“You are Dead,” Resident Evil 4 tells me as my avatar gets fried for the fourth time by the trap with erratically moving laser beams. It’s this type of hamfisted advice that seems to be the undercurrent of the entire experience. The game isn’t content to set up a rustic, chilling atmosphere for you to cautiously explore, and instead offers you many, many reasons on why you should be killing the things on screen, as if the player couldn’t figure it out for themselves. If Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer had made a game, I’m pretty sure this is how it would turn out. Only with less plot.

Read the rest of this entry »

I recently learned that Neil Manke, famed designer of the mods USS Darkstar and the They Hunger series of zombie-slaying mods for the original Half Life, is at work on a new mod for Source called They Hunger: Lost Souls. There are some screens up, but to be honest they don’t look that different from the Ravenholm sequence in Half-Life 2. One thing I remember about They Hunger is the difficulty – like the original Resident Evil, you’d be screaming at yourself for wasting bullets while zombies continue to shamble towards you. It was also clear that Manke spent a lot of time developing a tangible feeling of dread behind his well-designed maps. In a Q&A following the new mod’s official announcement, Manke assures gamers that this isn’t a continuation of the trilogy, but a brand new game that takes advantage of the unique gameplay aspects that have become available by using the Source engine. It will likely be offered as a paid product through Steam, adding to the growing number of independently developed modifications for Half Life 2.

I’ve been playing Resident Evil 4 almost exclusively since the weekend. See, I’ve been trying to figure out why these high scores keep popping up. I can’t help but reminisce about the early days of Doom 3, to be honest, because it doesn’t seem to be going away.

I’m not really a fan of the series, but when I’ve read numerous reviews (and received personal recommendations) that wax poetic about this game’s quality, eventually I have to give in. Yes, the game is indeed beautiful, and probably the best looking game I’ve seen on a console next to the Metroid Prime series and Crystal Chronicles. However, judgement of this game seems to be obsessively focused on its previous incarnations, and not other games in its genre. Am I missing something? If the fact that this is a Resident Evil game was removed from the equation, would it still be considered good?

When I hear the words “survival horror”, I assume an implicit agreement between the player and the developer. I should be scared. I concede that the game did a great job of setting the mood. A creepy, dilapidated remote village populated by grizzled looking farmers deftly establishes the tone. I freaked out the first time I saw a zombie shambling towards me even after I had just blown his head clean off. But the story, as detailed as it may be, just doesn’t seem that compelling to warrant an expedient playthrough of the remainder of the game. I feel like a tourist. Resident Evil 4 feels like Metal Gear Solid. Lots of story, action on rails. I have no control. Why should I be scared?

Maybe it was the annoying “interactive cutscenes” (an oxymoron if there ever was one) that switched up button combinations between tries, or the completely annoying controls that are almost useless during boss battles.

For me, I think what finally sealed Resident Evil 4’s fate was babysitting the president’s daughter. She can climb up a ladder with the best of them. But if I wander away after climbing down, she’s completely fucking helpless. Maybe if she would just pick up a god damned pistol when I’m about to get my head chainsawed off, I wouldn’t be so bitter.

the currents have their say