And, now, we've finally arrived at this. The last article in this infamous top ten list -- sure, people had their doubts about it. Sure, people said it would never end. Sure, people hate it more than they do than the revelation that they woke up after a rough night in a bed shared with the creature from the dark lagoon, but that's all behind us now. Except the lagoon thing -- that still haunts my nights.

Resident Evil 4 -- Published and Developed By: Capcom
Let's have a big round of applause for Capcom and their truly amazing reinvention of the Resident Evil franchise with Resident Evil 4. I bought this game the moment I could, having seen a video for it from a Japanese demonstration in early 2004, and seen the radically different approach that the game was taking from the previous major versions of the franchise (we'll pretend abominations like dead aim never existed). Needless to say, the video did a fantastic job of showing the new direction of the game, and made me excited for the newest incarnation in ways I never thought possible from a Resident Evil game. I can just remember the giddiness I felt when the game arrived in my dorm room, and the sadness I felt knowing that my GameCube wouldn't be there for another three-four days -- it's reasons like that which throw a man into a loop of inescapable depression.

I still remember the first time I ever played Resident Evil. I had read astoundingly positive reviews of the game in an issue of GamePro, and was in the process of convincing my parents that this is one violent game that they absolutely wanted, nay, needed to let me play. Small background information: my parents hated video games, much less really violent ones, so any game I played growing up was generally a very lovey-dovey game with butterflies, unicorns, and rainbows (maybe this is why a Google image search for my name has Barbie in the first four results? I don't know). Eventually, though, my mom relented on the topic, and I was able to play Resident Evil (one of the first "violent" games I was ever allowed to play) -- though, to be honest, I told her that the game "isn't really that violent…" Which, if you've played the game, know is an utter lie but, hey, if I was going to lie to my parents growing up, better it be about violent video games than cocaine and hookers, I suppose.



With the feeling of a supreme victory over the authoritarian voices of my guardians, I threw that PS disc into my PlayStation in my room with the lights off and the darkness of a 6:00pm winter Michigan night causing no undue sunlight to enter my room. And I started a new game and I knew that I was totally screwed when the game uttered "Resident EVIL" in a "Danny's not here right now, Mrs. Torrence" kind of voice through my weaksauce TV speakers. And then the voiceover started explaining the dire events that have taken place in Raccoon City, and how S.T.A.R.S. members were being called into an abandoned mansion for whatever reason and then the FMV started.

Oh. Dear. God. What have I gotten myself into? I must have been roughly 11-13, hell if I remember specifically, and was an impressionable young lad with the utmost sense of terror taking over my pre-pubescent little brain. The idea of bloodied, insane dogs eating away at a dead man's flesh and then chasing after the S.T.A.R.S. members on the screen made me want to find a blanket just so I could hide under it. Eventually, though, it was all over and I ended up in a mansion with an ominous grandfather clock ticking away in the background. Phew, I was safe… And then the image of the first zombie eating another dead man's flesh came shortly after, and I attempted firing my little Beretta at his decaying head, and then facing the realization that I had no idea how to shoot him, and whipped my knife out and tried just slashing him to the ground. Eventually, I nailed that sucker. He fell the ground and I breathed a sigh of utter relief. Then he got back up, chewed on my head, and I died. The screen faded to black, and the text "You Died" appeared in bloody writing, and a little aspect of my inner-child died with it.

The only other game in the Resident Evil series that made me really want to play through the game's finish was Code Veronica for the Dreamcast. This is, to this day, the absolutely best version of the classic RE formula we all know and love -- though I hear the GameCube port of the original RE is pretty good too (and I do own it, just haven't played it). The game was chock-full of so many quick, cheap scares that I think I actually yelled out into the dark abyss of my room in shock and fear a solid twenty-thirty times (I think the actual number is twenty-four). The game also had the hottest female game model I've ever seen in a game, but that's a topic best saved for a discussion that will never occur.



While I've played every major Resident Evil title to be released, I really only absolutely enjoyed the original and Code Veronica. I loved the series, and I loved the atmosphere, but despite the fact that the second and third games were both very good (well, at least the second was), I just didn't enjoy them. I've always really enjoyed the entire Resident Evil franchise, both for its B-grade writing and the fact that it was a game that revolved around zombies and insane birds, dogs, and spiders, but the thing that always kept me playing a Resident Evil game was the creepy atmosphere that every game had. The only RE game that game anywhere close to breaking the dark, intense atmosphere was, actually, the game that had a big creature following you throughout: Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. The idea of the game was good, but the execution just came across as a cheap way to heighten the tension (not to mention that Nemesis was just goofy looking).

This brings me to Resident Evil 4 -- the first RE game to revolve around action-packed gameplay to drive the player through the game. Gone are the cheap "find this key to open this door" puzzle gimmicks that were in the previous games, gone were the static camera angles that made shooting enemies ridiculously hard, and gone were the zombies. RE4 had enemies that moved fast, carried chainsaws, and actually used real weapons. The single greatest indication that RE4 was different than its predecessors is that the enemies dropped ammunition when they were killed. That was the main hint to me that this game was really a different kind of Resident Evil. The atmosphere was still there, the creepy enemies were still there, and the campy dialogue was still there… But everything was really taken to a new level by the new behind-the-shoulder perspective as well as an aiming and control scheme that actually made shooting enemies easier, rather than the old method which did more to hinder ease-of-aiming than anything else.

My favorite aspect of Resident Evil 4 though, without a doubt, is just how many ways there are to enjoy the game. There is a huge arsenal of weapons that you can use, a ton of possible upgrades to get, and a number of ways to kill enemies, and the gameplay simply doesn't get old. I could quite easily play through the game about three-four times before finally getting tired of the main storyline, and then move onto the side-games that open up after the game is beaten for the first time. Not only is this the most entertaining RE title to date, but it's also one of the largest, most fulfilling RE games. The main story takes around fifteen-twenty hours to complete (and it's hard to not feel a burning to desire to play through it again with new costumes on the new unlocked difficulty level), and then there is a small campaign with a different character unlocked, and then there is a pure adrenaline-pumping minigame where your sole goal is to kill as many enemies as possible, with points given to killing enemies in quick succession. And, oh, the number of different types of enemies in the game is simply mind-blowing.



Oh, and the boss fights. Those spectacular, screen-filling bosses that were more fun to try and beat than any other boss conflicts I've ever played in another game.

All in all, Resident Evil 4 is one of the paramount reasons to be a gamer. It has a fantastic story, some awesome plot twists, a lengthy and difficult main storyline, a ton of unlockable content, and so many "Holy crap, I can't believe that just happened!" moments that it's hard to omit the game from any "Best Games of All Time" list that may ever be created. The graphics are excellent, showcasing such latent powers of the GameCube that I actually wondered if Capcom had finally sold their soul over to Satan, the sound and music are both as creepy and tense as they are awesome, and the control scheme, while difficult at first, is absolutely perfect for this kind of game. And while the GameCube version of the game is the version to play, I've heard that the PS2 port isn't half-bad either.

No matter how you feel about the Resident Evil series as a whole, you owe it to yourself to play this mind-numbingly fantastic gem of a game. I feel completely confident in my opinion that Resident Evil 4 is the number one game to be released in 2005, and I'm anxiously awaiting the already-announced Resident Evil 5 which Capcom stated would follow in the same path that was set by this amazing game.