Resident Evil 4 - PlayStation 2

After looking at previews when it was first released, I wasn't so drawn to it. A Family member of mines bought it and i immediately got into it. i would say in a span of only a week, i played the whole game more than 4 to 6 times. If it had not been bought, i don't think i would know it to this day. I know i may be a little late in doing a preview of a game thats been out for a LONG time, but not everybody has it.First of all, this Resident Evil marks a new beginning for future resident evils. the game-play is not really the same anymore. The camera angle is always behind your back, maybe a little to left side of Leon's shoulder. It provides decent exposure, so there's nothing bad about it. Of Course enemies will be around you, so the camera angle can't show you Leon's blind sides. But Leon will turn his head to the nearest enemy to warn you that one is near, so thats the time to run and create distance. When he enters a building or any other area, the camera is not going to be in varies places like in previous REs, unless it's trying to show you your next obstacle/assignment.Like Claire's last game, you're pretty much far away from Raccoon city. Leon is somewhere in Spain, on a secret mission to find the president's daughter who's been kidnapped. On the way, he'll meet a new Character name Luis who will help you. You'll see some familiar faces like Ada Wong (who looks REALLY good by the way) and Wesker. There are no zombies, or at least the same KIND of zombies. They can speak and are very quick. Something is making the villagers sick. and you'll learn about a ugly bug that is injected into people's bodies, sticks to your ribcage and spreads the virus all through the body.Aiming can be a little tricky because it is not automatic. you have to ACTUALLY AIM accurately as best you can, but its not really a big deal. The player is just not lazy this time. If you aim at the knee caps or in the face, the Enemy will be stunned for a few seconds. thats your time to run up to them and Leon will perform an assault. this will save you loads of bullets. You can also upgrade your weapons from a creepy merchant who will be waiting for you in various places. This merchant offers a load of goodies, such as inventory room, first aid spray, new weapons, weapon pieces. He also accepts any jewels or treasure that Leon will find in exchange for more money. You can also sale anything you have back to the Merchant. You do have the option of killing the merchant with a VERY simple attack. But i am pretty much unaware of how the relationship between he and Leon will be once you find the merchant in another area. You'll have to read on that. The Merchant also has a aiming range room. I'm not really sure about this either because i don't play it much.Leon's attitude in this story is much manlier but he still has a big heart. He's not a rookie anymore and he'll show you why. lol. But he's serious this time. He'll have to babysit Ashley, which is the girl he's come to rescue. You have to watch out for her because enemies will pick her up or go to the nearest exit, and when that happens, the game is over. Be careful on where you shoot the enemy that's holding Ashley. i usually aim for the feet and they will drop her. There are three commands you can give to Ashley, You can either go anywhere and tell her to wait there, you can run up to a garbage dumpster and tell her to hide in it, or you let her stay with you if you're really good at dodging enemies when she's by your side. You can't go through an exit or to the next area without her, though. Like the merchant, Ashley is extremely vulnerable, so make sure not to throw a bomb near her, or accidentally shoot her. she's just a girl. XDThere are tons of boss battles, so you'll be pretty busy, but you'll also have fun. these aren't really phony boss fights. the bosses look really yucky but they also look awesome. you can tell the creators put ALOT of thought and time into making this game. The game is also extremely long. it surprised me.After you complete a game, some goodies will be unlocked at the Title screen. An option called "extra" will appear at the bottom. its kind of hard to see, but its there. pick that option and you'll see that you now have a Theater, you get to play Ada and experience HER side of the story, but her's is a little shorter. you also get to play another story as Ada, but this is more of a challenge game where you have to find specific items that Wesker wants her to get. Both Characters will get to keep everything that they've found in the first round of the game, that includes weapons, ammo, treasure and money. the only thing Leon doesn't keep is his jacket, which is what he wore to start the game off. that was pretty weird. maybe a glitch?Leon and Ashley will both have two extra outfits. One outfit is his old S.T.A.Rs outfit which looks awful on him in my opinion (he looks like he has a bunch of belly-roles) and the other is....lol well it looks like a pimp outfit, but he looks REALLY good in it. Ashley on the other hand, looks kinda weird. One is called a pop-star outfit if i'm correct and the other is a knight armor. THIS will come in handle for Ashley because if an enemy is near her they can't touch her at all. she's invincible to any damages with that armor on, even to a rocket launcher. The only downfall about it, is that every time Ashley moves, the armor makes some annoying noises too. They don't let you mix the outfits in combinations either. Before you start a game, they will ask which outfits you want, you can either pick, Normal, Outfit 1 Or Outfit 2. so its not like you can pick outfit 2 for Leon and then outfit 1 for Ashley. They both get the same.You will also unlock an Infinite Rocket Launcher which is something i love using, but costs alot!!NOw that the price is really low, i would urge anyone who hasn't bought it yet, to give it a shot. I do believe it is worth the money and it has ALOT of action in it!!

This is without a doubt the best Resident Evil game since RE2. It's got a creative and different setting, it brings back RE's best hero (Leon!), it manages to be spooky while still playable.There's no questions this game has some difficult sections when you play through the first time. As with all survival horror, you start barely armed, have to hoard ammo and use it carefully (no first-person shooter, this, you need to be clever). As the game goes on you gradually get better weapons, but the enemies get stronger.On a re-play, of course, you start with a full boat of weapons, so the game is MUCH easier on successive plays; but here's one of the strengths of RE4. The plot and graphic design make it a pleasure to re-play, and the money element lets you play (in effect) for score, gathering up as much as you can without wasting it on things you don't need. You also have the choice of keeping lesser weapons to challenge yourself (I'm now playing it with the knife as much as I can, just to prove I can beat lower enemies with no gun).This game has something we've never had in RE; the ability to buy and upgrade weapons. Where other games were all about getting away from the enemies in many scenes, this one encourages more fighting because enemies drop items (money or supplies). While this takes away an element that's fun and creepy (run away! run away!), it trades this for a better fighting game where you HAVE TO kill enemies in many cases. The weapons available are all entertaining, and you have choices, selling ones you don't like as much for ones you like better. This lets you choose one of several very good weapons as you main side arm, and lets you change the game on re-plays by working with different sets of weapons. You can also sell a weapon and then buy it back later, so things that are gone are not gone for good. There's a *lot* of shooting in this game, and lots of changes to try out different weapons to find what works best.Gone are the 'magic boxes' that let you stash weapons in one room and get them from another. This is different, but not really better or worse; as you play you can upgrade your carry capacity with bigger cases. So there's a bit more thought required to make sure you have only what you need, but you also can have all your weapons to hand and never have to run back to swap a shotgun for a sniper rifle.One of the main things I like about this game is that it actually has a coherent plot. Many of these games wind up with mystery story lines so convoluted that it makes following them more effort that it's worth. This one plays like an action film, and you could pretty much convert it to a movie with no re-work. It makes watching someone else play the game entertaining, which I find unusual.That the graphics are great goes without saying. Graphics in video games are so sophisticated these days that I don't even notice any more. But what stands out here is some really fabulous graphic design. Some of the settings - castles, mansions, caves, tombs, mines - are brilliantly designed and I find myself stopping in many scenes simply to admire the way a scene looks.All in all it's a great game. If you like RE, this is a must-have.There are down sides of course.If you're a huge puzzle fan, the puzzles are mostly pretty easy. Puzzles are my least-favorite part of survival horror games, so this isn't a big issue for me, but still, they're easy.More annoying to me is that they pulled the game-designer cheat in some scenes of making you character (Leon) slower and clumsier in boss fights. Lots of games do this, but it's cheating as far as I'm concerned. There are several fights against 'El Gigante' bosses where Leon's run speed goes down, and they box you into a small area where it doesn't make sense to fight, and the reaction speed on the controls decreases slightly. It makes the fight harder, but not in a fun way because you can't spin and juke and fire the way you would normally, you wind up under the monster's feet when you mean to be pulling a grenade and then popping a few rounds into him (though these fights get incredibly easy on re-play if you have a big weapon). I've seen a number of games where they do this, making a fight harder by changing your character's behavior or control response time, and it is, IMO, cheating by the game designers.My objections are trivial though. Of all the survival horror games I've played, this is very close to the most fun.