Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition - Review

To get you started here’s one of the Resident Evil 4 trailers below:


So you have an idea of where I’m at when it comes to this review I thought I would share my opinion on the Resident Evil series, I think the series it self is a good successful franchise with many sequels appearing across a large variety of platforms, and even made it’s way to the big screen with three movie releases. The last Resident Evil I played was Resident Evil Code Veronica on the Sega Dream Cast, which I really got into the story even though I disliked the control system, I really didn’t like the way you controlled the main character but I persisted to play because I wanted to know what happened, and enjoyed the excitement of jumping out of my seat when a zombie would come out of nowhere...is that the appeal of an Resident Evil game or is that just me?
I did give other versions a try on the PS2 and DS but just couldn’t get back into it until now.

The Story

In short you play as Leon S Kennedy who is now an US agent with a top secret mission to rescue the Presidents daughter Ashley who has been kidnapped by a secret organisation named Los Illuminados, and pretty much everything and anything is trying to stop you from completing that task. I suggest you collect and read all the notes that you find as progress through the game, not only will they give you a better understanding of the story they come in handy; I won’t give to much away so you can enjoy discovering it on your own.

I guess I enjoyed the story more because I never played Resident Evil 4 on any other platform and all of this was new to me, so this is one remake I’m not going to scream about wanting original games not old ones with better graphics/sound and a new control system.

Game play

This game is fun to play and after firing it up the first time and creating a game file I couldn’t put it down, even when I wasn’t playing I was thinking about playing it, and not since Zelda Twilight Princess I haven’t had a game hook me in like that on the Wii.

It basically is a solid 3rd person shooter with a few puzzle thrown in, it progresses as if it’s on rails(wide rails I might add) but you have the ability to back track and explore some what, it’s not hard to get lost, your travelling direction is nicely mapped out for you, not sure if this is for or against the game, I’ll let you decide that one, but having a basic path of travel does make the game a bit easier and takes some of the confusion of ”where the hell do I go now” situations.

There are treasures to be found that are hidden through out the game, having the treasure map does make finding them a lot easier, these treasures can be sold for money to fund the purchase of weapons and supplies, which are available from a seedy looking merchant.

I have to say that this game is packed with action, with what seems to be an endless supply of mind controlled entities coming for you one after another, you heart starts to beat faster when your energy level is flashing red and you’re left with more enemies than bullets, toped off with the [i]”your going to die”[/i] theme music playing in the background as the action intensifies.

At certain points in the game you will come across a puzzle that will just rip the hand break on your little adrenalin rush, because you’ll be sitting there flipping painting around to match, rotating switches or sliding tiles around a board to make an image, I guess Capcom wanted us to take a break from all the killing and put some thought into a puzzle, personally I didn’t like it, but I guess others might like the brief change in game play styles.

Controls

This is where the Wii version comes into its element, I bet many times you’ve heard people say “gimmicky controls” when talking about games on the Wii, well this time you can tell them that the Wii unique control system made this game so much more playable, as I mentioned above I never liked the original control system on Resident Evil games, but using the Wii remote as your gun and the joystick on the nun chuck to move your character around is brilliant. All the buttons you need to access quickly in the heat of battle are at your finger tips, along with the integration of Wii remote gestures; it does give you that immersed feeling through interaction. Now I have to admit the Wii-Mote gestures aren’t anything creative, it’s basically a shake and you get your action, it’s the timing that makes it good if you don’t get it right you’re gone. I think it was good they didn’t try and get you doing a break dance move just to dodge a bolder. Using the Wii remote as your gun is very accurate and the Wii remote doesn’t have to be pointed at the screen the entire time for your character to travel, I can’t be the only one that gets annoyed with games that go crazy when you’re not pointing at the screen.
Now the one think I didn’t like was moving the character around quickly, travelling along is fine it’s just when you need to change directions in a hurry it can become frustration trying to rotate you character around in a hurry, at some point it feels as if you cop hits because your character doesn’t respond in direction change quick enough, apart from that I have to say Wii controls make this game awesome to play.

Graphics

A comparison video of the Game Cube version vs the Wii version:


Although the Youtube video it’s self isn’t of good quality you can still see that there isn’t a great deal of difference between the two versions, with this game being a remake I thought I would mention that, but depending on what TV your playing it on, I would have to say the Wii version would look much clearer in 480p.

Now I have mentioned that I haven’t played the Game Cube version before so these graphics are all new to me, I did enjoy them especially in 480p, the backgrounds and characters are rendered nicely and move at very smooth frame rate. There’s enough blood and exploding heads to keep most people happy with out being over the top in violence, it still received a MA15 rating, but compared to what’s out there at the moment it’s pretty tame.

Sound

Don’t expect a bass thumping sound track compiled of today’s top artists with this game, it’s all mood music that changes according to what’s happening on screen, at some points it goes dead silent with just the sound of your foot steps and background sounds, but it’s this combination that adds atmosphere to this game, my suggestion is if you have a audio system the supports Dolby Prologic 2, select it in the sound menu of the game and crank it right up, the sudden sound of Ganado/monsters attacking out of nowhere will make you jump out of your seat, the sounds of the various weapons do sound authentic as well. The only down side to this is that your neighbours will be wonder what the hell is going on at your house and might call the cops.

Value for money

This game is long and fun with heaps of treasures to find, there’s a huge variety of weapons to find and purchase which all (apart from the rocket launcher) can be upgraded, so there’s more than one way to kill your enemies.

Just because you have completed the game doesn’t mean it’s over, by completing the game first time round you are rewarded with more weapons and game modes, it’s been a long time since I have played a game that I finished and wanted to go through it again.
To get you motivated to complete the game here’s what gets unlocked when you do:

• A new professional mode


• Bonus costumes


• New weapons


• Ability to roll over items to your second round of play


• A movie browser, to view the event movies from the game

New game modes

• Separate ways – Play as Ada, the mysterious woman who appears in the main adventure


• Assignment Ada – Play as Ada and collect 5 parasite samples to escape from the desolate island


• The Mercanaries – Kill as many Ganado as you can before the time is up, get 4 stars in these stages unlocks another character


• Complete all of these to unlock more bonus material.

As you can tell you get more than just the main game, so it’s well worth your money, and being a title that has been around for a while you should be able to pick it up pretty cheap if you shop around.

Conclusion

If you haven’t played the Game Cube version of this game and you like your shooters I would highly recommend this game to be added to your collection, but if you already have played it you might want have a think about it, the new control system is great and 480p with Dolby Prologic 2 is an added bonus to the original, so it’s up to you if you want do through it again.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game and it has given me some hope for the up and coming release of Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles and now I’m anticipating its release.
Even though I have finished this game and had a quick explore though the after completion bonuses I still have desire to come back and play it.

Extra Information

Resident Evil Releases

Chart taken from wikipedia

Thank you for reading
Guyv3r