Nah not really. The Gamecube remake of the original game is still the best RE game. That game was actual survival horror which is what RE is supposed to be. RE4 has no survival horror at all. As I always say, RE4 is a good game, but it is a bad RE game.

the controls, to me, make it that much better

whether or not you feel it adheres to it's predecessors has little bearing on what makes it superior to me

Different strokes for different folks. :shrug:

I do like RE4; I am just saying it is not a good Resident Evil game because of the lack of survival horror. It is like the thread in Movie Talk with everyone complaining about Die Hard 4's PG-13 rating. Without all the swearing, it will not be true to John McClane's character. The movie may turn out to be good, but it won't be true to the spirit of Die Hard. It could potentially be a good movie, but it won't be a good Die Hard movie.

as soon as they started having spin offs of their own titles, I think that pretty much killed that idea

Actually, I don't follow that logic at all. If it's a good movie or a good game -- it is what it is. If Resident Evil 4 is the best (i.e., best designed, most fun to play, etc) game of the series, then it's the best game of the series. If Die Hard 4 is the best written, directed, and acted movie of the series then it's the best of the series.

I don't care whether RE4 is survival horror or action. It doesn't change it's status of a good game to me at all... and if RE4 plays better than RE1, RE2, RE3, etc.... then it's the best game of RE.

I've only played RE1, RE3, and RE4. It's been so long since I've played 1 and 3 that it's hard to compare, but from memory it seems like 4 is the best to me.

Great post, DC. People too often complain about games not offering anything new and then when something IS changed, people start complaining about the changes. I won't name any names.. but it's often the very same people whining on both ends of the spectrum.

I dunno, some of those villagers are pretty scary. Especially the cloth bag chainsaw dude. I only really played RE:CV a bit, but that game wasn't as scary as 4 for sure. So I don't see why you wouldn't class it as a survival horror game.

I consider survival horror as "Oh shit, where'd all my ammo go?"

If you only played a portion of CV, then how can you say the entire game is not scary?

IMO, CV had more scary segments than 4. Personally, I think each successive RE game has been less scary than the previous one. The original game in the haunted mansion was very scary. 2 was still scary, but the police station was not quite as scary as the mansion. 3 was less scary than 2, and CV was less scary than 3, and 4 was the least scary of them all.

Don't get me wrong, I do like change. If every sequel is exactly the same, then it gets stale. However, the entire theme of a game should not change. RE went from the horror genre to action genre.

this may be true, but you could easily argue that you've become progressively desensitized as the series continues to get older

Yes, but also the graphics and such get more realistic with each game too. The villagers in RE4 are more realistic looking than the blocky zombie models in the original game, but I still find the original to be more scary.

So if you replayed the original, you're saying you'd still get scaried from it?

Well, no not now because after playing through it nearly a dozen times, I have the game memorized. :)

Seriously though, I doubt if a first time player who is used to HD next-gen graphics would be incredibly scared by it, but the game still does have classic horror moments that will make anyone jump. The zombie dogs jumping through the windows, the first time running into those green hunter things, the giant snake in the attic, etc.

I agree with that. It's a fine line between keeping a series fresh, and changing it too much (if it ain't broke, don't fix it).

I think Nintendo does a great job of that with their series, buy not popping them out every year they're able to come up with new ideas that keep them fresh without changing the feel and spirit of their main franchises.

Now in this case, I liked the change to RE as I hated the old games as I don't like survival horror games at all. But there's no doubt that it had to alienate hardcore fans of the genre given that it changed it to an action game.

I never bothered getting the striker.

I just used the handgun, and the better one you get later, the regular shotgun powered up, the rifle powered up a little and the broken butterfly.

Well I saw pretty much the 1st disc of the DC version, so that's gotta be a fair chunk of the game. I did see a friend play through a fair chunk of RE1 back in the day, and didn't find it scary at all. Another friend showed me only about 20 minutes of Silent Hill 1 and that totally hooked me.

Anyway, I don't see that being an action heavy game necessarily prevents a game from being scary (although maybe that's not your intended point). Also, I'd say if you don't find RE4 at all scary (or at least jump in your seat a couple of times), then you probably don't find many games scary. Maybe stick to the Silent Hill games (except for 4 of course - hmm is this some kind of parallel?).

I jumped only once in RE4: Oven Man! Those regenerator creatures were freaky, but they move so damn slow, they aren't really a threat.

No, I don't really consider action heavy games to be that scary. I was never scared at all by Doom. It is hard to be scared when you are armed to the teeth like Rambo and have a BFG that can nuke the shit out of anything. Games where you have limited resources scare me more because you can have 5 bullets left and not know what is just around the corner.

FEAR and Condemned are both horror games made by the same company. Condemned, IMO, is much scarier. Condemned gives you limited resources while FEAR arms you like Rambo.

I agree with that. It's just not scary when you have pretty much unlimited Ammo and can easily kill anything they through at you.

Again, for me it was a plus as I don't like survival horror much, but RE1 remake on the GC was definitely scarier than RE4 for that reason.

While I guess your argument makes sense to you and to some others, to me saying survival horror games are scary cos of limited ammo is like saying Galaga is scary cos it's pretty hard and u only get 3 ships (which it aint). I mean, the Silent Hill games are far scarier than the RE series could ever hope to be, and those games are hardly difficult (note - personal opinion).

For me, the fear in a game is more about the graphics, the atmosphere, the music and ambient sounds, the setting, and the situations you find yourself in. I will grant you, that having only a few bullets compared to full ammo stacks for every weapon will put me on edge a little more, but it's hardly close to the biggest factor for me in finding a game scary.

Agree that atmosphere makes a big difference. I didn't find the atmosphere in RE 4 scary either.

Less scary enemies, less "jumps" etc. It just wasn't a scary game.

Just a decent action game. :shrug:

:wtf: That makes no sense at all because Galaga was never even meant to be scary.

I never said that horror games with limited ammo were scary only because of the limited ammo. I said that action heavy games with you as a Rambo character are harder to make a scary atmosphere since you can kill anything. They can still be scary, they just are harder to do so.

Silent Hill is scarier than Resident Evil, I agree. Yet, Silent Hill is still more of a limited resource type game than a Rambo type game. It is also more of a psychological horror than RE's "jump out at you" horror.

I do agree that what makes a game really scary is the atmosphere, sound effects, setting, etc. That is why in a previous post I said the original RE was the scariest RE game. The haunted mansion in the middle of nowhere was very atmospheric. I said the police station in RE2 was less scary. It wasn't as atmospheric and isolated as the mansion.

Look at the upcoming Umbrella Chronicles game for the Wii. It is set in the mansion from the first game. It is also a light gun shooter type of game. Watching videos of it, it really does not seem to have the scare factor that the original RE did. Why? Because it is shooter where you are armed like Rambo. Also, take Condemned for another example. That game was also very atmospheric. The lack of firearms also contributed to the scare factor. Would the game have been as scary if you had machineguns with loads of ammo to blow everything away? I doubt it.

Just wanted to throw out that Condemned mops the floor with RE in the scary department. :)

No one's really chimed in yet with how they like the Wii controls with this. Well?

their poor-excuse for a strafe really pisses me off


the wii controls are pretty damn good

Why bother, when we can just watch the same 2.5 year-old argument about whether RE4 is as scary as the other RE games. :(