Great Games, Terrible Legacy - Resident Evil 4

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Funny thing is though. The reason RE4 was so good was so good was because of it's perfect mixture of action and horror. People came to this game for scares and got something more, something excellent. I really don't understand why the leaders in the horror industry are going all action. Does action sell? Yes, of course it does, but in this genre you have to still have that horror factor. If you don't you get RE6 which everyone hates. I really hope the developers/publishers learn their lesson soon. This is a great genre of gaming. I don't want to see it disappear. Man I miss games like Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly. Those were the days. 

I think Resident Evil : Revelations should've been mentioned here as , even though it was definitely not the horror games of old , it was a lot more like them and showed RE still had some small intent to stick to some horror .... at least in the portable realm. Surprised Slender's not mentioned as well.

RE6 is a action game not horror game. Disappointing.

he's right as much as i loved dead space and RE4, the horror genre is no longer horror. its become a action genre with  horror roots. the indie horror scene is great, but i doubt will see another good AAA horror series.

@AndCarlsen and Tom McShea A terrible legacy.  If a terrible legacy is leaving a blue print for game series like Gears of War and Dead Space, as well as Shinji Mikami's sleeper hit Vanquish, then call me a gamer that loves terrible games.  AndCarlsen has it exactly right.  All I can say is, what genius game design will Shinji Mikami roll out with next and completely change the way we play videogames?  Ask yourselves this as a gamer, what lame crap 'scary' games did we have before Mikami created the "Survival Horror" genre?  D????  Phantasmagoria, whatever THAT was.  7th Guest, or whatever it was called?  The man created this genre, and completely revolutionized it.  I don't know what genre RE4 really is to tell you the truth, but it's far from a flawed game in any aspect.  It is exactly what it sets out to be, intense.  I loved getting my ****** head sawed off by some creepy ******* with a a brown net mask over his head; and for the time, the graphics were completely superb, especially if you were running the component cables that you ordered on Nintendo's website to plug into the back of your Gamecube, saddled up with one of the best controllers ever made.  Cheers to Shinji Mikami for all that he has done for videogames, and Boo to Tom Mcshea for all that he does.  

You know, there's another great game with a terrible terrible legacy that has enveloped the world of gaming in terrible mediocrity: MODERN FUCKING WARFARE. I would love to see someone do a retrospect on that.

Stopped playing after 4..which was great game... but its a shame really. I used to love this series for it's survival aspects. Dead Space 1 & 2 were good.. 3 looks like it is going to be co-op like RE5.. a terrible legacy indeed.

The issue is that the feature never mentions RE4's legacy to the TPS genre.  But as far as how the legacy left behind by horror devs? I gotta agree all the way.  It's spot on.

Wow for once I don't absolutely hate something Tom Mc Shea did.... Maybe he should stick to doing things like this instead of reviewing games? 

Anyway, even though RE4 was fun, but I always felt it was more of an action horror game, probably because the aiming system and weapons , adding an aiming system to a horror game mostly makes it soooo much less frightening (but if done right, like in the Fatal Frame series, it can make it so much more frightening). Idk, RE4 felt like they just wanted to make the series more action oriented (especially when you see the scraped version of RE4, which I wish wasn't scrapped that game actually looked scary). For me guns shouldn't be in a survival horror game (unless they have very limited ammo) the genre isn't supposed to be "shoot everything you see" it's more of a "survive as best you can with limited weapons and monsters coming to get you" you're supposed to be an ordinary person in survival horror games, not a video game superhero kinda guy who can easily fight any enemy you come across.

I don't know why Capcom doesn't get a small team to make an old school Resident Evil game for psn and xbla... It would be amazing to see something like Resident Evil Remake quality. A remake of part 2 or 3? Or a whole new game with new characters but with pre rendered background like the old ones. I can guaranty you it would sell over 1 million like minecraft as.

the best

Resident Evil 4 got it right so other companies started to copy it. That's just how this industry works. For better or  worse, RE 4 bcame the benchmark for every survival horror game ever since. The genre changed (I won't say evolved) because people's tastes changed. If more games like RE 6 start getting bad reviews and selling bad and more games like Dear Esther and Amnesia start selling well then maybe we'll see future survival horror games have a first person perspective and have the player trying to avoid the foes instead of going after them.

Here's a more complete summary of Resident Evil 4's legacy without the one sidedness of McShea.  This is straight from wikipedia

Resident Evil 4 is regarded as one of the most influential games of the 2000s decade, due to its influence in redefining the survival horror and third person perspective genre.  It helped redefine the third-person shooter genre by introducing a "reliance on offset camera angles that fail to obscure the action".The over-the-shoulder viewpoint introduced in Resident Evil 4 has now become standard in third-person shooters, including titles ranging from Gears of War to Batman Arkham Asylum It has also become a standard "precision aim" feature for action games in general, with examples ranging from Dead Space and Grand Theft Auto to the Ratchet and Clank Future series.

Resident Evil 4 also attempted to redefine the survival horror genre by emphasizing reflexes and precision aiming, thus broadening the gameplay of the series with elements from the wider action game genre. However, this also led some reviewers to suggest that the Resident Evil series had abandoned the survival horror genre, by demolishing the genre conventions that it had established.[161]Other major survival horror series followed suit, by developing their combat systems to feature more action, such as Silent Hill Homecoming and the 2008 version of Alone in the Dark. These changes represent an overall trend among console games shifting towards visceral action gameplay.

You could say that RE4's legacy breathed new life into the horror genre.  I was never into the old school horor games until RE4 came along, and now i'm hooked.

This was an extremely one sided look at its legacy.  Resident Evil 4's legacy extends past the survival horror genre.  Every single game this generation that uses 3rd person over the shoulder camera angles owes something to it.  Cliffy B even said that Gears of War would not exist without Resident Evil 4.  Heck Grand Theft Auto 4 and Red Dead Redemption use over the shoulder aiming because it was so successful in Resident Evil 4.  The entire Dead Space series copies Resident Evil 4's over the shoulder view.  I'd say a mechanic that most games use this generation is a pretty darn successful legacy

i dont understand why resident evil can't control like left 4 dead

Great points made. I approve this message.

The only thing scary about RE4, or could potentially be scary were the Garrador's and the Regenerator/Iron Maiden's. Again, 'potentially' scary under certain circumstances. I really, really loved that game though, and I got it for both GameCube, PS2, and Wii. That was one of those games that I beat many, many times and I could easily call one of my favorite games, but then again, I do have a lot of favorites, that's up there though.

Man, stop blaming RE4. Survival horror is dead because of pandering. No one wants to capitalise on their own strengths or specialise. Everyone wants the action crowd and appeal to a broader audience. It's like how Dead Space 3 is better with kinect and has more action, Dark Souls 2 wants to be more casual, and Bioshock Infinite's Ken Levine wants the fratboys audience. Here's hoping that a Great Videogame Crash is going to happen soon.

I'm sorry, but I must say that entire staff of Gamespot is just awful.  I only come here for it's interface and the collective rating system used by us, the users.  All of their stories and editorials are completely self fulfilling and completely BS.  Not a fan of any editor that I have ever come across on this website.  When they started mentioning Nick Cage and Stanley Kubrick in the same sentence, I realized the idiocracy that is Gamespot's staff.  

I remember buying whole damn GameCube for Resident Evil Remake and 4.

Remake is still one of my most favorite games ever, playing it on PC with emulator time after time. 4 is long since forgotten and, even though gave me quite a few hours of good fun, but nothing more than just hated right now for ruining great series. 5 was so horrible, I can't even believe it was done by same company that made fantastic first games... And apparently 6 is even worse... Maybe it's time to go back, Capcom...

I wouldn't say that the survival horror market is "dead" due to RE4. Is it dead for AAA releases? Ya probably, and as such is sadly also probably dead for a good deal of console gamers.

But the PC Indie market is coming out with some of the best survival horrors of all time ranging from the incredibly large and engrossing Amnesia, all the way to the short simplistic SCP series.

I agree to the opinion that Dead Space was not the same as RE5. RE4 was great and Dead space took that greatness. Even though i had these Weapons i still was afraid to go on in this game and the sections with the Uber Necromorph and the Stalkers were the most Horrifying in a long long time of Gaming for me.

Dead Space is NOT in the same category as modern Resident Evil.  You may have weapons, but it is still a survival horror game at heart.

And how can you mention survival horror without Call of Cthulu Dark Corners of the Earth?  That game was far better than RE4, and got absolutely no credit.

This is exactly how I felt with RE4. I remember back in the day when RE4 was just released and everyone said it was amazing, I was always a very strong fan of RE, so I gave RE4 a try, even if it looked totally different from the old games. I ended up liking RE4 a lot, but I knew this was probably the end of the old school RE and maybe a shift to the genre into action. I always thought Capcom copied something from one of those "House of the Dead" arcade games, and fused it into RE without the rail shooting.

Resident Evil 4 was great.

Resident Evil 4's combat was still lame. You can't even move when shooting, how does that make any sense? Enemies either walk super slowly, or just stand in front of you waiting to get shot to compensate for this. So stupid.

Lets be real Tom, did you really felt that survival horror in Resident Evil 2 right after Resident Evil 1? There is no way (for me at least) that I was scared in any way during the series. I feel that the term survival horror is misinterpreted by many thinking that its a game that is meant to scare you, that to me is plain dumb.

How can you point fingers at Resident Evil 4 when it should be against other developers who tried to use the same formula, but failed? Blame other developers for their lack in making a good copy or surpass RE4's style of horror. For the record RE4 wasn't even half scary, creepy, but not scary. C'mon now...

A franchise has to evolve, you can't just assume that one series will stay the same forever, the story changes, characters change and grow, you can't be fighting just zombies and be scared of them when you keep seeing them over and over again. Its all common sense.

This is the kind of stuff I laugh at when I see someone talk a lot of trash about Call Of Duty destroying gaming, blame the other developers for creating games that were clearly competing with the top selling franchise. Be original, stop copying the obvious, and there will be chances that we all get better games to play.

Really, really great video! A+

I liked Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube even though the controls was a little hard to remember. I did not care for it on the PC and felt it was a terrible port.  I will always remember RE 1. RE 5 was okay I had no problem playing it on the PC. I believe RE series need a hiatus for a while because after so many releases it starts to get stale if it isn't already.

Great Games, Terrible Critic

fix'd

Interesting. I never knew RE4 was such a big turning point for survival horror games.

Hopefully they at CAPCOM can realize what the meaning of Resi Evil is . Anyway games have lost their creativity and immagination towards real gamers,and I think it will take a couple of years for them to find the way.Very. Disappointed Lately.!!!!!!