Shooter, not Survivor

I'll sum up this game in a few words:

You get to shoot zombies.

Now who doesn't love to blast zombie heads with big guns? There's just something about the idea that's fun.

The Resident Evil series is known for its "survival horror" type games. Scary music, limited ammo, zombies jumping out of the ground at any moment...it just gets your adrenaline pumping. RE4, however diverges from this formula. Some may like it, and some might not. But there's no denying that it's fun.

Resident Evil 4 is more of a shooter than a survivor game. There are now a lot more enemies, plenty of ammo so you never run out, and a enough healing items to last. Even if you run out of healing items, you can just go back and buy new ones for cheap. Money and treasure are basically everywhere.

This may sound bad, but it's not.

Now you can feel a little more like Rambo, and a little less like a scared survivor. It's a different kind of fun, but it's still fun. All in all, you are likely to get over 500 kills in just one run of the game.

For those fans of the scary element, don't worry- there's still moments of frantic firing and running. And with the Wii-mote, there's now panic swinging and slicing with your knife, and reloading with a shake. This makes the game more immersive than with a regular controller.

The graphics in RE4 are second to none. Show some screens to someone else, and they could easily be mistaken for a game on the XBox 360. The precise details and designs are gorgeous. You will never strain your eyes in the dark.

The sound in RE4 is decent. One problem I had, though, was the music starting when enemies showed up, and then stopping after the room is cleared. This reduced the fear element and made the game a little predictable at times. The voice acting? Great. Well...except for Ashley, who easily rivals Navi in annoyance.

RE4's can be, at times, a little contrived. After awhile, you get tired of running into a new area, clearing it out, and then repeating the same process in the next room over. Odds are you will get tired of the cutscenes and extra bits your second play through.

Some of the traps are pretty lame as well. There is one part where the roof is caving in on you, and it's stopped by...shooting four glowing red panels on the ceiling. It's also a little easy; instead of being blown to bits by a full on rocket launcher blast, your character gets knocked down, loses his HP, then gets up and keeps on fighting.

These bad points, however, are redeemed by Resident Evil's value. The game lasts around 20 hours, which is long by survival standards, and takes you through multiple environments (a dark castle, a secret military island, a zombified village...). There's a lot of treasures and secrets to find, and it's incredibly satisfying seeing your enemies explode in high quality animation.

RE4 has its flawed moments, but all in all it's pretty fun. It is definitely worth spending 30 bucks on, if not for the scares, then at least so you can make fun of that midget Salazar with your friends.