ZarkSeven

I’ll start out my game impressions segment with a doozy: Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition.  While I have RE4 for the Gamecube (GameStop LE) and for the PS2, the Wii version is the first I really got into, and thus the one I’ll be referring to.  I never got past the first chapter of the Cube version, and never even opened the PS2 one (got it for a few bucks on sale).  So what’s it all about?

Introduction 

Well, first, by way of introduction, it’s the 6th installment in the Resident Evil horror series (counting Code Veronica and Zero), and it’s a radical departure from previous games, mainly in the perspective of your character, an “over-the-shoulder” view that really hadn’t been used in games, let alone the series.  When it debuted in 2005, it was graphically the most impressive game on the Gamecube (and may still be), and was superior graphically to the later released PS2 version.  It won numerous awards, including 2005 Game of the Year (all platforms) from GameSpot, Spike TV, X-Play, Game Informer magazine, Edge magazine, EGM magazine, Gamepro magazine, GameFAQs, Ugo.com, 1Up, Famitsu and so on, and Nintendo/Gamecube Game of the Year from IGN, Nintendo Power, etc.

So what’s up with the Wii version? Well, an updated control scheme using the Wiimote and Nuncheck, support for 16:9 widescreen, and a consistent 30 frames per second, something not possible in previous versions.  The game still looks gorgeous on the Wii, probably better than most Wii games out there, which really shames some developers that aren’t putting the development time they should into Wii titles.

Story

You play Leon S. Kennedy (you may recognize the name from RE2), who was charged by the U.S. government to find an rescue Ashley Graham, the President’s daughter, who has been kidnapped by a mysterious cult.  The game starts in a Spanish-speaking village in Europe, where the residents are parasitically-controlled humans.  Along the way, you manage to rescue Ashley (several times!), sometimes with the assistance of Ada Wong (another RE2 character), and you confront a series of bad guys culminating in the one responsible for it all.

Gameplay

So how does it play?  The Wiimote is used to aim, with a targetting reticule replacing the previous laser sight on guns.  The B button is used to free look, and zoom on scoped weapons, and the A button is used to fire.  This might seem strange, not using the B trigger to fire, but I found it quite natural and possibly easier to control.  The – button pulls up your inventory, and the + button is used to issue follow/stay commands to Ashley.  You swing the Wiimote to slash with a knife, and there are two potentials for scripted dodge moves.  You move around using the Nunchuk stick.  The only thing missing from the control scheme is a strafing motion, which seems odd at first, but doesn’t detract from gameplay.  Overall I found the controls very natural.  While I don’t remember much about the controls during my GameCube stint, the Wii controls feel very comfortable, not at all tacked-on.  They might even make it easier to shoot than using a Cube controller, but that never made it seem easy.  I think I might have had a tendency to waste ammo here and there when the action got frantic, because of the aim and shoot nature of the Wiimote.

The depth of the story is impressive.  It took me twenty-six and a half hours to get through the story, and I’m not sure if that included numerous deaths and restarts.  The pacing is done very well, switching locales frequently and never giving you long periods of the same thing over and over.  The story takes place essentially in 3 locales:  the village, the castle, and the island, but the variety of sub-locales is huge.  The village is, as you might expect, grimy and run-down, with a lot of wooden shacks, mining-type operations, farm houses, churches, etc.  The castle is reminicent of a medievil style, with stone blocks, tapesrties, maze gardens, and so forth.  Lastly, the island is more of a military complex, with fortifications, laser beams, laboratories, and other higher-tech locations.

The game mixes up how you play the character as well.  Sometimes you play as Leon alone, and sometimes as Leon with Ashley, who you have to direct and protect, but who will also help you with a series of two-person puzzles.  You also get to play a brief stint as Ashley, who has no weapon skills, and basically just run, crawl under things, and throw lanterns off of tables.  It’s an interesting mix, and since Ashley seems to get herself stolen from you several times during the adventure, you bounce back and forth between having to deal with her and not, which makes for a refreshing change of pace.

The action is fast-paced, with enemies coming at you individually or en masse.  These aren’t the zombies of previous RE games, though they sometimes look and sound like it.  They are more intelligent, can work as a group, and have a variety of different attack styles.  The tone can turn from fast to creepy, and there more than a few instances where I jumped in my chair. 

The weapons are varied, and you get them mostly by purchasing them through merchants scattered throughout the levels, using money (pesetas) you find, or by selling items you acquire.  There are also items that you can combine to make more valuable items, which sell for more.  The pesetas allow you to buy and upgrade your weapons, increasing things like their firepower, capacity, and reload time.  By the end, I carried around the Red9 (handgun), the TMP (automatic), the Striker (shotgun), the Broken Butterfly (magnum), and the Semi-automatic Rifle.  I didn’t get enough pesetas to upgrade all of these to maximum, and though many sites tout how wonderful the magnums are, I didn’t upgrade mine much because I never really found enough ammo to use it much.  In fact, the lack of ammo is one thing that really keeps you on your toes.  You can’t waste it or you will not have enough.  The game does a good job of giving you just enough to continue, but just little enough to make you constantly wonder if you will have enough, and repeatedly switch out weapons to use whatever is best in a given situation.  Since you can’t buy ammo, it’s a critical factor in the game, and I was very impressed by how the game seemed designed around it.

Of course, what’s a game like this without boss battles.  There are numerous ones, and not all coming at the end of a chapter.  I thought that most were quite challenging.  Not so much that they were frustratingly hard, but enough to cause me to have to try them multiple times to figure them out, and hard enough to get a feeling of satisfaction when you get through it.  I think the action in the main story, as well as the boss battles, did pretty well in prepping you for the end, as I didn’t think the final boss battle was as hard as I expected.

There is little I’d complain about as far as gameplay.  I tended to have a more difficult time during some of the scripted “reaction” gameplay than in normal play.  These are scenes where you generally have to either swipe with the Wiimote or press an A-B button combo as the scene plays out.  I don’t think there was anything wrong with these sequences, and there were not a whole lot of them.  I’m just not very good at them in general.  The merchant system was a little hokey, in that right in the middle of nowhere, or inside the castle, or in the miliary complex, there is this vendor buying and selling wares, but at the same time I looked forward to seeing them and seeing what I could buy or upgrade next.  There was a shooting range minigame, where you collected bottlecaps for no apparent reason, but you didn’t have to do it (although you did get pesetas for it) and it was a mild distraction.

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Extras

There appear to be a good amount of extras once you finish the game, which is where I’m at now.  Nothing new from the PS2 version I don’t think, which had more than the Cube version.  There is a mini-chapter called Ada’s Assignment and a longer 5-part chapter called Separate Ways where you play as Ada Wong, and find out what she was up to while you were going through the regular campaign.  I’m looking forward to playing through those.  There are mini-games called “The Mercenaries” mode, where you play as different characters under different circumstances, that’s supposed to be quite frantic.  There are unlockable costumes for Leon, Ada and Ashley, and new weapons available for completing various extras.  There is an area where you can watch all the cut-scenes in the game, and a Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles trailer is available.  You can play the game over again in normal mode, where you start with the pesetas and weapons you had after finishing the game, and can acquire new weapons not available the first time, and a professional mode, which starts you off fresh (I believe) but with much harder enemies.  It’s quite a lot.  I’m not much for replaying the same game over once I finish it (26 more hours!), but I’m tempted with this game to do that.  I’m definately going to try to get through the Ada extra content and the Mercenaries mini-games, so as to set myself up for a second go at it with almost all the available extra weapons and costumes.  I doubt I’d play the Professional mode, as it seems like just the same thing, only harder and with only one weapon unlockable as a reward, but playing the Normal mode again, with new or highly upgraded weapons and different costumes and such… tempting.

Conclusion

If you haven’t played the Gamecube or PS2 versions, it’s a no-brainer buy for the Wii.  It’s an awesome game.  Most fun playing a game in months.  There’s a lot of content and a lot of playtime.  I can see why the Gamecube version garnered so many awards back in ’05, and even though it’s two years old, the Wii controls make it seem fresh.  It doesn’t at all feel like “a port” to the Wii with tacked on controls.  Were it to be released new to the Wii right now, it would still garner high praise.  And the $29.99 price point can’t be beat.

If you played through the Gamecube or PS2 versions, well… it depends on how much you liked the game.  As I said, the Wii controls make it feel very fresh and show what the Wii can do.  There are definately extras, such as the Separate Ways content, that was not available when on the Gamecube version, that might make it worth a replay to you.  And again it’s at a great price point.

Very fun game, I highly enjoyed it.