The Resident Evil series was always about making you as scared as possible. When the first game was released the graphics weren't as advanced as they are now, but Capcom made sure your pants were thoroughly soaked by using bone chilling sound effects and placing zombies as efficiently scary as possible. This generation's Nintendo gamers first got a taste of Resident Evil when Capcom updated the first RE game especially for the Gamecube. This remake was everything the game stood for when it was first released, but with gorgeous Cube graphics that made the experience even scarier. After that all the other RE games were ported over to the Cube without graphical updates and the Cube got a Resident Evil of its own, Resident Evil Zero. The prequel Zero and the ported sequels offered lots of good scares, but they were all variations on the scares that the first game gave.

 

All that is about to change though, because eight years after the first outing, Capcom is putting the finishing touches on a Resident Evil that throws away lots of RE conventions. Fixed camera positions are gone, door-opening animations as loading screens are a thing of the past and it even looks like Resident Evil 4 will not have zombies! Extremely aggressive villagers that cooperate to get rid of you take the place of the slow-moving rotting corpses. What stays intact is the need to conserve everything from ammo to healing herbs, the constant suspense that makes every corner look suspicious and the main character from Resident Evil 2, Leon Kennedy. If you read this without having seen any RE4 screenshots or movie clips these changes may seem to remove everything that Resident Evil stands for; the fixed camera positions made distant zombies even more frightening, the door opening animation added to the suspense of entering a new room and zombies were the Evil in Resident Evil. Play Resident Evil 4 for even a few minutes though and you'll take all those words back…

 

For starters, the new camera system does anything but make the game less scary. In old RE games you usually had a pretty good view of what was directly in front or behind your character. In Resident Evil 4 you can see much further ahead of your character, but you can only guess what goes on behind your back by the sounds you hear. Imagine being chased by three rabid villagers with pitchforks and axes. You think you've managed to put enough distance between you and them to look around and send them a few bullets. When you turn around you only see two of them though, you shoot them quickly before they can throw their weapons and start looking for the third attacker. You find him very quickly, he's flanked you while you were turning and is now choking you while screaming gibberish at you. The new camera system combined with the dangerously intelligent enemies makes Resident Evil 4 at easily as scary as its predecessors.

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Having intelligent enemies doesn't just mean they take cover and alert each other in this game. Their main goal is to kill you, so if you try to shake them off they'll do anything to get you. Climb into a high tower and they'll hurl Molotov cocktails at your hideout, barricade a door, they'll even set up a ladder to climb up to you, not only that they'll come swarming through the windows and if you attack more than one of them at a time and they'll try to flank you. The spooky tension of the other RE games makes place for state of total panic in this game, you're constantly afraid of dying. It's also great to see how the game keeps on surprising you; The first couple of villagers come in smFall groups so you'll have a pretty good chance to shoot them all. Soon enough though their numbers grow you'll run out of bullets, you'll be surrounded and your only hope is blasting a way out. Oh and remember those cool screenshots of that dude with the bag over his head, coming at you with a chainsaw? In those screenshots you saw Leon push away the chainsaw before it could any fatal damage to Leon. Play the game for yourself and you'll find out this doesn't happen if the freak attacks you from behind, he'll just saw your head clean off and leave you with a “You are dead” screen.

 

Even though the camera is now fixed behind your back, the controls feel very familiar. You basically do the same as in the other RE games, but the new camera seems to fit the control scheme much better than the cinematic camera positioning of the old games. Strafing is still not possible, but aiming a gun works much better than before. Hold R and the camera moves closer to look over Leon's right shoulder, you now get to move your gun's laser pointer to the area in which you want to hit you enemy before you shoot. This makes headshots more than just dumb luck; you really have to aim fast if you want to put a bullet through someone's brain, since the villagers will duck if they see a red light pointing between their eyes. At first the aiming and the lack of strafing are hard to get used to, but after a bit of practice the aiming system starts to pay off and the quickturn solves a lot of problems you would normally strafe out of.

 

Although only playing a small part of the game which notably had a 'work in progress' notice on top (its awesome as it is, when they're done with it .. well just think how much better it will be) we were able to make some suggestions to the story, it seems these villagers are somewhat under control by something, a religion? A cult? Who knows, but at the end of the level a loud bell ringing saves your life by calling all the villagers attention, then they march away as if hypnotized. What's this all about? Is someone controlling them purposely? How did they get this way? What is their purpose? Do they know what they are doing? Such questions can only be answered by playing through the game, no doubt with you trying to uncover the whole thing, true to classic Resi.

What we've seen and played only made us want Resident Evil 4 even more. The game looks stunning and plays great, now we only have to hope Capcom is able to keep the level of terror and surprise up through the rest of the game. If they do, this could well be the scariest thing you've ever played. Maybe it's a good plan to start walking through dark alleys at night to practice your nerves until Resident Evil 4 gets released here in 2005…