Tom Mc Shea takes a look at how the legacy of Resident Evil 4 has shaped the survival horror genre.
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Although I'd agree that RE4 has had a poor legacy on survival horror and the Resident Evil series itself I would argue that it has had a great legacy on third person shooters. It pretty much made over the shoulder camera the standard for the genre, even Cliffy B admitted that for Gears of War they lifted the camera from RE4
Resident Evil 4 was spiritual compared to it's offspring. I felt I was in the game, I couldn't stop playing it till I saw what was next.
We need a Condemned 3. That series is the only one I can think of that continuously blended action and tension to create a real sense of fear. Heck, just one stage was enough to make thousands of gamers fear bears for life.
@DexterKone23 Lol you just had to throw in some hate there didn't you? I agree with your comment below but all you had to do was state that you meant the tv show and not the game. Your hate for the game is not only unnecessary, but it didn't get the point you were trying to make below across any better.
RE has gotten so far away from what made it a great game. They need to get back to basics - start with the zombies. But do it in a new way. Keep the creepy atmosphere of the first two games but change the style of the game itself. I would love to play a combination of RE and Skyrim. So why can't someone make a game like that? A survival horror game, a real one. Like The Walking Dead - characters you care about, compelling story, tension, action, and oh yeah, survival. You'll need to find food, clothing, medicine, shelter, etc. A game like that would be epic.
I've played every game he talked about and Resident Evil, and Dead Space is not considered a horror game compared to amnesia. Amnesia scared the crap out of me when i first played it and at time it still does scare me. Dead Space compared to resident evil i would say dead space is scarier. Resident Evil was never really scary to me i thought of it as a awesome shooter not a horror.
They'd probably argue (publishers) that making games too hard would deprive some gamers of the full game. Even though we know this is false, I'm surprised they didn't see that as an opportunity to charge gamers more for DLC that helped you through a level (like the Dead Space 2 DLC armors, but on a more drastic level, in games equivalent to the Dead Space 1 and prior).
Is this a bad thing? Prehaps we could use a collapse of big budget games to build a better development scene? Maybe these "mainstreamifications" is just the final gasp of the overgrown cancer that is publishers now. Maybe we can use this as an opportunity for our own Great Diaspora, following the death of our own God Emperor Leto II. Maybe this will spark a decentralisation that sees a focus shift to indie developers, who get more control over their product. I don't think that would be a bad thing.
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This is exactly why there are only so few good horror movies. You can't replace tension with splatter. It's just not frightening. To me RE isn't survial horror anymore - it's just another action adventure. Thumbs up for Silent Hill. It may not have been perfect, but they knew how to create a scary atmosphere.
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I for once view RE as an action game that starts with a horror theme. Sure it was scary, but that's when I was 8 years old. Now that I played the old series again, those old games has aged and is now an action game with clunky controls and spy stories, except Code Veronica which is just plain ridiculous. This is why I find RE4-6 to be a natural change and I don't mind it. Same as Dead Space. I always though of that as an atmospheric action game with epic bossfights. The only scary part of the franchise is that eye machine thing with the needles. that is fucking disturbing and it made my heart beat just like when I first played RE 10 hears ago, but the rest are Good action game fun that made me want to replay them again. That's why since Dead Space 3 will be more action, Im looking forward to it because Inknow its where things should end. I want to end the trilogy and see the demise of those uniretards and corrupt government officials.
If I want horror, I'll play games like Forbidden Siren, Amnesia, Fatal Frame, maybe Ju on and those other flash games with stupid jump scares everywhere like Exmortus. Those flash games are pretty much just full of jump scares, but they are effective enough to make me not want to finish the game.
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I like how this talks about the first Silent Hill, and how helpless you felt, but when Downpour went back to that, more classic survival horror the gaming press didn't like it, some out right hated it. Gamestop actually gave it a 7.5 which is a decent score, but most likely also the highest score the big names gave to it.
I think that proves people don't actually know what they want. Do they want more classic survival horror? Like Silent Hill: Downpour was, or don't they? It just confuses me when people say they do, but then say Downpour was terrible, when it was exactly what they say they wanted.
should have kept the RE4 pacing, kept the t-virus, and kept the dark lonesome atmosphere. RE4 is not to blame but rather capcom in general for compromising the fright that zombies can create. they could have taken what they succeeded with in RE4 and made a great RE5 but that didnt happen. zombies have always been my favorite bad guy because of re and they destroyed that love for some sort of over glorified parasite infested, gun sporting bad guy that i dont fear in the bright sunlight of africa or wherever they pop up.
they should take dead island, put it in a dark weary raccoon city and further define the controls and tense moments. screw capcom they dont deserve the franchise anymore.i would like to see instead of an action-y RE to see a more role-play type style. that would be fuun..
RE4 ruined survival horror. It is now a lame action shooter genre made for people who sucked at the real versions of survival horror back on PS1 and PS2.
maybe the right term that the survival horror is not going downhill, but rather "shifting" to another new genre.
Gothic Action, i like that sound.... lol
The genre Survival horror is dieing you dont have almost non :( and is my favorite games :(
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Dead space was a good survival horror game, no idea wtf this guy is talking about when he started making it sound like that was where everything started going downhill.
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Im sorry, But res 5 is where they went wrong. A Co Op resident evil ? A game where you always have a partner to help you. That really does not help the game get any scarier. If anything adding a coop story made it seem not nearly as scary at all. RES 4 was perfect at the time.
@kyle004 Bullcrap. RE4 is where they went wrong. It brought noob friendly gameplay, crap story in the style of a forgettable big budget hollywood action film, you can actually kill EVERY enemy in the game and still have tons of ammo, enemies that crap out ammo, herbs, ect. Superhumam abilities, dumb enemies that stop running within 10 feet of you allowing you to easily kill them, no horror, a checkpoint system that was soft on the noobs that sucked at the old RE games, a unnecessary chapter system, ect. RE5 only gave more of what all the crappy gamers liked about RE4.
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@kyle004 Yeah, it's actually like a common theme right now where they want to force social interaction through having to play through something with someone else. What happened to the good old games where Single player WAS a single player experience? Now it's Single Human Player with AI partner...
I don't think you can blame RE4 entirely. RE4 was just another step in that direction i general. RE4 didn't start people's obsession with action, people's obsession with action called for RE4 to be the way it was, and it perpetuates I guess. Not a really good video. Kind of pointless.
I think capcom is to blame not Resident Evil 4. Resident Evil 5 could have taken a lot more from Resident Evil 4 and had been a better game. In the end Capcom decided to try and appeal to the COD crowd with action and thought us long time fans would be ok with it. Considering how Capcom has even said Resident Evil needs to be more about action, survival horror is dead, and pander to more people is better it is clear they care more about the mindless idiots who only want to shoot stuff and watch explosion over us long time fans from the beginning.
I do think there is a space for action in Resident Evil is done right. I think a game along the lines of dropping you in a area full zombies, BOW's, and the like with 2 pistols, assault rifle, sniper rifle, shot gun, a sword, knife, and a buttload of ammo would be cool if that was all you got. You could find a little ammo through out the game but you had to make your ammo last so using the sword or a certain gun at certain times would be the better option and of coarse you are alone no partner. That could bring back the feeling of the early days of running instead of fighting. Of coarse that would mean people would have to stop shooting and think and go forbid a 12 year old do that while playing a M rated game.
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@toddx77 I already said this before but I say it again just to add to what you're saying. I agree with some of your points but I also think that Capcom felt that there was more to do with the franchise than just keeping the fixed camera angles and slow animations and stuff. But they were a little adamant about moving away from it completely when they were making RE4 so they kept the tank controls, kept the mechanic of having you shoot a single shot at a time with a pistol. And RE6 finally moved away from all those ties to the old RE games and made a more Dead Space meets Gears of War thing that maybe should've clinged a little more to the Dead Space side and not the GoW side. Their decision to evolve the franchise was the right one, how they went about it though, left much to be desired.
But going back to the video, what bothers me is that this video tells you a half truth. In RE games, at least the old ones, we still had Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, both character part of an elite unit inside the Raccoon city police department. These guys were highly trained operatives. Basically like swat members.
So it's natural that if you take those characters and go into a realistic approach, it makes sense that they'd be able to defend themselves against the forces that are out to get them to some extent, at least a lot more than the average joe could. It doesn't change that fact. I think we were forgiving of the limitations of what the characters could do, realistically speaking, because of the hardware and software limitations of that time.
So now that we see games like RE4 that keep some of the elements of the gameplay, we start to realize that the characters are not as limited as we thought they'd be inside that world because it has evolved beyond the boundaries of the limitations that the previous generation of consoles had. So it's natural that we go to a more realistic approach in terms of how the characters move, how they use their weapons, how they approach combat, how they interact with the world. Things that weren't all that possible in the previous gen.
But the characters themselves were all highly trained operatives inside their respective groups. All major action heroes. And is this new? No, they were since the begining, they were since RE1, what was the thing that made them seem more vulnerable in that time? The fact that the limitations in technology back then didn't allow for many of the things we have today.
That's why I say that, if we want survival horror, what we need is not in taking away weapons from the characters, but taking away from the characters what makes them so different from us. We aren't all soldiers who are trained in survival situations and close quarters combat and the like. We are average joes, and what studios need to go back to is kind of like what was in Silent Hill 1, how would you react if being thrown in a situation where you must absolutely survive. That's what we need and I do believe that there are ways of making this happen. But in these past few years they've been giving us shooters after shooters that we forget to appreciate the games that do offer that kind of scenario.
We need games where survival through any means necessary is a must, where the atmosphere whispers at you that there's something behind you and there's the lingering feeling that something is gonna jump you from somewhere, and the knowledge that if it does, you may not be able to stop it. Creating this feeling of inadequacy of one's self before the situation is a scary thought isn't it? We need immersion in the world, to get us to feel that the world we're going into is not forgiving and is our enemy and we're not prepared to face it, but that won't stop us from trying. To make you care enough to face adversity and survive any way you can. Imho, that's what I think survival horror entails, not just fixed camera angles, tank controls and slow, impaired movement and animations. Developers can create incredible things now, we're reaching a point where if you can think it, there's a way to do it. And survival horror isn't dead, it's just evolving passed the boundaries of old, all we need is the Devs to realize that it can still be done and we all still want it. Of course, these are my views on the subject and you guys might have different opinions, but I think we'd all benefit from knowing what each of us as gamers feel about this whole thing. All our different stand points.
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THIS GAME! this game is responsible for the destruction of one of my favorites franchises and genres.... i don´t care if it was a good game... it symbolizes the beginning of the end
I love Resi 4, and was curious as a fan of the series the day i saw it announced in a Gaming magazine and quickly grew to love it! Must have passed it about 7 times now! Though i can't argue that it just might have ruined the series forever the real problem in future survival horror(except Dead Space) lies in as Leon states it "Amateurs..."
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The fact is one... I never liked Resident Evil 4. Not even close to what i was looking for to play. Not what i used to love.
I bought a GC ONLY FOR THIS GAME AND THE REMAKE....
RE4 was the start of catastrophe that was inevitableto come. Great game but NOT a resident evil. Period
I played some RE4 but I never understood why so many people love it, I find it a little overrated. Although I have to say I didn't play it long. (somewhere where two chainsaw zombies attacked me)
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Interesting video, I wish they would've mentioned Silent Hill: Shattered Memories though. That was a good example of a proper horror game made in today's game industry.
Reality is, Shattered Memories couldn't compete with the blockbuster juggernauts of Resident Evil and Dead Space. If RE4 set this into motion, I hope Capcom can "unset" it with their latest RE installment / reboot
@JohnMark320 I love that game...Unfortunately...The game received too lil attention and too much hate for being sooo different from the silent hill franchise =/
The thing about Shattered Memories, though it was a great game- it technically was a horror game, not a survival horror game.
Survival Horror has the survival element where you must utilize a limited amount of resources to survive. In Resident Evil (early ones) you had to ration ammo, herbs, and items. In Amnesia you had to ration latern oil, healing items, tinderboxes, and your own sanity.
However, Shattered Memories, while an excellent horror game, focused all on the horror and none on survival. No health items, ammo, or even limited flashlight battery. It is not a survival horror game.
@JohnMark320 Shattered Memories was truly awesome, it remembered me a little bit of Project Zero/Fatal Frame. My only complaint was it was really short and almost not related to Silent Hill.
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I enjoyed all of the Resident Evil game so far. I liked the more tense horror of the earlier games as well as the fast paced co-op action of the latter games. I just wish they would continue to make games similar to the earlier RE along with games with the faster paced action of the latter games. That way EVERYONE wins! WOOHOO!
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well the first dead space was scary given the fact that you could kill monster in many ways easily but that was different in the Impossible mode still we have games like siren blood curse
@Atsuky Is Siren good?? I just tried the demo I liked it but the enemy seemed dumb the second I picked up a gun. Also,god damn its awfully dark I wish I could raise the brightness up a bit but there doesnt seem to have any options (at least in the demo)
@GamerOuTLaWz To tell you the truth I a played this game at my cousins house and if i remember well there aren't any brightness settings within the full game, but you can change your overall TV and PlayStation settings or the game mode to (story, old horror art-style). Now about the dumb enemy's i think they fixed that because when I played they weren't dumb at all.
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Ok, dead space has some of the best atmosphere for a horror game, still want to play amnesia though.
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