Resident Evil 4

[Forsaken Lover]

Once upon a time there was a series of video games.

These games were utterly ridiculous. The plots, the stories, the voice-acting...all of it was laughable. The music though, that was pretty good.

So the creator, Mikami-sansempaichan, had the brilliant idea of "hey...since things are just getting dumber with each installment, let's go balls to the wall! No more restraint, no more pretenses, we are going to make THE CRAZIEST game. And it will have a castle with a room full of lava and fire-breathing mechanical dragons. BECAUSE WHY THE SMURF NOT."
(actual expert of the board meeting for RE4 development)

And thus Resident Evil 4 became one of the most beloved game of the 2000s. It was fun, it was cheesy, it had Leon S. Kennedy taking down cave trolls and Wolverine and a Xenomorph/Predator...
Oh and Jack Krauser. Loved that guy. (for Xenosaga fans, Saddler was voiced by the same guy as Jin)

But I think we all know who the true Best Character was.
(SPOILER)

There's a topic of conversation to kick things off... Was there only ever one Merchant or a whole tribe of them? And more importantly, did he/they escape the island before it blew up? How could Leon just leave his bestest buddy to die like that????

[Aulayna]

WHADDYA BUYIN?

[Ayen]

The story of Resident Evil wasn't laughable. The premise of scientists making zombies and other monsters for use of bio-weapons through science was a good one. Just for one reason or another they decided to play tribute to B movies and told the story in a laughable way until they finally started to play it straight when the remake came out for the GameCube. Despite all that the old games still have plenty of atmosphere and it defined the survivor horror genre.

Resident Evil 4 was the day they decided to appeal to a more mainstream audience and removed everything that made Resident Evil, Resident Evil. As well as time skipping over important plot points that could have filled in a game between CV and RE4 just to keep it up to date. The closest this game comes to horror is The Merchant.

[Formalhaut]

The story of Resident Evil wasn't laughable. The premise of scientists making zombies and other monsters for use of bio-weapons through science was a good one. Just for one reason or another they decided to play tribute to B movies and told the story in a laughable way until they finally started to play it straight when the remake came out for the GameCube. Despite all that the old games still have plenty of atmosphere and it defined the survivor horror genre.

Resident Evil 4 was the day they decided to appeal to a more mainstream audience and removed everything that made Resident Evil, Resident Evil. As well as time skipping over important plot points that could have filled in a game between CV and RE4 just to keep it up to date. The closest this game comes to horror is The Merchant.

I think Resident Evil 4 was the bridge between Survival Horror and what Resident Evil is now, Action Horror (with more of an emphasis on the action). Resident Evil 4 definitely still had horror elements to it, but it was still a definite shift in tone from 1, 2, 3 and Veronica. Having said that, neither was it overly action packed. It was quite a nice balance, I think.

[Forsaken Lover]

Each subsequent RE game has tried to be more Action. RE2 gives you tons and tons of Ammo compared to 1, 3 has the Ammo Creation System and Nemesis chasing you around all the time, and Code Veronica had that opening cutscene or the scene where Steve dives through a window and shoots a billion bullets in spite of the fact he's wielding Lugers.

Also Umbrella is right down there with COBRA in terms of Threat Level. Nobody takes them seriously because they are incompetent beyond belief.

RE4 was just a game meant to be fun. You play it to laugh at the corny lines (which is something people did for RE anyway but before 4 it wasn't intentional. "You want STARS? I'll give you STARS!" was supposed to be awesome.......think about that) and kill a ton of dudes. Bing, bam, boom, it's awesome.

Personally my favorite line is:

Saddler: The American prevailing is a cliche that only happens in your Hollywood movies.

The American proceeds to prevail.


Amazing.

[Ayen]

Each subsequent RE game has tried to be more Action. RE2 gives you tons and tons of Ammo compared to 1, 3 has the Ammo Creation System and Nemesis chasing you around all the time, and Code Veronica had that opening cutscene or the scene where Steve dives through a window and shoots a billion bullets in spite of the fact he's wielding Lugers.

RE2 may have given you more ammo but it still had plenty of horror and suspense for it to pass as a classic Resident Evil game and frankly Nemesis chasing you around in 3 is some of the scariest bits to come out of Resident Evil. It was the first time (or maybe the second since I can't remember if Mr. X did it) that a monster actually followed you into the next room and once the right music played you knew he was in the area and would pop up if you dared linger.

RE4 was just a game meant to be fun. You play it to laugh at the corny lines (which is something people did for RE anyway but before 4 it wasn't intentional. "You want STARS? I'll give you STARS!" was supposed to be awesome.......think about that) and kill a ton of dudes. Bing, bam, boom, it's awesome.

Um... So was the first game. All the coriness from the first game was on purpose, but people weren't catching on so they slowly relented in future titles. The RE: Remake changed all that and from there it was less about the corniness and tried to play it straight which it did well. Which is something I admit I didn't know myself until rather recently. RE4 changes so much from the previous games it may as well be called something else.

[krissy]

STRANGER!

[Sephex]

I liked it. It was different, but it was fun. Now 5 and ESPECIALLY 6? Those are the Resident Evil games where things got cartoonish. 6 was a game obviously rushed out the door.

[Aulayna]

Resident Evil games were never really scary to me, due to all the B-Movie scare tactics and, especially from 2 onward, you were never really at any risk of dieing unless you royally screwed up. Especially Nemesis, which gave you so many outs of potentially tricky situations. They didn't hold a candle to Silent Hill in terms of horror, but that was RE's charm really. The early RE games were almost satirical of the decades of bygone horror films.

[Old Manus]

The story of Resident Evil wasn't laughable. The premise of scientists making zombies and other monsters for use of bio-weapons through science was a good one.

I love the Resident Evil games, though RE1 was the only one that really ever spooked me out. RE4 was in that goldilocks zone where it was so ridiculous that it was actually funny. RE5 and 6 were ridiculous but not funny.

[Forsaken Lover]

Hooker Jill Valentine can't do that.

[Ayen]

I liked it. It was different, but it was fun. Now 5 and ESPECIALLY 6? Those are the Resident Evil games where things got cartoonish. 6 was a game obviously rushed out the door.

RE5 and 6 were ridiculous but not funny.

Yeah, things really went to trout when their director left. I'm not sure how true this is, but apparently he didn't like them porting Resident Evil 4 to the other platforms after RE became a Nintendo exclusive. I never understood the sudden desire to be exclusive, though.

Resident Evil games were never really scary to me, due to all the B-Movie scare tactics and, especially from 2 onward, you were never really at any risk of dieing unless you royally screwed up. Especially Nemesis, which gave you so many outs of potentially tricky situations. They didn't hold a candle to Silent Hill in terms of horror, but that was RE's charm really. The early RE games were almost satirical of the decades of bygone horror films.

The horror aspects can be hit or miss depending on taste but it was always suspenseful.

I can't really compare and contrast to Silent Hill since I never played those games. I'd like to get my hand on one of them for Halloween.

[Slothy]

Resident Evil games were never really scary to me, due to all the B-Movie scare tactics and, especially from 2 onward, you were never really at any risk of dieing unless you royally screwed up. Especially Nemesis, which gave you so many outs of potentially tricky situations. They didn't hold a candle to Silent Hill in terms of horror, but that was RE's charm really. The early RE games were almost satirical of the decades of bygone horror films.

I'll never quite understand why when it comes to games, people think that being scary is a necessary qualification to carry the horror moniker.

There are a large number of films that no one actually questions as being horror films which aren't even remotely scary either. Seems like a double standard to me.

[Dat Matt]

I also started the series at RE5. I've played RE1 more recently. Never played RE4, Shauna keeps telling me to add it to the massive backlog I have.