Resident Evil 4 HD: First Impressions

It's hard to overstate the impact that Resident Evil 4 has had on gaming. From redefining 3rd person gaming, to revitalizing survival horror itself. Shinji Mikami made a modern masterpiece. And although the changes it made to a series I love dearly still bother me, there is no denying this game is one of the best made in the last 10 years. But how has it aged? Read on to see my first feelings...






Okay, so Capcom did it again, I know. They released yet another port of Resident Evil 4. By this point in time, I'm not surprised that they are finding ways to de-make it, and port it to older consoles like the SNES and Playstation. But that's neither here nor there. This is an upgrade to what was an already fantastic looking game. And here are some of my early impressions on how that has gone.

Pretty much everything you love is here, and in upscaled HD. It looks incredible, and the update looks quite nice; for those of you interested, it's worth noting that this version is based off the superior Gamecube version of the title. That's right, none of those shitty muddy visuals, lower polygon count, weaker lighting, or ultra compressed audio of the vastly inferior PS2 and PC ports. This is the good stuff, but it's easy to notice a little bit of drop of audio quality. But so far so good.

Odd to notice though, that the controls took a bit of adjusting. A couple buttons were switched around. So many times when I wanted to reload, I fired a shot into the wall. But really it was a huge hurdle. Unless you are new to RE4 (and how dare you be), it wont be a bad transition. But if you got introduced with RE5 (again...how dare you), you may need to take a little caution. Gone is any strafing you so used against bowgun majini in RE5. In the right sticks stead is a camera swivel, which I feel gives the game a very in your face, cautionary approach. Peeking around using this system works very well, and brings a tension that is well received. However, with that, you have a more tank like control on the left stick. It worked fine with me, hell I reveled in the older style games controls. But I could imagine anyone who started with RE5 is going to be a bit frustrated. However, it is good to note that although this game is considerably harder than RE5; it seems much easier than when I last played it a few years back...oh well, guess I'm just hardcore.

If you thought RE5 was hard, this game will prove you wrong

However, this game is so far shaping up very well. It's a long game (24 hours my first time), so seeing all that is to see is going to take a bit. And there is still the slew of add ons, which I'm curious to how much care those received. But if it was all based on gameplay, this game never needed the graphical face lift.



Humor Tumor used to love organic paint chips as a child....

Take some gaming steroids