Resident Evil 4: Hands-On & New Media

With the latest, frankly staggering installment of the Resident Evil series now on US shelves, we take the game for a spin with new media before our imminent review.

While previous entries in the highly popular Resident Evil series revolved around the T-Virus outbreak, zombies and the involvement of the Umbrella Corporation, Capcom has moved on from those familiar themes in Resident Evil 4, opting to take the franchise in a bold new direction - totally revamping the storyline and setting, and redefining the series' graphics, sound, and gameplay.

Players reacquaint themselves with an old friend in Leon S. Kennedy - the former Raccoon City PD rookie cop who survived the terrifying sequence of events that befell Racoon City in Resident Evil 2. It's now 2004 and six years have passed since Raccoon City was destroyed, and the infamous Umbrella Corporation finally met its demise at the hands of the U.S. government.

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Having left the nightmare of Raccoon City behind him, Leon now works as a U.S. agent who, under the direct order of the President, has embarked on a top-secret mission to investigate the abduction of the President's daughter, Ashley Graham. But as luck would have it, Leon survived Raccoon City only to live on and face a new nightmare as his investigation leads him to an undisclosed location somewhere in Europe, where the terror awaits in a remote village shrouded in mystery.

Our time with Resident Evil 4 at the time of writing has offered a good taste of new gameplay features; the game opens with a short real-time cinematic sequence of Leon getting dropped off in the woods, surrounding the village in order to begin his mission. After a brief exchange with the two obnoxious drivers (who we tried shooting but to no avail) we proceeded into the woods, testing out the game's increased interactivity by shooting a bunch of crows spotted on the grounds and perched up in the trees. Along with having engaged in a bit of animal cruelty early on by splattering the poor birds we were rewarded with extra ammo and even money that we retrieved from their dead bodies. How these birds wound up with Spanish currency is beyond us, but it just goes to show that even they're susceptible to a good mugging.

Anyways, moving on to an old cabin house with a pick-up truck parked nearby, things immediately took an interesting turn after entering the house and showing Ashley's picture to a local resident, building a fireplace fire. One look at the picture and we were trying to fend this guy off after he went Norman Bates on us with an axe. Utilizing the game's point-specific targeting feature and the infra-red beam from Leon's pistol we were able to manually aim at different parts of the enemy's body and take the crazed individual down with two well-placed head shots.

As chaos ensued we could hear our drivers dealing with their own set of problems back at the bridge, so after grabbing anything of value within the house (more money and ammo) we peered out of the 2nd story window with Leon's binoculars only to spot the welcoming committee waiting for us outside the house. In true sniper fashion - and thanks to the pistol's infra-red beam - we were able to maintain our position at the window and take out one of the locals we spotted hiding behind a tree. Afterwards, leaping out of the second story window, we realised the bridge had been destroyed, with Leon's ride submerged at the bottom of the ravine with no sign of life from the drivers.

Obviously with Leon stuck there the only thing left to do was continue on to the village to try and unravel the mysterious behavior of the locals, who, for all intents and purposes, seem quite human -- outside of their savage behavior that is. Proceeding further into the woods we encountered more hostiles that we dealt with in the usual fashion, freed a poor dog caught in a bear trap, destroyed trip-wired booby traps set up within a group of trees, and acquired more items.

By the time we'd made it to the village it became quite obvious that everyone had lost their damn minds. From a distance the villagers appear to be a community of hardworking farmworkers, performing their daily chores. But looks are deceiving here, so instead of alerting the villagers of our presence right away we decided to engage in a little stealth activity by sneaking around certain parts of the village and collecting as many helpful items as we could find. However, things took a frightening turn when a villager perched on one of the rooftops spotted Leon and alerted the rest of the village - setting off a terrifying chase.

Armed with sickles, pitchforks and other farming tools, the crazed villagers come after Leon with a vengeance and are ever so relentless in their pursuit of him. There's literally no place to run and hide from the savage mob. We climbed a tower only to have them firebomb us back down to the ground, and wherever we hid it wasn't long before they kicked open the doors and found us. However it all came to a head after making our way into one of the homes triggered a dramatic sequence of Leon racing into the house and blockading the door behind him while the entire village coordinated to attack the house from all sides.

We raced upstairs and took possession of a wall-mounted shotgun, blasting the creeps as they attempted to climb in through the second story window. A persistent bunch no doubt, and one of the most intense moments in the game so far. We continued fighting off the blood-thirsty denizens of the village as they piled themselves into the house -- entering through the windows as well as making their way up the stairs -- and just when things couldn't get worst, in a moment that some would say was ripped straight from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the loud buzzing sound of a chainsaw filled the air.

Our encounter with this deadly foe was both fun and intense. Fun was him climbing the ladder up to the window only to have us push the ladder away from the window at the last minute - sending him crashing way back down to the ground - too bad he didn't land on his chainsaw. Intense was escaping from the now crowded house and running all throughout the village trying to avoid this maniac. Tough as tough can be, getting this guy to go down and stay down was not an easy task, and required more shotgun blasts to the skull than the average enemy. The fact that he's able to kill Leon with one hit also made him the deadliest enemy encounter in the demo.

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Those with weak stomachs should anticipate seeing lots of blood and gore throughout, as the game's gore level is quite high. Just one hit of the chainsaw meant instant death for Leon as a violently bloody decapitation sequence was shown of him losing his head and spraying lots of blood in an earlier build we played. Other gory moments in the game included enemy heads exploding from shotgun blasts and from a really good elbow smash Leon performed on one of the creeps that held onto him from behind.

Enemy AI is unlike that of any other Resident Evil game before it. These aren't slow-moving, brainless zombies dragging themselves along, the enemies you encounter are significantly faster and smarter, making for a deadly combination. To make matters worse, despite their savagery, the villagers actually think and coordinate their attacks with each other, verbally alerting each other in Spanish whenever they spot you. Hell, some even dodge your pistol's infra-red beam if you give them enough time to realize that a bullet is about to puncture their skulls. It's enemy smarts like that which serves to keep players on their toes throughout the game, and on your toes you shall remain throughout the small village, that is until one of the strangest things happened and Leon was literally "saved by the bell" as the church bell tolled just as his luck was about to run out and the villagers mysteriously stopped pursuing him, dropping their weapons and walking around in an almost trance-like state as they all converged within the local church, leaving Leon befuddled and standing alone in the middle of the village.

While Resident Evil 4 seems to retain the archaic 3D control scheme of its predecessors, somehow it all feels a little more intuitive now. Other aspects of the game controls have seen significant improvements like the inclusion of a firstperson view mode that players enter whenever using Leon's binoculars. Pressing the Z button anytime during play will effectively switch the viewpoint from thirdperson to firstperson view, allowing players to survey the surrounding environments and zoom in and out at will, which helps in spotting hidden items and enemies in the distance. The B button is used to make Leon run as well as quickly turn 180-degrees to fight or flee approaching enemies. The A button plays an expanded role and allows you to perform a wide range of actions - picking up items, kicking open doors, leaping through windows, over obstacles, knocking over ladders as well as interacting with some of the NPCs you'll encounter throughout the game. Using the Action button along with the R shoulder button allows Leon to aim and shoot and pressing B reloads your weapon while its drawn.

Action moves aside, players can also access an improved map screen, one that I must say I'm extremely happy with this time around thanks to the improvements Capcom made to it. Instead of wandering around lost in the game, players will be able to easily tell the important areas they should be headed to as indicated by the flashing section(s) on the map. Along with the updated map screen, another aspect of the game that has seen some improvement is the all familiar inventory screen. Thanks to the improved design and added space, Leon is able to carry more items with him and perform better inventory management than before - a major relief as previous entries in the series were limited in that area.

Graphically Resident Evil 4 is by far the most gorgeous game in the series. Along with the restyled game engine, the graphics have been retooled and are noticeably different than before; the fully 3D backgrounds look fabulous, offering immense detail and atmosphere, while a greater level of interaction is evident. The camera works so much better now, allowing players to rotate and zoom the viewing perspective while in the firstperson view, to better explore each area. The game characters, especially Leon, are impeccably modeled and detailed. The animations are more of a mixed bag - pretty solid where Leon is concerned but a little on the stiff side with some of the attacking villagers. Strangely enough, they often animated better when performing their daily farming chores.

The audio is good quality overall; while there's been a distinct lack of any music so far, aside from the same ominous looping theme that played during enemy encounters, the sound effects took center stage, with great natural sounds such as river streams and crows heard throughout the wood settings, as well as the sounds of the villagers working, performing their chores in the village. The voice acting was also pretty solid, with decent quality voice-overs used for Leon, and some humorous exchanges between him and his drivers at the beginning of the game. Interestingly enough, unlike the mindless moaning the zombies did in previous games in the series, here the crazed villagers actually speak in a foreign tongue alerting the other villagers whenever they spot you.

However, the most significant aspect of the game's sound is certainly the effect it seems to have on gameplay. There was one point in the game when we were able to sneak into one of the homes undetected and take our time exploring it without a problem, but the minute we shot open one of the crates the sound of the pistol going off alerted the villagers of our presence and they came kicking down the doors. It certainly adds a pretty cool element to the gameplay and it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out as the game continues.

Resident Evil 4 has been simply mind blowing so far; the graphics and sound are superb and the gameplay refinements are set to make for an excellent survival horror experience. The experience is quickly shaping up to be the most intense Resident Evil game yet; the action is more pulse pounding, with faster and more intelligent than the traditional zombies. The mystery that surrounds the villagers in the game also remains quite intriguing to say the least. But there's just something about seeing you that makes them to totally lose their minds and come after you with their pitchforks. Who are these people? What happened to them and why are they after Leon like he killed their mothers and firstborn?

We'll steer clear of spoiling any of those details in our full review, which you can expect to see posted very shortly.

Joseph Jackson
US Editor, Kikizo Games