates an atmosphere that is practically unrivaled.

On a side note, this game is extremely violent, bloody, and scary to boot! And when I say bloody, that is not an understatement. Villager's heads will explode, weird insect-like monsters will burst from their bodies, blood will splatter, and other various disgusting things will happen. Maybe I'm a pansy, but RE4 is the only game I have ever played that literally made me drop my controller in horror as my eyes widened in absolute disbelief at what had just happened to my main character. And after a few seconds of watching the "You Are Dead!" screen come up in a pool of blood, I picked up my controller and thought to myself, "Whoa, that was sweet!"

In addition to the various gameplay elements I have discussed, there are several other things worth noting. As previously stated the main goal for Leon is to rescue the President's daughter, Ashley. Throughout the story Leon will be united with Ashley, only to be separated from her again. There are times when Ashley becomes Leon's companion as the two attempt to escape together which requires the player to protect Ashley. There are other times where Leon is separated from Ashley but can still see her from a distance and must protect her with carefully placed shots. There is even a segment in which the player assumes the role of Ashley and must complete several objectives without any weapons. These segments are spaced out extremely well, and just when you begin to get tired of this added gameplay element, things are switched up again. I have no choice but to believe that the game designers put a lot of effort in to the pacing of this game, and making sure things stay fresh by continually adding new twists to the core gameplay. This is one of the primary reasons why RE4 is such a joy to play; the pacing and timing of every chapter, from cinematics to health and ammo placements and enemies, are exceptional. One aside on the added gameplay elements is to mention the buy/sell system for weapons and gear. As you progress you acquire gold coins and valuable items whether it be from defeated enemies or hidden nooks and crannys. You can then trade these to a mysterious travelling merchant (who always seems to be in the right place at the right time, and sounds like he wrestles alligators in his spare time) for new weapons and upgrades to your existing weapons. Purchasing the right guns and upgrading them appropriately is important because various situations call for specific qualities, and the enemies get tougher as the game moves on. Plus, the merchant is usually accompanied by a typewriter which is used to save your game.

As for the boss fights, they are appropriately larger-than-life and quite different from one another. Challenging but not extremely hard, they all seem to move the story along in a way that has purpose. They're not thrown in there just to have "boss fights". One fight in particular was extremely fun because it really instilled that sense of fear while I played. I don't want to give it away, but when you get to the lake consider yourself warned! The only problem I had with any of the boss fights was that one of the later battles was a little easier than it should have been considering the circumstances of the game's story. I was able to stand on a side ledge which was completely out of reach of the boss' main kill-you-in-one-hit attack, which made the battle not quite as intense as I would have liked.

The story is fully fledged out and definitely encompasses more than is described in the first hour of the game. Things begin to get stranger and stranger, and then new characters start showing up. Some from previous RE games (I learned), and some new. The story is carried forward by many cinematics, main events that occur in the gameplay, and also by way of memoirs and communications found throughout the game. Some of these are from your allies, while others are from your enemies. The story is more detailed and complex than I expected for this type of game, but I suppose with the Resident Evil name and the thorough history of events that have taken place with these characters in the previous games, I shouldn't be too surprised. The over-arching story is just serious enough in that "of course this is a horror story plot" kind of way because it tries to scare you, but the developers don't take themselves too seriously as there is a good bit of humor infused into the cinematics. The game does not lose it's point however, and the story is effectively creepy for a video game. Overall, the story played more of a role than I anticipated. This was a welcome surprise.

The length of the game actually surprised me. RE4 consists of two discs and it took me over 20 hours to complete (I think somwehere in the vicinity of 21-22 hours... I forgot what the timer said after I finished the game). However, it must be said that I took my time with this game, thoroughly enjoying the environments and the creepy atmosphere that it provided. Honestly, you would be doing yourself a disservice by rushing through the game and not letting it creep you out.

As if you couldn't tell from reading this review, I hold Resident Evil 4 in the top tier of all-time gaming. I consider RE4 to be right up there with "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" and "Metroid Prime 1 and 2". As a gaming experience, Resident Evil 4 is essentially flawless.