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Expendable plot characters to the rescue!
Expendable plot characters to the rescue!Expendable plot characters to the rescue!

While there is a plot, it is a largely unimportant and superfluous one, as in most Resident Evils, but it still contains enough developments and references to please those who follow the series. RE4 lives vicariously through other great works, and in the process reincarnates them in a new, videogame form. While the end result may not always be original, it is never less than riveting.

Of course, there's always a danger in such adrenalized gameplay, particularly in a series which made its name relying on a creepy atmosphere and slow, deliberate pace. The addition of a shop-keeper - who holds access to all of the game's weapons - and the currency used to pay him, which is collected from fallen enemies ( ammunition is also often replenished in the same way ), will for some be one step too far away from an established norm.


The shooting gallery provides an excellent diversion form the main game

Logic is sometimes not the friend of an enjoyable formula, however, and while the shop-keeper helps streamline the game and presents a tempting Pokemon aspect to his priced weapons, he also doubles as a safe-haven, a short period of respite from the relentless action. The shooting gallery made available in the second half provides an excellent diversion form the main game, rewarding you for high-scores. It is totally irrelevant to the main action, and the RE series as a whole, yet compulsive and generously included nonetheless.

Though the game is more action focussed, tense moments are far from done away with. Apart from the obvious tension of seeing off a huge crowd of bloodthirsty villagers, certain sections scare and manipulate the player just as the original games did and there are a number of chilling set-pieces. As in all best suspense, music plays into it masterfully, and while RE4 may skate around in applying aural styles it never loses sight of where to pin the right pieces.

One criticism, which will no doubt be shared by all, is the graphical ratio that Capcom have been reduced to in order to have RE4 working just the way they wanted. Fat, black borders sandwich the beautiful graphics like some kind of cruel joke. This is a game that yearns to be displayed in true widescreen, and the first instinct is to demand the heads of those who were unable to make it so. Yet, just as we all make sacrifices, it seems likely that at some point in development this particular settlement was made, with, no doubt, a heavy heart.

This is just as much fun as it looks, I assure youThis is just as much fun as it looks, I assure you

Many of us have seen what the GameCube is capable of, Rogue Leader proved it right from the outset - yet even with this knowledge - initial footage of RE4 served to astonish us all, including the most jaded. The borders were an unpleasant surprise, but nevertheless, this is one of the finest-looking videogames ever made.

With every new development, every new fight and scenario, the player likes to believe he now has a handle on how far, how high, this game can go. Yet, confounding expectations, it keeps raising its game, upping the pace, thrumming that adrenal gland like a mad drummer. Never before has a game been packed with so many sublime and well-considered moments. Perhaps in this age of soulless cash-ins, sedentary ideas and concepts, some of us will feel raw after this level of entertainment. How can we play normal games ever again?

Just gives us something else to complain about, I suppose.

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