Screenshots :.
Resident Evil 4 Wii
Wii
Matt
19-09-2007
"Shake Wii-mote, escape monster. Hurray!"
"This one's gonna hurt."
"Leon takes aim. Quite a few monsters, eh?"
"This bit follows a pretty epic boss battle"
Our office Wii is a terribly lonely little fellow. Sitting next door to it is the constant hum of use from the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 (especially when Jay leaves them on overnight by accident), whilst sitting nearby are a handful of dusty Wii games that have been inserted, enjoyed and then rather too quickly left behind. It’s something that you’d hope and probably expect Nintendo to rectify with the Christmas holidays on the way, and with Paper Mario, Metroid Prime 3 and Mario Galaxy all looming on the horizon larger than my belly after a slap-up at the local breakfast van it’s to an old friend that we turn to welcome in what promises to be an exciting few months for Nintendo’s little machine.
I’d wager that there are not too many folks out there who’ve not played the GameCube or PlayStation 2 versions of Resident Evil 4. As I blurbed on about in my review of the former, it was an epic slice of ultra-violent gaming packed full of intriguing puzzles, marauding possessed villagers and horrific, larger-than-life bosses. What you get in this, the Wii update, is the sum total of content that the PlayStation 2 version offered – the Ada Wong side missions, the easy difficulty mode etc – allied to the lovely GameCube graphics and spiced up with some fancy new Wii-mote controls.
The latter, as you’d expect, was always going to be the aspect on which Resi 4 Wii thrived or rotted away and died. The main meat of the game – the puzzles, the combat, the sheer terror some parts of the game induce in you – were known to be winners in their own right, so it was always going to be the control system that provoked the most interest in the latest version. Nervous glances at the dodgy PC version also tell us that the jump to other systems can see even the most fantastic of games beset by a number of technical issues, so even with it’s pedigree it isn’t just safe to assume that the game’s an instant winner no matter how it’s been handled.
We’ll return to the Wii specifics later, as I’m a polite fellow who wishes to cater for those who have somehow not played the game in any of its iterations until this point. You play the part of cheesy American agent Leon Kennedy, a man who had the rather unfortunate inconvenience of dealing with a huge outbreak of zombies on his first day as a policeman back in Resident Evil 2. This time he’s been sent far away from the United States and the Umbrella Corporation, to a small middle-European village where the president’s daughter is supposedly being held captive. Things take a turn for the worse soon after Leon arrives, and his only option is to venture deeper into the unknown in search of his assignment.
Anyone who has played any of the previous Resident Evil titles and thinks they know exactly how 4 will slot in had better think again though, as the game is somewhat of a new direction for the series. Gone are the clunky rotate-and-run control system and the awkward aiming, replaced by an over-the-shoulder camera that zooms when you want to aim your shooter at someone’s head. In fact, the whole focus of the latest title moves away from the exploration and conservation feel of previous efforts (and Silent Hill games, for that matter) and toward a more action-packed, gun-toting experience.
It works beautifully, too. The game doesn’t completely turn its back on its heritage – you’ll still find yourself searching for keys or items to unlock doors or allow progress to new areas – but you will find yourself often faced with packs of enemies lumbering toward you, something that suddenly makes your surroundings terrifyingly claustrophobic. The frequency of the attacks are perfectly judged too, meaning that you always feel that the game is striking a good balance between exploring your surroundings, taking in the atmosphere and solving various riddles and the frantic bullet-spraying sessions. At every point in the game you’re lead onwards to the next set-piece, quick-time event or the next cut scene, always wanting to progress just that little bit further to see what becomes of Leon and the people he meets throughout the story.
Thankfully, the game benefits rather than suffers from its new control system, too. The Wii-mote’s sensitivity and accuracy is pin-sharp, allowing you to aim for those crucial headshots with ease. Movement is placed entirely on the nunchuck’s thumbstick, and although it takes a little getting used to it proves to be instinctive enough for you not to notice any awkwardness. Performing a quick 180 turn is as simple as holding the Z button and tapping the stick downwards, and slashing about with your knife can be done with the use of the C button should you wish not to wave the Wii-mote around like a lunatic.
The shooting itself is dealt with in a similarly assured fashion, with the B button having to be depressed to zoom the camera over Leon’s shoulder and the A button being the trigger. By waving the Wii-mote around you will move your shooting cursor about the screen, and the pleasing thing to say is that it feels immediately natural, offering a degree of accuracy that even I had doubted could have been possible before going hands-on with the game. That’s not to say that it’s easy by any means, of course, but the problems you will have are always as a result of the game challenging you to take aim at a number of moving targets rather than there being anything wrong with the control system.
Hence, playing through the Wii version of Resident Evil 4 is a joy, even if you’ve completed it numerous times on the various other formats it’s been released on. The addition of the Ada add-on missions from the PlayStation 2 version means this is the most complete package of the game yet, whilst all-new modes like the Mercenaries unlockable that sees you having to kill as many enemies in a certain amount of time with a selected character all add to the value. It may look a little dated at times, but for sheer bang-for-buck Resident Evil 4 is well worth the bargain £30 price tag. If the floodgates for the Wii are now going to truly open, the game is certainly strong enough to be carried with the tide and not drowned under the hopeful flood of quality titles headed our way. Fingers crossed, eh?
I’d wager that there are not too many folks out there who’ve not played the GameCube or PlayStation 2 versions of Resident Evil 4. As I blurbed on about in my review of the former, it was an epic slice of ultra-violent gaming packed full of intriguing puzzles, marauding possessed villagers and horrific, larger-than-life bosses. What you get in this, the Wii update, is the sum total of content that the PlayStation 2 version offered – the Ada Wong side missions, the easy difficulty mode etc – allied to the lovely GameCube graphics and spiced up with some fancy new Wii-mote controls.
The latter, as you’d expect, was always going to be the aspect on which Resi 4 Wii thrived or rotted away and died. The main meat of the game – the puzzles, the combat, the sheer terror some parts of the game induce in you – were known to be winners in their own right, so it was always going to be the control system that provoked the most interest in the latest version. Nervous glances at the dodgy PC version also tell us that the jump to other systems can see even the most fantastic of games beset by a number of technical issues, so even with it’s pedigree it isn’t just safe to assume that the game’s an instant winner no matter how it’s been handled.
We’ll return to the Wii specifics later, as I’m a polite fellow who wishes to cater for those who have somehow not played the game in any of its iterations until this point. You play the part of cheesy American agent Leon Kennedy, a man who had the rather unfortunate inconvenience of dealing with a huge outbreak of zombies on his first day as a policeman back in Resident Evil 2. This time he’s been sent far away from the United States and the Umbrella Corporation, to a small middle-European village where the president’s daughter is supposedly being held captive. Things take a turn for the worse soon after Leon arrives, and his only option is to venture deeper into the unknown in search of his assignment.
Anyone who has played any of the previous Resident Evil titles and thinks they know exactly how 4 will slot in had better think again though, as the game is somewhat of a new direction for the series. Gone are the clunky rotate-and-run control system and the awkward aiming, replaced by an over-the-shoulder camera that zooms when you want to aim your shooter at someone’s head. In fact, the whole focus of the latest title moves away from the exploration and conservation feel of previous efforts (and Silent Hill games, for that matter) and toward a more action-packed, gun-toting experience.
It works beautifully, too. The game doesn’t completely turn its back on its heritage – you’ll still find yourself searching for keys or items to unlock doors or allow progress to new areas – but you will find yourself often faced with packs of enemies lumbering toward you, something that suddenly makes your surroundings terrifyingly claustrophobic. The frequency of the attacks are perfectly judged too, meaning that you always feel that the game is striking a good balance between exploring your surroundings, taking in the atmosphere and solving various riddles and the frantic bullet-spraying sessions. At every point in the game you’re lead onwards to the next set-piece, quick-time event or the next cut scene, always wanting to progress just that little bit further to see what becomes of Leon and the people he meets throughout the story.
Thankfully, the game benefits rather than suffers from its new control system, too. The Wii-mote’s sensitivity and accuracy is pin-sharp, allowing you to aim for those crucial headshots with ease. Movement is placed entirely on the nunchuck’s thumbstick, and although it takes a little getting used to it proves to be instinctive enough for you not to notice any awkwardness. Performing a quick 180 turn is as simple as holding the Z button and tapping the stick downwards, and slashing about with your knife can be done with the use of the C button should you wish not to wave the Wii-mote around like a lunatic.
The shooting itself is dealt with in a similarly assured fashion, with the B button having to be depressed to zoom the camera over Leon’s shoulder and the A button being the trigger. By waving the Wii-mote around you will move your shooting cursor about the screen, and the pleasing thing to say is that it feels immediately natural, offering a degree of accuracy that even I had doubted could have been possible before going hands-on with the game. That’s not to say that it’s easy by any means, of course, but the problems you will have are always as a result of the game challenging you to take aim at a number of moving targets rather than there being anything wrong with the control system.
Hence, playing through the Wii version of Resident Evil 4 is a joy, even if you’ve completed it numerous times on the various other formats it’s been released on. The addition of the Ada add-on missions from the PlayStation 2 version means this is the most complete package of the game yet, whilst all-new modes like the Mercenaries unlockable that sees you having to kill as many enemies in a certain amount of time with a selected character all add to the value. It may look a little dated at times, but for sheer bang-for-buck Resident Evil 4 is well worth the bargain £30 price tag. If the floodgates for the Wii are now going to truly open, the game is certainly strong enough to be carried with the tide and not drowned under the hopeful flood of quality titles headed our way. Fingers crossed, eh?
9/10
