As per usual, March is front-loaded with a lot of new releases. But after the dust from the titans, souls and second sons clear, I'm left with nothing to play. This is usually when I look into my back-log and pull out the games (or series of games) I just never got around to. So this year, it's Resident Evil, well, kind of. I'm going to play RE4 through 6, and maybe Revelations. The older RE games never interested me with their tank controls, fixed camera angles and what not.

So I got home from work on Friday and booted up RE4UHD on steam, and strapped myself in for 3-4 games of laser sights coming out of every gun without a scope, for some reason. I was going into it with the mind set I think is appropriate; it was a watershed moment for TPSs at the time, but probably didn't hold up as well. After I took control of Leon for the first time, it actually felt pretty good, I thought it would be a lot clunkier. It was immediately apparent that atmosphere is a huge part of the game, and it is. Everything looked brown, bleak and lifeless, as is appropriate for the setting, and the tight camera angle made for a sense of claustrophobia, never able to see much more than what was in front of you.

As I write this, I feel like I'm clamoring on too much and boring anyone reading this, so I'll get to the point. I really disliked the first 40 minutes of this game from a pacing perspective. You barely have enough time to come to grips with the shooting and controls before you are flung straight into a clusterfuck, disguised as a village. This game goes from 0 to 10 after you set foot in that first open area, and doesn't let up until you hear you music stop. I can respect the idea of that, what with a lot of games these days having long and drawn out tutorial sections, but I think this went a little far. I was sneaking around in the village for about 20 seconds before I had 6 dudes pointing at me and screaming, and proceeded to spend the next 2 minutes running around trying to find a safe spot, only to run into a guy around a corner. Now that's fine, but I barely understand the mechanics of the game at this point, have a handgun with very limited ammo, and about 12 guys on my ass. It's the same problem I had with Dead Space 3 and Dark Souls II, throwing too many enemies at you in a tight space, without giving you the control to deal with them.

I died my first time on that fight, managed to scrape by the second time, and the game definitely gets a lot more manageable after that. Eventually a masked man asked me 'wot I was boyin', and I got access to some guns. The game threw a ton more guys at me again, but by this point I understood most of the mechanics and had a decent selection of weapons and ammo, and the fight ended up being a lot of fun, as did all the rest of the fights for the next 3-4 hours. This is where my biggest complaint with the game is (I'm about 9 hours in as of writing this, so maybe there's something else), Ashley. The moment I saw that I could upgrade her health bar, I uttered under my breath "fuck". Because in my mind, they wouldn't let you upgrade her health if she wasn't going to be around for awhile. I hate escort missions, I really do, if this game didn't have the legacy it has, I might have just quit right there. To make matters worse, every time an enemy grabs her she yells every 2 seconds, and continues yelling AFTER THE GAME OVER SCREEN. Jesus fucking christ I want to duck tape her goddamn mouth shut. She has managed to get herself killed or carried off about 12 times now, while I've been doing just fine health-wise. Every room of enemies that doesn't have a place for her to hide, she is a worthless burden. I used to have a good strategy of baiting a dude to swing his weapon, then run in and knife him to conserve ammo. Now? She just runs in front of me as I try to bait him and gets her dumb ass hit. I'd tell her to hang back, but there's always that one guy that slips past and kills her while I'm busy dealing with the other 10 guys after me.

For me, the game has become very frustrating after retrieving Ashley, and it's not all because of her. I feel like the rooms are getting smaller, and the enemies are becoming more numerous. The stand-off in the cabin on chapter 2-2 is a good example, it makes me angry just thinking about it. You have to kill 40 dudes for that fight to end, and they come from 3 angles in a VERY tight space. To me, this game is at it's best when it's just Leon, a few zombies, and some structures to climb and exploit.

Anyway, I guess most of this is just venting and rambling, I just had to get some of this off my mind and onto a screen. What are some of y'alls opinion of this game? I know it is revered by many and I'm sure a lot of it has to do with it being a product of it's time, and I really do like it after all is said and done (so far, like I said I'm 9 hours in and I've heard it is between 16-20). I just don't understand holding the game up on a pedestal and calling it "Gaming Perfection".

Crowd management is one of the biggest parts of the game, certain guns are more appropriate for certain situations for example if a bunch of dudes get in your face you should pull out your shotgun and just blast away to clear space and possibly take the time to create some distance. Also flash grenades auto kill any enemy that sprouts a parasite, just another little hint.

The game teaches you your lessons the hard way by throwing you into situations where the context acts as a tutorial. The shotgun in the house in the first village is a great example of this by putting you into a situation where crowd management is important and then introducing the tools to help you accomplish that.

I consider it to be one of the best games of all time. At the time, the game's visuals, sound, and gameplay were simply unmatched.I find that it still holds up pretty well today (I last played the Xbox 360 version about 18 months ago), but if I played it right now, I'd probably choose the Wii version considering how much fun it was to control with the Wii remote (this from someone who generally dislikes the Wii controller).

I loved the gameplay and pacing. The game was hard and it required management of both ammunition and supplies. I wish more modern games were willing to do this.

I don't like RE4. I played it two or three years after release, but it was a huge disappointment after hearing so many good things. I'll break it down:

The combat - It felt like you'd run away, pop off some shots, run some more, pop shots, etc. You weren't too mobile and it all felt very sluggish. Movement, aiming, everything. Third person shooter games of that era weren't very quick, but some of my favorite games back then still made enemy encounters feel engaging (like Psi-Ops, or Snake Eater working around its limitations). You could make an argument that it's more about being tactical, but eh... the tactics were about creating space, best done by running away and kicking a ladder down sometimes. Sure, the set pieces and bosses were impressive at the time, but I never found it fun. The Mendez encounter was really cool, at least.

The art - A lot of the environments just look very drab. It was pushing the Gamecube technically, but I don't recall anything too creative or interesting in that world. This is a big reason that when I think back, I don't feel any excitement due to boring environments.

The story - I think this is when they started saying B.O.W,'s, eww. This is mostly a nostalgia thing, but everything past 3 in this series didn't resonate with me (ok, maybe parts of Code: Veronica did). This is when things got even more about tentacles, the cult stuff just felt silly to me, and Las Plagas turned me off so much that I preferred Resident Evil: Degeneration's plot to this.

The characters - I liked Leon as a rookie cop, but here he's supposed to be this bad ass secret agent. Maybe it's because it was such a huge leap from the nostalgia I had for RE 2, but I just didn't find him likeable in this game. Then we have Ashley. Krauser was a dork. Ingrid Hunnigan had nothing on the Metal Gear support staff. And Salazar, oh god.

The pacing - This game's just too fucking long. There were hours that dragged for me. Some of the combat sequences just kept going for far too long. When I played it I had to force myself to finish it.

I do, however, like RE 5 (despite it having a bunch of similar issues). This is purely due to it being a fun co-op game, but if I played it alone I probably wouldn't have gotten past the first couple hours. Lots of "oh man, hurry up!!!" and covering your buddy's back. Never even tried 6. Revelations has been calling my name for a while, though, with it going back to its roots or whatever.

Interestingly, The Last of Us seems like the evolution of survival horror that Resident Evil may have become if it didn't go the dumb action movie route.

Anyway, in closing, I'd rather play one of the Chronicles games in the latter-day RE series.

RE4 would be a completely different game if it was just Leon and a few zombies at a time in smaller encounters. The crowd management and furious scrounging for resources is key to that game's experience. They replaced the sleepier sort of survival horror of the previous games with a constant sense of being overwhelmed and outnumbered and having to juggle resources from encounter to encounter.

I just finished a playthrough of RE4 on Professional, and there's something about the way you're constantly stressed the fuck out and switching between guns only exactly as you need to use them, that no almost no other game replicates. Enemies are bunched up and piling up on me; switch to my shotgun quickly, knock them down, and run to a better position. Only one or two enemies coming at me, swap out for a pistol to pick them off. An enemy is in the distance, so snipe them efficiently before they see you. There is a beautiful rhythm to that frenzy.

That, and how carefully crafted each section is. There's almost no section of the game where it's "infinitely respawning dudes in a dumb shoot-out." The enemies are specifically placed, the obstacles are given thought, and often times there's a way to make each room incredibly simple if you know what you're doing from the get-go. It's a game full of very thoughtful sequences and bits and pieces. As if the enemies, resources, and layout of every area has been meticulously planned out, again, in a way that so few other games are. The sheer amount of unique death animations that related to individual enemies, how enemies react different ways to what part of the body you're hitting them in, etc.

I know a lot of people like to wax on about Halo being some sort of "combat puzzle" bullshit, but RE4 does that concept so much better and arguably no game of its type has managed to best Resident Evil 4 at the specific kind of gameplay it was going for. That's what actually makes it so special. The controls have become a little weird (I am baffled at how you aim the gun with the left stick. What?) and Ashley can be frustrating to people (though, honestly, Ashley sticks so close to you you're practically joined at the hip and if she's getting hurt it was probably because something went wrong and you also got hurt) but the game absolutely deserves its accolades as one of the greatest games of all time.

I haven't played the game for nearly a decade (rented it when it was first released on Gamecube, beat it, and then never played it again), but I DO remember loving the introduction to the game. The whole scene when the villagers are trying to kill you was great. Lock yourself in a house, use the furniture to block the doors, etc. I think you also find a shotgun then.

I have no idea if the game still holds up, but after playing Sonic Adventure 2, I think I'd rather not play it again. It's better to have my nostalgia and good memories of it rather than playing it now and realizing how painfully mediocre it is.

One of my favorite games of all time. I find it to be damn near perfect.

From what it sounds like, the way you're playing (baiting out attacks for knife swings) is your main problem. It's serve you well to shoot a guy in the face and roundhouse kick him and all his buddies near by. Ashley will almost ALWAYS get out of the way your guns.

You have some time on your own without Ashley after the infamous Water Room. Expect to fail many times here...

Ashley, for the most part, never really bothered me. I also hate escort missions, but it never really seemed like an issue in this game, except for maybe a couple of areas, or at least one for sure. The part where she is driving the bulldozer is a ridiculously frustrating part of the game that could have been completely cut out. On top of that, this is coming from someone who has beaten the game nearly 50 times. (Yes, 50. I love this game.) Even having a good strategy for that area isn't enough to make it not piss me off. Overall though, the game is phenomenal. It's not perfect, but it is still damn good. I'll probably pick it up for a 4th time (Gamecube, PS2, Xbox 360) on PC on a Steam sale.

This. Shooting the legs is important to allow you to prioritise the killing. I've lost count of the number of times I've played through this game, I got it on PS2, Gamecube, Wii and xbox, with multiple play throughs on each. The last time was just whenever it came out on 360, and the game held up.

I also agree with @white_sox about the wii version. Especially once you've unlocked the suit of armour for Ashley.

@heyguys: Yeah, that shotgun would have been useful, had it been laying against a fence before I set foot inside the village, instead of hidden inside a glass case in a very specific house, on the top floor.

I didn't do this much, just at the beginning. When there are more than 2 guys, it stops becoming an option. I've always abused the fuck outta the kicks and suplexes, they look badass and do decent damage.

Put some more time in into it, still enjoying it. Turns out all my crowd-controlling and ammo issues could all be solved with buying the riot gun, which feels kinda lame. I still don't like the fact that if I get blind-sided or gang banged that the only thing I can say or do is "well, I shouldn't have even put myself in that position to begin with". I'd prefer if there was some kind of option other than get hit, possibly 2 or 3 times, run at a brisk pace through axes and scythes until I'm at a wall, pause the game, heal, equip shotgun, unpause, turn around and shoot. Does RE5-6 feature on-the-fly weapon switching? It gets super fucking tedious swapping weapons. I like to use my weapons situationally, so whenever I'm fighting a group, it's pause, go to menu, swap to shotgun (which requires finding it in my inventory and pressing confirm twice), unpause, shoot group, pause, equip pistol, unpause and continue. I guess modern games have spoiled me, but this part of the controls just does not hold up.

One of the really atmospheric and tense moments of the game was completely ruined for me by a fucking SLIDING PUZZLE. Who thought that was a good idea? I know some people can solve it in 10 seconds and blah blah blah, but I got stuck on that thing for 20 goddamn minutes. Just sitting there shuffling tiles around, wishing I could just skip it and continue playing. Really took the wind out of my sails, cause otherwise the previous hour of the game was fucking awesome (Ok, the water room was kind of bullshit, but it was still fun).

I played RE5 before playing RE4, so that introduction was a lot easier for me than maybe for a new player, but I love that. The game does tutorialize how to fight before then and it expects you to take what you know and use it well, and it does so in a way that drags some great tension out. It's not so much a problem with RE4 as it is a problem with the past generation of games allowing more sloppy play. You can't play RE4 in a sloppy manner, you have to learn how to play it well, and it really just sounds like you're not playing well.

As for Ashley, I also hate escort missions but I can't remember ever dying because of her. When she's with you, you can usually tell her to hide out of sight and not worry about her, or she'll at least hide behind you as you shoot dudes. She gets kidnapped in the castle soon enough and she'll stay gone for quite some time. She's not actually with you for half the game, or even a third of it from what I remember. Is she a pain sometimes? A little bit, but it's hardly as bad as it sounds.

RE5 doesn't even have an inventory screen. You've got 9 slots that you can put anything in and can access anytime by pushing Y, but it doesn't pause the game. You also have an AI controlled partner for the entire game with her own inventory of 9 slots that you can trade around with. Also, if you think escorting Ashley is annoying or the inventory for RE5 is annoying, then try playing RE4 single player. The entire game is practically an escort mission. RE5 is a fantastic game when played with a friend - no, really, it's one of the best co-op games ever made - but the AI partner in single player makes playing it alone painful, especially toward the end.

RE4's sliding puzzle does suck. I wound up looking up a guide for it. It's supposed to be a callback to the older RE games, I guess, but it's not a good section of the game.

its one of the best games ever made imo.the only series to get close to the feeling of re4 was the last of us.only problem was its kinda hard to replay because of the slow opening to the game.otherwise i would play it over and over.anyway i never had a problem with the introduction to the game or any other part of the game.as for ashely ,i dont like ashely because she is annoying, not because she gets me killed.in fact ive never ever died because of her in the 7 times ive beaten the game.also here is a tip, dont upgrade her health bar ever,upgrade yours.in most parts ashely either can be hidden so she isnt in the fight at all,or she isnt with you at that point in the story.so dont worry about ashely.

@believer258: Beyond the Wesker boss fights (which are rubbish regardless of coop) and playing on Pro mode (which is also just ludicrous), I think RE5 in single-player is perfectly fine. All you have to do is stick the AI with a sniper rifle (I prefer to give it the bolt action one) and an SMG or handgun while you fit yourself with the other and it's golden. The AI has incredible accuracy as you would expect, hence its expertise with the sniper rifle, and so long as you each have a different type of primary firearm (I prefer to go with handguns) then it won't be constantly hogging or wasting your ammo, either.

Without your AI companion being outright invincible, I'd say it's actually one of the smartest and most useful out there. It still has its unfortunate oddities of course, but in the grand scheme it's actually rather impressively built. Plus, while it doesn't matter to any serious degree, it's worth adding that there's bits of unique dialogue that can only be heard when playing single player, too.

Though despite that, I still would of course much preferred if it could be played completely solo when all's said and done... But that's not strictly down to the quality of the AI.

Man, I'm surprised how many people are posting about "one of the best games of all time."

I wrote why I don't like it, but I assumed at least someone would say "it's just ok" instead of hyping to the stratosphere.

The last good RE was Code Veronica , 4 and onwards are turds (so yeah I didnt like 4 or the other RE)

It was a fun game back then, and not so much now. I've gotten too old for quick time events.

@csl316: some people dont like it,but most people really like the game so its not surprising the praise you see.in fact more people hate re4 for changing how the future games went than the game itself.

@doctordonkey: just because a game has been considered gaming perfection doesn't mean you have to like it.

For RE4 YOU sound like you want no challenge at all. For the pace it gives you enough time to get used to it then leaves you on your own, I like this I hate long tutorials. Also this game is not about standing in one place and killing, this game is about surviving, and to survive you need to know when to run away. I don't think your playing this game with the right mind set.

For controls it does take time to get used to left analog stick for aim and no side step.

@csl316: I'm pretty sure the B.O.W. initialism has been with the series from the very beginning, if not from RE2; certainly before RE4 in any case. Also, I agree about Leon being a more likeable character in RE2, though otherwise even as someone that prefers the older games I could never deny the brilliance of RE4.

It's all the more of an incredible achievement when you look at it from a historical point of view; as a third-person shooter it's basically what Halo was for console first-person shooters -- sort of. Not only is it irrefutably ground breaking, but like @marokai said all of it is so meticulously crafted from beginning to end, and it delivers on both quantity and quality, with it always introducing something new as it goes along across its roughly 15 hour long run. You consider the amount of weapons, the upgrade system, the variety of bosses & enemy types, the then top-of-the-line graphics, the then novel use of QTEs, the amount of secrets both big and small -- it's fine that you don't like it of course, but it's one of those games that I think is very difficult to argue against with regards to its relevance and what it achieved.

RE4 is a top 5 game all time and it has one of the best introductory sequences of any game period. Dr. Salvador is utterly terrifying no matter how many times you play it. Resident Evil was a pretty average to slightly above average series and then bam here's a magical product straight from heaven and then 2 pretty good action games after that.

Hell Godhand runs on the RE4 engine and IGN gave it a 3, that means it's fucking incredible.

@yummylee: Halo is pretty awful compared to RE4, not to say Halo is bad it's just sort of okay; fun with co-op. Saved a console from being 5% of the market I suppose.

@yummylee: Oh absolutely, there's no denying that this game was mind blowing at the time (as I said in my post, it was a watershed moment for the genre). I really wish I had the opportunity to play this game back in 05', cause I have no doubt this would have been one of my favorites. In 2014, not so much. I have to disagree about the QTEs though, I don't like them now and I'm positive I wouldn't have liked them back in 05'.

Speaking of QTEs, I just got past the mine cart sequence. I have plenty of weapons and ammo now, so I really enjoyed it...except for the part where I had to re-do 5 times, and it takes 5 minutes each. All 5 deaths were to the stupid fuckin' QTE at the very end that sends you all the way back to the beginning of the sequence if you fail. I see you shot all those guys and have full health still, good job! Oh you didn't press these two buttons within a split second? Back to the beginning, fucker. Here's the kicker though, the other 4 times I died was the QTE after the jump, where you have to mash X to climb up. I failed this 3 times in a row and just couldn't figure out why, because I was mashing the shit out of X and it just wasn't working. All the other 'Mash X' sequences are fine, except this one. After scouring the steam forums, it turns out that a few specific QTEs are fucked up in the Ultimate HD PC release of the game. There is a glitch where the game is running at 60 frames, but some QTEs are still coded for running at 30 frames, like past releases. I managed to get past it by bumping the game down to 30 frames and mashing X before the prompt even shows up on screen. It was a incredibly frustrating moment that isn't even really the games fault, just the fault of a bad port job, but it still soured me on the experience. After the 4th time failing and before looking at the steam forums, I was really tempted to just youtube the rest and move on to RE5.

So a fair warning to anyone playing the recent PC release of the game: be aware of few game-breaking bugs in certain QTEs. When you encounter one, dial the frame rate back to 30 frames and try again.

Re-reading that, I did kind of overblow how bad that AI partner is in RE5. The first time I finished that game, I really liked it and it was single player, but one of my main complaints was still babysitting the frustrating AI partner especially toward the end. After I played it co-op with my brother, I realized just how superior the co-op experience in RE5 is and I never could make myself play the single player again.

@doctordonkey: I can't say I've ever really championed QTEs myself, and I too quickly grew tiresome of them, especially because how widespread they became. But at the time I do remember thinking they were at the very least novel, and provided a rudimentary method to adding a bit of interaction to the cutscenes. That knife fight with Krauser (which you're so going to hate lol), while it suffered by way of forcing you to go through a lot of trial & error, I thought was still really cool. Though nowadays I'd be dreading to go through that again...

I think the main difference in RE4 and RE5's partner AI is that in RE4 I always felt like if Ashley was getting hurt or carried away, it was because I was just straight-up not doing a good enough job. I was getting too overwhelmed, moved her in the wrong direction, or told her to wait somewhere that was too dangerous. In RE5 I felt like I would often fail through no fault of my own; just Sheva being an idiot because there are loads of areas in 5 where both characters need to do something specific, because she got stuck somewhere, or because she didn't revive me when she clearly could've.

Sheva's not completely useless, but I definitely died in RE5 way more due to her being an idiot than I did with Ashley.

I didn't like RE4. Bad pacing, uninteresting set pieces and then some. Enjoyed RE5 a lot more.

@marokai: Experiences differ of course, but for me the only moment I can recall in RE5 where the AI got awfully confused and fucked everything up was the second Wesker boss battle. Trying to coop-reload that RPG was a nightmare... Of course playing with someone you know will always very likely yield much better results, but weirdly enough I've never found as much reason to critique RE5's partner AI as much as most.

Then again I have also achieved the almost insurmountable task of completing the first Outbreak game on all difficulty settings completely on my own... ;P It didn't have any online capabilities in Europe so you were stuck working alongside two AIs, so... such an endeavour may have given me a layer of immunity when it comes to Capcom AI partners.

Oh, it's absolutely a very influential and well-regarded game. It never hit with me, but I'm glad it happened because it led to some pretty great shooters last generation.

Well, I finally finished it. I think the Castle dragged on for about an hour and a half too long, and the island was definitely not the most interesting locale. I finished it in 19 hours, felt like it could have been 15 and come away as a tighter package. The village ended up being my favorite part of the game, and that seems to be the general consensus for other people. I ended up hitting my groove with the combat at around 8 hours in. It's crazy how much easier the game gets as you move forward, with the last 3-4 hours feeling pretty simple. By the time you get to chapter 4-2, your guns do so much damage that enemies are kind of a non-issue. I had to start deleting stuff from my already XL carrying case because I simply had so many supplies.

But for the most part, besides that initial village brawl (turns out there was a cutscene that puts you inside the house with the shotgun and Leon barricades the door, but I veered left when I entered the village so I never even saw it, that would have made things a lot more manageable), the combat felt fair, limited but challenging, and I ended up really enjoying most of it. Like I said, it loses a lot of that in the last 3-4 hours, but the rest was balanced. As it turns out, you don't actually have Ashley with you nearly as much as I thought you would, so that was good. I found the last boss to be pretty anti-climactic, and very easy, which I've read is a common complaint.

Above all else though, I found the most enjoyment was playing through this as a piece of history. Having played a lot of other great third person games that have followed it, it's very clear where a lot of those draw their influences from in this game. It was a lot of fun playing it and going "Oh, that's where they got that from". Some of the set pieces don't really hold up all that well today, and a lot of the dialogue is really clumsy, but back then video games outside of RPGs or MGS were pretty fuckin' awful when it came to characters or dialogue.

Quick question, any of the Ada Wong side stories worth a play through? I might play through those before diving into RE5.

@yummylee: Believe it or not, I actually made it through the knife fight on my first try. Which is surprising because the Ultimate HD version of the game has issues registering the X+A QTE, and a lot of those pop up during that fight.

@doctordonkey: The Ada side-stories are basically just more RE4. Assignment Ada isn't anything particularly special, though the Sideways story is at least interesting because it shows you moments throughout the main game from Ada's perspective. Plus there's a new shotgun in there to try out, and the fourth chapter is set in a completely new environment.

Sideways is probably another 4-5 hours long, so if you're already sick of playing RE4 then maybe it's worth a miss. Assignment Ada is considerably shorter, but has very little story to it and there's nothing new to see or do in it. Also, yes, the first third in the village is undoubtedly the best part of the game.

Assignment Ada is really short and not very good, though I enjoy Ada's weird combat get-up in that. Separate Ways is pretty solid, though, and actually plays into the story coherently (unlike Assignment Ada which is this weird seemingly non-canon challenge thing). Good music, too.

And yes, the end of the Island is undoubtedly the worst part of the game. Including those sections where you have to dodge turrets, which are so inarguably awful that I don't understand how they got in the game. Playing that section on Professional was even more fucked.

I've only played a little bit of the Wii version, it didn't make a great impression on me. My character can't even step sideways, what the hell is that? If I was going to send a one-man team to rescue the President's daughter, I'd probably send a guy who knew how to step sideways.

But I'd like to give it another go someday.

Playing the game through Professional now, thought I'd jump into this thread to share my two cents.
The Steam release of RE4 was basically the first time I had completed RE4. I had played RE4 before, but never completed it, or even got past the Village. So I don't really have all that much nostalgia for this game.

That being said, I love it. I love the very deliberate nature of aiming and movement, and also how ammo conservation is less about getting constant headshots (though it helps), and more about knowing when it's appropriate to use certain weapons or grenades. I love most of the set-pieces in this game. I love every stupid line that comes out of Leon's mouth.

Game does have some major pacing issues further on though. In the last third of the castle segment and for a lot of the island it really feels as though the game just digs its heels right into the ground.

Professional mode can also get easy if you know certain tricks, such as where the corridors exist in large arenas where you can funnel enemies through and just either shotgun them all down or throw a grenade. Professional also uses the same checkpointing as normal mode, so if you feel like you screwed up an encounter, it's very easy to just restart pretty close to it. Using Special 2 on Pro is also just broken, as Ashley can effectively function as an invincible lure, attracting a lot of attacks that otherwise would be aimed at Leon.

It's a very important game in terms of how third person shooters evolved (even Last of Us had a House sequence), and I think it's still worth a play today.

The last time I played it was on the Wii, and by then, while still superb, I was kind of done with it. I played it on GameCube, it was, and still is one of my favorite games I'm sure, then played it on PS2, and then Wii. While I do love it, I feel like they kind of remade it too many times, though I have been recently thinking about wanting to buy the Xbox 360, or PS3 version. I would love it if they remade it, and actually did something to it visually and gameplay wise.

I know people hate on it, but for me personally, I wouldn't mind at all if they took RE6's visuals and maneuverability and inserted it into RE4. It doesn't need the crappy cover system though. I don't really know what to say to people that played it late, because it's now obvious that they have different feelings on it, though perhaps that comes from their expectations as to what it was actually going to be. RE4 has (from my memory) one of my favorite gaming atmosphere's, and the way things transition into another is fantastic to me. How you get to place to place, the way you fight bosses and where you fight them.