Perhaps that’s just our machine but what will be the same for everyone is that the pre-rendered cut scenes, such as the one’s in Ada’s Separate Ways mission, are still entirely low res and look jarringly old school as a result. There is the option to lock the game at 60 frames per seconds, but we found there was still quite a bit of slowdown. Capcom is all very keen to talk about the improved textures but, presumably so as to not show up the ones they haven’t changed, they’re only a fairly modest upgrade.
In terms of new features for this PC version there’s no new content but you do get proper mouse and keyboard support (incredibly the first PC version had none, although you’re still better of playing the game on a gamepad) and lots of minor graphical upgrades. It’s a constant temptation to spoil some of its surprises by reminiscing over favourite set pieces, but if you haven’t come across it before we certainly don’t want to be the ones to ruin it for you. This is a probably unavoidable side effect of the increased amount of action and ammo, but since the end result is such a uniquely entertaining game it hardly seems to matter. Incredibly tense and exciting but rarely ever a tax on your nerves in the same way as the originals were.
Although that’s not to diss the wonderfully cheesy, and now iconic, merchant.īut the one strange thing about Resident Evil 4 is that it’s not actually that scary.
This adds to the gameplay but at the cost of immersion as you stop to shop in the middle of a charnel house.
There’s also a new shop system where you can buy and upgrade weapons. There are a few unequivocal flaws though, the most obvious being the inventory system, which despite the loss of the magic storage chests from the old games still makes changing weapons awkward and jarring.
Non-believers will whine about the ‘tank controls’ but the series has always depended on a degree of clumsiness in the controls, helping to instil the idea that you will never be fully prepared for all the game can throw at you. It still works extremely well and although the inability to strafe or move while shooting should feel restrictive it merely becomes part of the distinctive gameplay and tactics. This is then zoomed in to over the shoulder for aiming those weapons that don’t have a first person view. With no fixed camera angles the game uses what was at the time an unusual third person view that stops at the waist. It actually became fairly palatable once the fan community started modding it, but for some reason the guilt has finally caught up with Capcom and this is their new attempt to make a proper official version.
Everyone hates the PC version because it was done on a shoestring budget by some Russian developer nobody has ever heard of. Most consider the Wii version to be the definitive one, as it combines the GameCube graphics with the extra content from the PlayStation 2 and adds in an optional Wii remote-based aiming system.
Apparently there’s also an iOS version but we’re getting nauseous just thinking how that must control, and have never played it. Just for the record our reviews include the original GameCube version from January 2005 the PlayStation 2 port from October the same year, which was inferior graphically but did have some new content the terrible PC version from 2007 the Wii version from the same year and the quick and dirty HD version for Xbox Live Arcade and PSN from 2011.