Resident Evil 4 [PS2]

Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami once said that someone could cut his head off if the series had any sequels on a system other than Nintendo's hardware. No one's asking for his head, but such a statement has been nullified with the release of Resident Evil 4 on the PlayStation 2. When it released last January, RE4 was popular enough to make even the most jaded of gamers break down and buy a little colored Cube just to experience the horror one more time. However, there were some who held out in the hopes that the game would come to PS2. Whether they were Sony diehards or kids who couldn't afford to buy a new system just for one game, some were happy once the announcement was made that RE4 was coming to the PlayStation 2. Most of us scoffed and laughed at how poorly we thought it would translate- the GameCube version maxed out Nintendo's hardware capabilities; how could it perform on a system that was a year older and had largely peaked out? Capcom did it anyway. So how does it compare? Pass me a plate; looks like I'm going to the buffet table for an extra helping of crow.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Resident Evil 4's dive into multiplatform glory simply solidifies a fact that most GameCube owners already knew: it's among the absolute best games of this generation of consoles. For the uninitiated -and without too many spoilers- RE4 takes place six years after the Raccoon City Incident that kicked off the last three games. The U.S. Government has completely barred the nefarious Umbrella Corporation, responsible for the T-Virus, which turned the city's citzens into flesh-eating zombies, from doing business. Leon Kennedy, then a rookie cop on his first day in RE2, is now a Secret Service agent. The president's daughter, Ashley Graham, has gone missing in Spain, and it's his mission to rescue her. Of course, A: nothing goes as planned, and B: there are a lot of really disgusting mutations and monstrosities along the arduous journey to get Ashley back to America safely.



Visually, the game takes a hit in comparison to its predecessor. There are slightly fewer polygons (Leon's hair doesn't quite have that sheen it had on the Cube) and some dips in framerate which usually come during boss fights. Since the original game used the in-game engine from the Cube's hardware to render cutscenes and the PS2 is less powerful, the cutscenes look better than in-game play and don't flow seamlessly. In all honestly, however, is Leon's hair really an issue when you're knee-deep in parasitic creatures trying to eat your head? After several hours of gameplay, very few gamers are going to nitpick every little detail and will instead be completely engrossed in what is one of this generation's best storytelling and gameplay experiences. Besides, the PS2 version offers plenty of features that the Cube version couldn't to make up for some of the graphic/framerate issues. Unlike the prior release, which used letterboxing (but no progressive scan) to create its cinematic feel, the PS2 uses both progressive scan and widescreen support for HDTVs.

The sound falters a little bit at times. Some of the dialogue, most noticeably with the merchant, sounds a little too tinny and compressed, possibly because unlike the double disc for the Cube, all of the hardware intensity had to fit on one single DVD-ROM. The sound effect of porcelain jars shattering doesn't seem as clear, either. Other than that, it runs well, even if players don't have a killer rig to run the game in Pro Logic II. A decent TV will capture the crisp sound effects, garbled Spanish, and explosions regardless. No matter what, you will have the crap scared out of you should you sequester yourself in a dark room to play, which I did for roughly three days.