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The arrival of
Resident Evil 4 on Wii comes as
little surprise, considering the nature of its eventual arrival on
the previous generation of home videogame consoles.
 Originally in
development as a GameCube exclusive for many years (part of the
illustrious, yet inevitably doomed Capcom 5), shortly before
European release Capcom announced that the title would also arrive
on PlayStation2 within a year of the GameCube launch. This move was
obviously due to the diminishing consumer faith in the GameCube and
fears that Capcom may no longer have been able to recoup such
significant development costs through selling the title on a
single-platform. From this, we can see how the title may also make
the jump to Wii – another format for the title, upon which the
original code for the game needs little modification; perhaps even
less then the challenge of converting the game to the
technologically inferior PlayStation2.
The bulk of the title has been benefit to little
alteration. Playing as Leon Kennedy, on a mission to rescue the
President’s daughter from an unnamed location in middle-Europe, the
player encounters many a convoluted plot-thread creating a pacified
arena of introductions for first-timers for the series, while
offering stalwarts as many cross-references with previous releases
in the series as is seemingly possible for a title marking it’s
roots, yet striving for innovation in any, and all of it’s
techniques.
Playing in a Third-Person perspective, the Camera has
 often been noted as one of the title’s most successful innovations.
For the most of the game, the Camera follows your avatar at
waist-height. Holding the B Button on the Wii Remote locks the
screen in-place at the point at which your on-screen reticule was
pointing, allowing free-look around that area, pressing the A Button
while in this view-lock will allow Leon to fire his current weapon.
Knife-slashing is executed by pressing the C Button, but also by
simply wiggling the Wii Remote – an aspect that can be quite
well-placed when imposed upon by a small horde of enemies.
Following Resident Evil traditions keeps the title grounded,
and despite it’s now-common innovations in Camera operation, pacing
and player freedom, the game still inherently feels like a
Resident Evil title. Those wonderful Herbs return, as does the
single-Analogue Stick, turn-and-move based movement (quite
obviously, given its host system’s single Analogue Stick
availability). A new feature, worked-in as a modernised replacement
to the Storage Boxes of previous titles, is Leon’s Case. Within the
case, you must place all objects which you wish to carry. The Case
is divided into a grid, and each object requires a set-amount of
squares to fit-into. Upgrades for the Case are available from the
Merchant, a non-player character interspersed into your journey
through the title (another example of clever pacing can clearly be
seen here, with the points at which the Merchant becomes available
perfectly punctuating series’ of action-sequences), as are new
weapons, weapon upgrades and Heath canisters.
Plenty of minor notes should also be incorporated into any
perspective of the title; as it has quite obviously been a
labour-of-love. Opening a door will take a single button press, but
press the button a second time and Leon will lean back and brutally
kick the door wide-open. Well-placed headshots with even only a
Pistol will cause enemy heads to explode, and occasional
close-combat manoeuvres’ will result in the same gruesome finale.
The Quick- Time Entry commands during Cut-Scenes have seen minor
adaptation, but no more than should be expected; as opposed to
simply pressing the correct buttons at the correct time, the player
is now asked to input a larger variety of commands, such as shaking
the Wii Remote, or moving it in a certain direction.
The title’s graphics have had little refinement since their arrival
on the GameCube; yet, still, can for the best part compete rather
well with offerings from the Current-Generation. While clearly
falling behind the likes of
Gears Of War,
MotorStorm,
Virtua Fighter
5 and
Forza Motorsport 2, seemingly smaller development-budget
titles such as
ShadowRun, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At
World’s End and
Armored Core 4 may help the Nintendo
fan-boys in their argument that Wii is in-fact not as technically
inferior as we have all been so quick to believe. However, to a
hardened games critic such as myself, the fact that a port of a
two-year-old GameCube game is easily the best looking title
available on the system brings about more questions concerning the
GameCube’s capabilities than that of Wii; clearly, the GameCube
hadn’t yet been pushed to its’ limits (as with many systems at the
time of their demise), however, because of this – or perhaps even
in-spite of it - could Nintendo possibly be expecting the
development crowd to simply continue from where they’d left-off with the
previous generation? For many developers, this would certainly feel
like a large step-backwards; especially large profile producers
known for their favouring of technical/graphical panache such as TECMO, Epic Games and RockStar Games.
The titles’ sound remains one of the most important, and
well-balanced features in the title. Pin-sharp and pitch-perfect
even on the most basic of sound configurations,
Resident Evil 4:
Wii Edition
adds another thick layer of atmosphere with the eerie movement
of the wind, or the moaning of a permanently-absent foe, or the
fierce
 slamming of iron gates. The soundtrack is most basic, yet
still perfectly balanced: insignificant occasional background bumps
move into dramatic scene-setting orchestrated crescendos when the
heat gets going.
Resident Evil 4 is unquestionably one of the best titles
released on the previous generation of home videogame consoles.
Along with
God Of War,
Shadow Of The Colossus,
Halo:
Combat Evolved,
Super Smash Bros. Melee and
The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight
Princess, the game will no doubt become one of the titles
heralded as the saviour of gaming for its’ generation – as with
Super Mario64, Crash Bandicoot, Gran Turismo,
NiGHTS Into Dreams, and, of course, The Legend Of Zelda:
Ocarina Of Time before it – however, whether or not this is
enough to warrant a release on the Current-Generation of consoles
remains open for debate. A title for newcomers to the series, to
Wii, and to videogaming as a pastime in its own right; but a title
for those having already experienced the GameCube release?
Reassigned controls, the PlayStation2 additions of a new weapon and
an added only-after-completion Mission, and an ever-so-slightly
lower RRP, may not be enough to convince those having already guided
Leon through the depths of the Eastern Europe’s most irrationally
populated locale to enter once more.
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