I'm playing all the Resident Evils for the first time in release order

StallionDan said:

As I discovered recently, Outbreak's intro is another case of Capcom ripping off music, in this case the theme from IT.

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That's damn interesting - I can definitely hear the similarities. Maybe a coincidental usage of musical motifs? Then again the whole RE series is heavily inspired by cinema so I wouldn't be surprised if it was a (well-meaning, perhaps) ripoff. Would be ironic if that were the case because funnily enough, I read IT in 2014 and was utterly blown away, and it's kind of the impetus that made me wanna dive into the horror genre in general. If I hadn't read it I doubt I'd be playing these games or making this thread today!

Final RE Zero thoughts here. I go into how I liked the protagonists, how I thought the lack of item boxes was a bit misguided and how the plot could've revolved more around the Bravo STARS and less on Marcus the leech man.

I also speculate on how I personally wouldn't have made a Resident Evil 1 prequel at all, and instead would've remixed the plots of the last few games.

If it had been up to me, I probably would have plotted the course of the series differently after RE 2, which contains an interesting nugget of information hinting at an Umbrella Europe base that was never expanded upon to its full potential. The game seems to indicate that Jill, Chris and Barry are going to Europe to investigate and shut down this facility, and just about EVERY strategy guide, article and bit of speculative message board posting I can find from around that time was obsessed with this concept. It seems like everyone thought that Resident Evil 3 was going to be a rollicking European adventure…and it wasn't, it was instead a game that took place at the same time as RE 2 and explained how Jill escaped Racoon City. Code Veronica never really expounded upon this tidbit of lore either - we get a very brief intro with Claire Redfield investigating an Umbrella headquarters in Paris, but then suddenly she's captured and the vast majority of that game takes place on an island near South America.

I can't help but feel like a massive opportunity was missed here, and if I'd been in charge of Capcom's scenario division for these games in the late 90s, I would've changed the plot of Code Veronica and basically made that one Resident Evil 3 (which it was originally going to be if Capcom hadn't wanted to keep the "main" RE games on a Sony console). I would've made it an adventure with Jill, Chris and Barry in Europe, and near the end I would've brought Claire in to join them and fight alongside her brother. Then, I would've made a spinoff game simply titled "Resident Evil: Nemesis" or something of the sort, and taken the general "escape Racoon City" plot of RE 3…but had it star Rebecca Chambers.

See how nicely that would've worked? Fans would've gotten their detailed peek at Umbrella Europe and the return of the classic combo of Jill + Chris + Barry. The weird Ashford siblings and Code Veronica doofus Steve could've still been incorporated into the story. Meanwhile, Rebecca could've starred in a game that felt necessary, since the beginning scenes of destroyed Racoon City were some of the best bits of RE 2, and there's no reason why she couldn't have met escaped convict Billy Coen while escaping the city. They could've worked together to flee from Nemesis, and I guess the mostly forgettable mercenaries of RE 3 could've made an appearance as well.

Sadly, I don't work at Capcom, and they planned these games totally differently. We finally would go to Europe proper with Leon Kennedy in the next RE game, but that one would mark a shift in both storytelling and atmosphere, as Resident Evil quickly transitioned away from its horror roots…and into the realm of fast-paced shoot 'em up action.

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I've done some research and discovered that some of my complaints about Umbrella Europe being underdeveloped were actually rectified in The Umbrella Chronicles, which apparently goes into the whole downfall of the company - a choice that I honestly find kind of baffling. Why put such a critical event in a non-numbered rail shooter that was only released for the Wii? Nonetheless, I will most certainly be playing that one and The Darkside Chronicles once I've wrapped up the mainline games.

This brings me to the END of the classic era of Resident Evil, and I've gone and made some adjustments to the OP to indicate that. If I were to rank the games in order of the ones I enjoyed the most to least, it would be as follows:

Resident Evil REmake (I don't necessarily agree with those who say that you should ONLY play this one instead of the original, but I do agree that if you're low on time and want to play a game that does a fine job of encapsulating old school survival horror, this is a great choice.)
Resident Evil 2 (This one's just epic in scope and introduced so many things that would become natural for the series later, like a super enemy hunting you down, dual scenarios, a more detailed plot, etc.)
Resident Evil 1 (Self-explanatory, this game set the standard and laid the foundation. It's a little aged now but still a blast to run through, and I wouldn't mind replaying the Director's Cut or DS version at a later date.)
Resident Evil Zero (I like this one more than most I suppose, and any issues it has can be overlooked thanks to its good lead characters and willingness to experiment with established systems, though not all of its experiments were successful.)
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (I loved exploring more of Racoon City but found Nemesis a repeat of Mr. X and more bothersome than scary. The game is fun and has good mechanics but definitely feels like a gaiden that got bumped up to "full game" status, which is why I rank it lower.)
Resident Evil: Code Veronica (Plays well and tells a decent story but too much backtracking and excess makes this the one RE game I don't think I'll ever play again.)

Overall, I enjoy classic RE very much, though I do think Capcom fell into a cycle (as they do with so many of their franchises, like Megaman and Street Fighter) and began to repeat certain tropes with these games, especially when it came to environments. I wish they hadn't relied on dark mansions, factories and labs so much and maybe given us more outdoor environments, or perhaps more areas like Zero's train.

Anyway, I am ready for a change after six games in this style, and Resident Evil 4 - the big one - is next. I'm playing it on Steam and will be looking into the HD textures pack. If there are any other mods that might also be necessary, lemme know.

By the way, I found this extremely strange ad for Zero when I was writing this. Not the way I would've promoted the game, but the early 2000s were a weird era...

Okay, here we go. RESIDENT EVIL 4. I'm playing the Steam release, FYI, and this is gonna be a long one.

• So, I actually ran into a very unexpected and unusual problem when I first started playing - I got completely nauseous. It was pretty bad, to the point where after playing for 30 minutes my head hurt and I had to stop and lie down for a while. Some background info - I do tend to be susceptible to motion sickness more than most people, and when it comes to gaming usually it's FPS games that trigger it, though some third person action games with messy cameras and low frame rates also give me issues. It really depends on the game, though - DOOM 2016 made me feel a bit ill until I boosted up the FOV, after which I was perfectly fine. Overwatch I have no problems with. Tomb Raider 2013 actually gave me some issues due to that game's damn obsession with shaky cam, and when I turned it off I was okay. With Resident Evil 4, I think it comes down to a few factors - the game has a very low FOV and the way Leon moves occasionally causes the camera to sweep around very fast or lurch forward suddenly. It's connected with the rigid way he turns - I think there are still some vestiges of tank controls in the mix - and it's pretty jarring when he slides down ladders or jumps across gaps. There's no way to adjust the camera sensitivity on the right stick since this game's a little old, and while you're able to move the camera around Leon more gradually with a mouse, I found the mouse and keyboard controls awkward and clunky.
• In the end, I ended up installing an FOV mod to adjust the field of view, and you can see the difference below. I'm sure some people will find this sacrilegious, and I can understand the arguments for making the game with a low FOV - fighting enemies is more intense and there's a higher possibility that you won't notice them grabbing you from behind. But for someone like me, the default field of view was actually an accessibility issue that made me sick and impeded my enjoyment, and after adjusting it I've been mostly okay. Anyway, I was kinda baffled by this problem, as I'd expected to encounter it with Resident Evil 7, but not RE 4. Now that I'm aware of it I'll have to assess how I feel when I play Resident Evil 5, 6 and the Revelations games, since I've noticed they all have similarly tight behind-the-shoulder views. (Apparently I'm not the only one who suffers from this problem - I've seen quite a few mentions of RE6 making people sick across the internet, but I thought people were complaining about the gameplay when they said that! I didn't know it was LITERAL!) I'm also surprised that the game was released with such a low FOV in the first place, since Japan tends to suffer from motion sickness as well. Maybe when playing this when it first came out on a TV it wasn't as noticeable. (Then again, Metroid Prime Hunters on the friggin' DS made me sick as well, so you can never tell with this sort of thing.)

(default FOV)

(after I adjusted it)

(default FOV)

(after I adjusted it)

• There are a few other niggling technical things that bothered me - the English version has no subtitle option, and in the current PC release, you can still see "subtitles" available in the menu, but it's permanently grayed out, which baffles me and is another weird accessibility issue. Also, the Steam version advertises itself as the "Ultimate HD" edition but some of the textures are rough. I want to thank the folks in this thread who mentioned the HD texture pack to me early on, because installing it makes a world of difference. The majority of my screens were taken via the HD pack and you can see how much the mod boosts everything:

(no texture mod)

(with texture mod)

(no texture mod)

(with texture mod)

• All this stuff aside...yes, so far I've found RE4 to be as great as everyone has made it out to be. I played through the entire village section over the weekend and bothered to pick up all the treasures, blast all the blue thingies and take both the Gigante and Ganados routes when prompted, and I think you can kinda tell when a game is awesome if you actually WANT to do all of the side stuff that it has to offer.
• I've seen a lot of articles and posts praising RE4's pacing - about how it pretty much never has a dull moment and always has you flowing from intricate set piece to intricate set piece - and I totally agree. I've really enjoyed every major shootout and the battle with Del Lago in the lake was awesome. I actually thought Del Lago was another alligator at first (shades of RE 2) and was like, "What is it with you and fighting reptiles, Leon?"

• The El Gigante fights - AKA "Leon versus the LOTR Cave Trolls" are also excellent! I liked how the dog (A VERY GOOD BOY) I helped in the beginning came to assist me during the first encounter, and they're just well done boss fights, jeez. I feel like boss battles have never exactly been a particular strength of previous games in the series, since even though I'm one of those people who doesn't mind tank controls, limited mobility/aiming has always been something to wrangle with, especially when it comes to guys like Nemesis and the Tyrants. It's good to see everything switched up here.

• What else is there to say... I find escorting Ashley less annoying than I expected, though maybe it becomes more of a pain in the castle. I laughed at that line about her "ballistics." I also laughed when the end chapter art suddenly turned SUPER BISHOUNEN as soon as I saved her.

• I'm intrigued by the Ganados (the chainsaw ladies are rad) and want to say that I like them more than the old school zombies, but it seems wrong to be mean to RE's classic workman-like villains so I'll continue to reserve judgment until I beat the game! My Spanish is total ass (I took it in high school) but I like how often the Ganados are saying "shit," lol. Speaking of which, am I wrong or do most of the "Spaniards" in this game sound like Mexicans? How was RE 4 received in Spanish-speaking countries?

• I beat the dude who looks like Rasputin (another good boss fight) and will post my impressions on the castle later. The village basically rectified one of my complaints about previous RE games - that we never got to explore outdoor areas more - so I'm keen on seeing what RE 4 does new with *indoor* areas.

I posted a few more pics on Twitter but my impressions there are mostly the same as what I've written here. Anyway aside from the dizziness problem in the beginning (curious to hear what ya'll will think about that) it's a fucking great game so far. It's funny how Leon is now an action hero getting radio transmissions like Solid Snake, jumping through windows and kicking Ganados' heads off. A little jarring, especially for someone like me who's playing these in release order and really got into the slower, methodical and eerie pacing of the last few games. But I don't mind changes in genre when they're done this well, and it must have been insane to play this in 2005 on the Gamecube.

KayMote said:

Those screenshots look pretty good! I have to ask though, because I'm not sure if I'm confusing things right now: so you downloaded a texture pack. Is it THE texture pack from the guy who has been constantly working on this game in the last few years and who also regularly posted his progress in the infamous RE 4 thread? I haven't noticed that he was already finished, so this is exciting news to me (unless I'm mixing something up here).

Also, I'm glad to here that you're enjoying the game so far after you have made a few adjustments. I can imagine the shock coming from the older games that you might have experienced in terms of the shift in genre and pacing, but I guess after having played so many classic RE games in such a short amount of time, this change of pace might also appear rather pleasant for you! Have fun!

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I think it's that texture pack, yeah! It's the one the two guys have been working on for years and I have seen an ERA thread about it showing off their progress and how they've actually gone to various locations in Europe to photograph new textures. Here's the link: http://www.re4hd.com

So far they've finished the village and castle areas. The rest aren't complete yet but you're able to install those two areas right now and they really make a giant difference.

evil_rad said:

Well, about the Mexican voices of the ganados in RE4.

I'm from Spain and I have to say that it's very... "Weird" for us haha. I think Capcom didn't spend too much time in the location details. Anyway it was funny see this particular version of Spain in a Resident Evil game.

Pd. The police officers of the intro are very realistic hahaha

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Haha, interesting, I can imagine that it must've been very amusing to an actual Spaniard that Capcom tried their best yet got a lot of the small details funnily wrong. I read somewhere that a lot of the Ganados dialogue actually became memes and jokes after this game was released? I find that hilarious

Resident Evie said:

If you find yourself really enjoying RE4 OP, then I think you will like the Evil Within games, especially 2, a lot.

And I second playing re5 at least with a co-op partner. Otherwise it's one long escort quest. 6 has much better AI.

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I saw some stuff you tweeted about Evil Within a while ago and you do a real good job of selling the games! I'll probably pick both of 'em up during the next Steam sale though I'm unsure of when I'll play either. Either after I'm done with the RE games or maybe after I go through Silent Hill.

As for co-op, I've got one friend who might be down, though I sorta have a feeling that if we play co-op we might end up skipping the whole story. Will see if it's possible to play at least part of it co-op so I can get a feel for the differences!

I'm back! Was kinda low on time the last week so could only play an hour here or there. These games have started to get longer and I can't beat 'em in just a week anymore! Anyway, I finished the entire castle section and made it to the island last night. Here are a few screens that I took which really show how awesome the castle interiors look with the HD Texture Pack installed and the FOV mod that I'm using.








Some thoughts...

• RE4 is clearly more of an action game than a horror one, but I think it does a good job of channeling the roots of its predecessors to create a SURVIVAL Action game, if that sort of genre classification makes sense. This feels especially obvious in the castle where there are cultists EVERYWHERE, and whenever creepy ass music with chanting comes on, you know you're going to have to fight a whole bevy of guys, with some carrying shields, maces, etc. Facing these enemies isn't scary in the same way that exploring Spencer Mansion or running from Tyrant was, but it is thrilling and exhilarating, which are feelings often intertwined with fear. There were a couple times when I died due to simply getting overwhelmed by foes, and a few instances where I barely made it out alive and was thankful that I upgraded my rifle and could snipe people from afar. Anyway, it's just a really good transition of the "survival" concept to a new genre and I feel surprised that I can't name more games that evoke a similar feeling of "survival action" off the top of my head. The 2013 Tomb Raider reboot kinda feels like that way at some points, I suppose.

• I like the enemy designs a lot though the Las Plagas parasites seem a little less interesting to me than I first imagined the more I find out about them. I think they come off as a little too similar to Xenomorph chestbusters. Still, seeing one of them pop out of an enemy's decapitated head never gets old and I like it when the game gets creative and has them infest unlikely targets, like suits of armor.
• Ashley has an annoying voice but aside from that she's not that bad! The internet sometimes makes her out to be a detrimental part of this game but the reactions of her character - a spoiled early 20 something stuck in a nightmare - make sense in context. That said, I was sorely tempted when taking the below screenshot...

• I find the segment where you briefly control Ashley to be very interesting because it's a nice example of how being helpless generates fear. It's hard to feel nervous as Leon because he's a walking arsenal, but suddenly you're Ashley for a bit and got nothing but random lamps that can somehow roast cultists like a barbeque. (I find it kinda funny whenever Ashley chucks one at them and they basically explode.) Also, I think the section where she's trapped in the dark with the flashlight is very reminiscent of the "Hook Man" Resident Evil 4 prototype where it's Leon exploring a castle interior and dealing with killer dolls and hallucinations. I find that early brainstorm concept of the game fascinating (along with most of the other beta versions of the Resident Evils) and it seems like this Ashley concept is a remaining vestige of that.

• The only other scene that I felt evoked a cool sense of fear was the section where Leon is underground and getting stalked by one of Salazar's henchmonsters - the big dude with the spiked tail who lashes out at you from above and below ground. The Quicktime events to dodge him are a little annoying, but I liked it when he's revealed and you have to knock over the liquid nitrogen tanks to freeze him and then plow him apart with bullets. His reveal was reminiscent of the reveal of Resident Evil 1's Hunters, IMO.

• The final set pieces of the castle section - the mine cart ride and the giant Salazar robot - were fantastic. The mine cart section in particular was right out of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and I find it odd that more action games don't have similar segments. The Salazar robot I had seen a screenshot of on ERA in some thread where people were talking about Resident Evil being silly, lol. Silly it is indeed, but still fun.

• Salazar is another goofy bad guy right out of that Alfred Ashford Code Veronica mix. Can't say I'll miss him that much. As for the other characters, I kinda wanna know what Ada Wong's up to. So far she has barely done anything but be cryptic and ditch Leon, which I find annoying since the two of 'em made out a little in my playthrough of Resident Evil 2 and you'd assume that Leon would have more questions for her. I assume her endgame mode answers most of this stuff.

• Last but not least, I like the shooting range mini-game. I'm getting all bottle caps for sure.

Two questions I have - what are everyone's go-to weapons? I've been playing with the Punisher handgun, the regular shotgun, the rifle with scope, TMP with stock and the Magnum. I've upgraded most of them close to their final tiers at this point and will probably focus on maxing them out.

Second question - I know that the original Resident Evil games birthed a lot of clone survival horror titles for the 32-bit consoles. Did lots of action games in this kind of survival horror style pop up after RE4? I know that the camera in this game probably inspired Gears of War and the Batman Arkham games, and that The Evil Within is similar, but I'm talking schlocky RE clones because those are always fun to know more about. I know of Cold Fear, which actually looks pretty cool, and would like to know of more.

Ah the Dead Space series, can't believe I forgot about those as they have been in my Steam wishlist for a while. Will have to pick 'em up next sale.

Jackpot said:

Some of the guns you've picked are the less popular, specifically the Punisher and the TMP. Their damage never scales up at the same rates as the others. Most people seem to go for the Broomhandle due to its damage focus. The default shotgun also has better damage than the later one though most people discard it in favour of the Striker. The final upgrade tiers are the ones that give the biggest gains in stats.

I personally went for the Blacktail as it suits my gameplay style precisely. It's like a scalpel that allows you dissect your enemies.

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Very good info, thanks. I may give the Blacktail a look. It's a feature mostly present in newer games so I didn't expect it to be here, but I do wish that RE 4 had an option to automatically compare the stats of one weapon versus another when you're buying something from the merchant's shop.

A Dandy Guy in Space said:

What did you think of Luis? :(

I love the stupid banter that Leon has with the bad guys over his radio. I think it starts once you enter the castle? Anyway, it's so cheesy in a tasty and delicious way:

- I've sent my right hand to dispose of you.
- You're right hand comes off?

And it just gets even better with Saddler.

Btw, that right hand boss is actually optional, you escape if you want/can.

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I liked Luis, just wish he was in the game more! Seems he only got a few scenes here and there in the castle only to be promptly killed for plot reasons. Another shootout area like in the village would have been nice. Also in my game as Leon was standing over his dead body promising to avenge him Ashley started screaming to save her so it kinda wrecked the atmosphere lol.

Charlouie Jonesman said:

Fun fact, the japanese version of RE4 uses classic fixed camera angles during the part where you control Ashley.

This has been kept in every japanese re-release and every western re-release has since changed it to the default behind-the-shoulder camera.

Why they never just added a button to switch between both camera options for this part in one of those re-releases is a mistery to everyone.

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Woah. Wonder what the thought was there. I've seen more than a few videos showing hacks and modded areas that make RE 4 look like the old games; this almost looks like one of those.

UpperCaseN said:

I just beat the train part of Resident Evil 0, this is my first time playing it. At the end of the train part, we split up so we can hit the brakes. 1 person has to stay up front and the other person has to go to the back of the train. When I get to the back, it tells me I need a magnetic key card and I'm like what? I don't have that but I'm pretty good with scouring every room, I have no idea how I could have missed it. I spend the rest of the 3 minutes searching and time runs out, I get a game over. My last save is a little ways back, I have to do the whole hookshot part again, but I spend my time searching the entire train for the magnetic key card, no luck. I cave in and look it up, apparently it's right at the moment when you need to split up. I go back and there it is, plain as day and even glimmering, right in plain view for the player to see and I facepalm in disbelief. When the counter started I hauled ass to the back and didn't even see the keycard OR the ammo there. To add insult to injury, my first go at getting to the back of the train went really well but the 2nd time I just blundered my way through it, stumbling over my own feet and slipping on banana peel levels of clumsy. I make it anyway and saved at the next typewriter, done for the night.

My main complaint is inventory space, I hope they get sidepacks soon or ever. Maybe not since you've got 2 characters worth of space but exchanging between them is a hassle.

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Aha... Hate to break it to you but prepare for much more inventory wrangling... It wouldn't be nearly so troublesome if RE0 didn't have so many items that take up two slots.

Sorry to hear about the train fiasco! I did find that moment where you have to split up to hit the breaks to be quite gripping but if you missed an item along the way that must've been a major ass pain.

RE 4 main campaign complete! The island was good fun and kind of felt more similar to classic Resident Evil to me, especially with the sections that looked like labs and the various boss fights. Thanks for the advice that all of you gave me on weapons - I ditched the Punisher and switched to a maxed out Red9 for this last bit and probably saved myself a lot of headaches on enemies in the process.

• I'm a big fan of the Regenerador enemies. They remind me of a combo between Tyrant and the classic RE zombie except creepier. Their unsettling breathing is a great audio cue and requiring the player to use the infrared scope on them is a nice way to mix up the gunplay. Their presence in this final act was probably one of the factors that made this feel more like old school RE, as well... It's too bad they're not in the game until the finale but then again perhaps it was better to keep their reveal a surprise.

• The chase scene where Ashley is driving the truck and you have to stand in the back and blast away foes is another excellent set piece, right alongside the mine cart ride from earlier. Then we've got some cheesy scenes of Leon dodging lasers (it's the return of that Matrix bullshit from Code Veronica!) and chilling like a villain in the main villain's chair. Pretty goofy.

• Battling U-3 - another moment that reminded me of the older games. I think it's the cramped space and the fact that you need to run around to press switches and advance to the next section of the shipping container area. I can almost see this as a fight from Code Veronica, except it might have been much more troublesome with fixed camera angels potentially switching on you mid-fight.

• So let's talk about Krauser... I thought the Rambo-esque fight with him was solid, but he kinda came out of nowhere as far as the story goes. At first I actually thought he was one of the mercenaries from Resident Evil 3, until I remembered that aside from Carlos, all of those dudes died. Then when I found out that Leon knew him I wondered if there was some backstory that I'd missed, or if we'd get some flashback cutscene. But no, it's just implied that Leon worked with him during his secret agent training. I had to look online to see that their story is explained in the Darkside Chronicles. (SEEMS LIKE THERE IS AN AWFUL LOT OF FAIRLY IMPORTANT PLOT STUFF HAPPENING IN THOSE SO-CALLED SPINOFF WII GAMES, HRM CAPCOM...)
• Also, Krauser is working with Wesker? And Ada...is also kinda working for Wesker, but actually for an Umbrella competitor? I dunno, all of these sudden "tie-ins" to Umbrella and past continuity in the 11th hour seemed rather half-baked to me, almost as if the scenario writers were forced to toss in a few connections with prior games when they really didn't want to. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we have some anchors that help place Las Plagas and Los Illuminados into perspective within the wider Resident Evil universe! Just wish these anchors were a bit more developed and less clumsy. Perhaps it'll all make more sense in Ada's side missions.

• The gargantuan shootout scene where TRIGGER HAPPY HOMIE MIKE randomly flies in to assist Leon was hilarious to me, partly because I tend to be fairly meticulous when I play these games and was taking my sweet time to slash open barrels and explore all corners while MIKE was making gun sounds in his chopper and telling me to get out of the way. Then when MIKE gets blown up after telling Leon he knows about a bar, and Leon is all like MIKKKKKE-KUN I WILL AVENGE YOU I laughed out loud for several seconds. One of the funniest scenes in RE right up there with Steve having to kill his zombie dad. (On a side note, in hindsight I find it amusing that my younger self was too scared to play these games; for a "survival horror" series there's so much cheese and I love it.)

• The final fight with Saddler was good, albeit brief! I like it when Leon can climb on top of him and get some knifing in. (Hallelujah with this game finally making the knife a much needed weapon in Resident Evil!)

• After killing Saddler, Leon still lets his shit get jacked by Ada Wong, and all he gets in return is a teddy bear jet-ski key! Actually, this finale with the jet-ski reminded me of Dante and Trish's escape on the plane at the very end of Devil May Cry. Since DMC 1 started as a prototype for Resident Evil 4 before becoming its own thing, I wonder if this was intentional or just a coincidence.

• As for the ending, well, I now know where THIS infamous meme comes from, haha. I admit to briefly falling down a terrible rabbit hole of "LEON DOES OVERTIME" videos...

• Final stats and I got all the bottle caps! Loved collecting these things and I wish they were actual physical objects that I could litter on my desk.

I'm going to complete the side Ada modes next and mess around with Mercenaries mode for a bit, but I'm comfortable with saying that this is one of the best action games I've played in a long time. It certainly lives up to the hype, and actually in this day and age it feels very refreshing when compared to other modern titles, which might be interesting to some of you who played it when it was new. I feel like we just don't get straight non-stop action games like this anymore - now, developers feel the need to screw with pacing by littering their games with lots of open world components and collectible crap all over a map in order to increase replayability (best case scenario) or just pad length (worst case scenario). RE 4 has none of that because this is an early 2000s game - instead you just have well-paced action from level to level, and that sort of focus is something that I can really appreciate after trudging through games where all the extra bells and whistles feel like unnecessary distractions.

One casualty of Resident Evil's change into an action-orientated game was the handwritten notes I'd been carefully taking during all of my playthroughs, though... Whereas the other REs would see pages and pages of puzzle details and maps, here I took a grand total of ONE NOTE for the entire time I was playing. Part of me is a little sad!