Good Game: Resident Evil 4 (PS2)

Another Good Game

Today its Resident Evil 4 a 2005 survival horror game developed and published by Capcom for the PlayStation 2 (PS2). The sixth major installment in the Resident Evil series, it was originally released for the GameCube in 2005.

Players control U.S. government special agent Leon S. Kennedy, who is sent on a mission to rescue the U.S. president’s daughter Ashley Graham, who has been kidnapped by a cult. In a rural part of Europe, Leon fights hordes of villagers infected by a mind-controlling parasite, and reunites with the spy Ada Wong.

Development began for PlayStation 2 as early as 1999. Resident Evil 4 underwent a long development during which four proposed versions were discarded; the first attempt was directed by Hideki Kamiya after producer Shinji Mikami. The game was announced as a GameCube exclusive as part of the Capcom Five, but a PlayStation 2 version was announced before it was released. Resident Evil 4 was ported to Windows, Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and in downsized versions for iOS, Zeebo, and Android.

Resident Evil 4 garnered critical acclaim, with praise for its narrative, gameplay, voice acting, and characters. It received multiple Game of the Year awards for 2005 and was seen as a successful cross-platform hit that influenced the evolution of the survival horror and third-person shooter genres. It pioneered the “over the shoulder” third-person view perspective in video games. It is widely considered to be one of the best video games of all time. A sequel, Resident Evil 5, was released in 2009.

In 1999, producer Shinji Mikami said a Resident Evil sequel was in development for PlayStation 2. Resident Evil 4 underwent a lengthy development, during which at least four versions of the game were discarded. The first version was directed by Hideki Kamiya. Around the turn of the millennium, Resident Evil 2 writer Noboru Sugimura created a scenario for the game, based on Kamiya’s idea to make a “cool” and “stylish” action game.

The story was based on unraveling the mystery surrounding the body of protagonist Tony, an invincible man with skills and an intellect exceeding that of normal people, with his superhuman abilities explained with biotechnology. As Kamiya felt the playable character did not look brave and heroic enough in battles from a fixed angle, he decided to drop the prerendered backgrounds from previous installments and instead opted for a dynamic camera system. This new direction required the team to make a trip to Europe, where they spent 11 days in the United Kingdom and Spain, photographing things like Gothic statues, bricks, and stone pavements for use in textures.

Though the developers tried to make the “coolness” theme fit into the world of Resident Evil, Mikami felt it strayed too far from the series’ survival horror roots and gradually convinced all of the staff members to make the game independent from it. Kamiya eventually rewrote the story to be set in a world full of demons and changed the hero’s name to Dante. The cast of characters remained largely identical to that in Sugimura’s scenario, although the hero’s mother and his father, the latter an early version of the Umbrella Corporation founder Lord Ozwell E. Spencer, were written out of the story. The game’s new title was revealed as Devil May Cry, released for the PlayStation 2 in August 2001, resulting in its own franchise.

Watch the video I made below showing about the first 40 minutes of the game.

Video:

Resident Evil 4 Gameplay.

Developer: Capcom Production Studio 4.
Publisher: Capcom.
Platform: PlayStation 2.
Release: 25th October 2005 (NA), 4th November 2005 (EU), 9th November 2005 (AU), 1st December 2005 (JP).
Genre: Survival horror, Third-person shooter.