Resident Evil 4 Remake (Multi)
By: Capcom
CONTINUING a stellar run of Resident Evil remakes, Capcom saves the best for the last with this ground-up do-over for one of the greatest games ever made.
Rebuilt from scratch, 2005’s survival horror classic was the most influential game of the early noughties. Ditching the fixed angles and tank controls of the first three titles, Resident Evil 4’s over-the-shoulder camera and fast-paced action reinvented tired horror conventions, and its icky fingers are all over everything from Fortnight to The Last of Us.
Stranded in a rural European village, series vet Leon Kennedy investigates the disappearance of the President’s daughter in a blockbuster that straddles the line between spectacular combat and icky creeps - and its shift to relative realism remains pant-soiling today.
Gone were Audrey-II style plants and oversized moths, replaced with mutated cultists and angry Spanish hicks, whose native mumbling just added to the sense of alienation. Capcom even changed their language to Italian for its Spanish release to retain the confusion.
From chainsaw-wielding farmers with sacks over their heads to the gasping Regenerators, Resident Evil 4 boasts some of the series' most memorable enemies. Gone are the stock zombies, replaced with rubes who drag their rustic remains about at a fair lick, even hunting in packs like velociraptors in denim dungarees.
Its crowd-control combat, blistering set-pieces and knowing B-movie vibe all remain, and given a big part of Resident Evil’s magic is the high-camp value, for all its fancy-pants trimmings, the remake still comes with a welcome side order of cheese.
Large sections are essentially unchanged, with classic locations lifted brick for brick from the original, though a streamlined final section tightens the original’s drag. Its biggest changes are in gameplay, with new weapons, moves (the ability to crouch and stealth past enemies adds a welcome new way to play) and greater emphasis on Leon’s trusty knife, which can now degrade and break.
The iconic merchant returns, but the cockney favourite has an expanded role, with new lines and an expanded business that includes bonus items for completing odd-jobs. Less welcome is the new characterisation of your schoolgirl partner, who constantly gasps from her exertions, wheezing into your ear like she’s on 40 a day.
The recent RE-makes have always pushed the tech envelope, but the fourth time around is in another league. From gloomy farms to crumbling castles, the original’s rough-hewn polygons are given a digital sanding for gameplay visuals that trump even the cutscenes of old - but the tech is always in service of nostalgia.
Still rocking his 90s hairdo, Leon’s Titanic-era DiCaprio curtains sway with shampoo ad gloss, while the doleful save room music will bring a tear to the eyes of the game’s rabid fans.
Capcom’s spectacular roll continues with a trip down memory lane that will wow both series vets and Johnny-come-latelies.
