Resident Evil 15th Anniversary: The Resident Evil 4 Retrospective

Capcom is celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Resident Evil franchise with a special high definition release of both Resident Evil: Code Veronica X and the genre defining Resident Evil 4. Both games will be released for the play station 3 and Xbox 360 and will most likely be down loadable titles, no release date has been confirmed but you can expect the games before the summer is through.

Remembering Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 is the definitive entry in the series; it combined strong plot, amazing graphics and an all-new control scheme that trounced other horror shooters. It was critically acclaimed and garnered many a game of the year award when it was released on Nintendo’s Game Cube in 2005, a few months later it was released for the Play Station 2 (where I was exposed to its awesomeness) and while it featured slightly less vibrant graphics and some muddy full motion video cut scenes (the Game Cube cut scenes where done in engine) it also included a breadth of new content in the form of an all new campaign featuring one of Resident Evil’s most popular characters: Ada Wong.

Resident Evil 4 was a breath of new life into the series, Capcom ditched the archaic control mechanics and static camera of the past resident evils (herein abbreviated to RE) for a new over the shoulder camera that has since been imitated countless times (one such imitation being the stellar Gears of War). The game followed Leon Kennedy the protagonist of the second game, as he battled a new supernatural evil in Europe, past RE games featured the standard zombies and mutated spiders that really weren’t all that scary and RE4′s villains and creatures truly were terrifying, the latter of which came across as sincerely menacing while retaining a believable front for their totally evil characterizations. The action was a mix of exploration, fluid puzzle solving and some of the smoothest and most satisfying gunplay ever. As Leon battled through hordes of twisted creatures he could obtain and modify a large number of firearms ranging from the bread and butter pistol to the devastating hand canon. Have I mentioned that the boss battles are some of the best found in any game ever?

RE4 also included a mini game that actually proved to be a whole game unto itself; RE4: The Mercenaries, this mode was a time trial that challenged the player to (with a unique and well outfitted RE4 character) wipe out as many enemies as possible while building up a point boosting combo. This mini game included a handful of characters and maps and was so popular it was recreated for the sequel and is now being treated to a full game; Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D on the Nintendo 3DS. RE4 has been ported to just about every console ever made and until now the Wii release has been the choice version as it included the game cubes graphics and the PS2‘s new content.