User Info: friendlydude friendlydude 11 years ago #21 One thing in RE4 that definitely makes me a little nervous because of fear are those creatures in the sewer. Whatever those damn things are, they can turn invisible and really mess with my head, but I don't want to keep shooting at something that might no longer be in front of me, so I have to stop shooting, look for any signs of something around me, and go from there. I LOVE that part of the game and think this part is scary, even if the rest of the game might not be.

User Info: King Azar King Azar 11 years ago #22 It is my belief that the game, Resident Evil 4, fails as a survival horror game and as a Resident Evil game. As such, I am going to explain why I feel this way. I’m going to break this explanation down into three sections: why RE4 fails as horror, why it fails as “survival”, and why it fails as a Resident Evil game. As a forewarning, the result is quite a lengthy essay…only venture in if you are pure of heart, bold of spirit, and bored enough to read the whole damn thing.





I. Resident Evil 4 Fails as Horror



"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."

– H. P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature



H. P. Lovecraft was probably the greatest American horror writer since Edgar Allen Poe, and was definitely one of the most influential. He can therefore be considered an expert in the subject of horror. But what do we mean when we say "the unknown"?



Let’s compare two games of the Resident Evil video game franchise: the 2002 remake of the original Resident Evil (hereto after referred to as REmake), and the 2004 game Resident Evil 4 (hereto after referred to as RE4). (As a side-note, almost everything that applies to REmake in this essay also applies to the other classic Resident Evil games.) In REmake, you explore a mansion, along with some other areas. In this mansion, some rooms have zombies; other rooms have other, more powerful monsters; some rooms have traps or puzzles (some of these have monsters as well), and some rooms are empty. As a result, you never know what you will encounter when you enter the next room. In RE4, set in a village of homicidal peasants, there are virtually no puzzles or empty rooms, and very few traps. However, almost every room has at least a few monsters, with most having quite a few monsters or one or two very powerful monsters. Let’s examine the psychological effect this has.



In REmake, every time you open a door, you don’t know what to expect behind it. There might be a few zombies forcing you to dodge and/or kill them, there might be a more powerful monster forcing you into a fight for your life, there might be a deadly trap that can only be bypassed by solving a fiendish puzzle…or it’s possible that you will find an empty room to provide a respite from the mounting horror of your situation. The very fact that you don’t know what to expect makes you hopeful, yet hesitant. While you hope that there is a room where you discover healing supplies, ammo, and the like, you know it’s just as possible that you will open the door to find a horde of zombies or worse. This is a good example of what Lovecraft meant by fear of the unknown. Even the safe areas provide little respite from the horror, as these brief moments of safety simply allow the true horror of the situation to sink in. Although you are safe at the moment, you know that you must soon again venture out into the zombie-infested areas of the mansion.



In RE4 there is one really great movement where you do face the unknown. The first Regenerator (one of the only enemies in the game that would have been at home in the classic Resident Evil games) you face is a mystery to you. Although you keep shooting and shooting, it doesn’t seem to die. Unfortunately, Capcom ruined this potential by having you only face one Regenerator before you find a note telling what its weakness is. Also, you basically know that behind every door will be a dozen or so Ganados. There is no real unknown factor. Occasionally you might find the odd room with more or fewer of the monsters, or a room with a more powerful monster, but you basically know to expect a lot of action when you walk through the door. There’s less anticipation and a mounting sense of horror because you have the same expectation every time you enter a new area: nonstop action.

User Info: King Azar King Azar 11 years ago #23 This brings us to another topic: that of action vs. horror. In my mind, too much of one diminishes the other. Let’s take a look at two popular film franchises, and how the increase in action in later installments all but eliminated the sense of horror.



Alien was an extremely popular and influential movie. And, despite obvious science-fiction elements, most people consider it to be more of a horror film than anything else. That being said, there wasn’t a lot of action in the film, and most occurred off-screen. It had a sequel, Aliens. Aliens had a ton of action, but it never captured the sense of horror its predecessor had. There wasn’t time for the sense of horror to mount…it was largely one action scene after another.



The Evil Dead is another landmark horror film. It only had a few characters; five college students who have decided to spend a weekend at an old cabin in the woods. Unfortunately for them, they soon discover that the woods are haunted, and evil spirits begin to posses them, one by one. The amount of action varies between Ashley (the main character) fighting for his life with either one or two of the possessed, to moments when the evil spirits either torture him mentally or simply leave him alone to let his mind do the torturing for them. This film inspired a couple of sequels, the second being Army of Darkness. This film abandons all pretense of horror in favor of action and comedy. It still retains some gore (nothing akin to that in the original, despite the much higher budget) but it never achieves any moments of true horror.



REmake is more akin to Alien and The Evil Dead, where RE4 is akin to Aliens and Army of Darkness. The originals focused on creating an atmosphere of fear and horror, while the sequels put minimal focus on these elements in favor of action and (in the case of Army of Darkness and RE4) comedy.



Since I mentioned atmosphere, let’s explore the atmosphere of the games. REmake has a great atmosphere conducive to horror throughout the entire game, with the high mark being the decent to the Death Mask chamber. RE4 actually starts out with a good atmosphere conducive to horror in the village section, but this is somewhat lessened by the fact that the sun is shining through half of the village section. When you later move to the brightly-lit castle section, the atmosphere is all but ruined (with the notable exception of the portion where you control Ashley), and the island section makes it even worse. At one point you actually call on an assault helicopter for air support. I don’t think I even need to explain why this ruins any sense of horror that that section could have potentially possessed.



There’s also the bastardization of the character of Leon Kennedy, which leads to a ruining of the atmosphere. In Resident Evil 2, where Leon first appears, he is a caring, humble guy who behaves in a believable way while trying to escape an unbelievable situation. In this way, he’s much like the character of Ashley from The Evil Dead. In RE4, it’s fairly obvious that his character arc followed that of Ashley (who assumes the nickname of Ash in Army of Darkness). Both become extremely arrogant jackasses who spout out horrible puns and taglines like it’s going out of style, and begin to act in completely unbelievable ways.



To summarize this section, it is my belief that Resident Evil 4 fails to achieve enough elements of horror to truly be considered horror. It doesn’t have much in the way of the unknown, it abandons horror in favor of action, and it never achieves the atmosphere necessary to foster the feeling of horror. As such, it fails to provide the horror aspect of a survival horror game.

User Info: King Azar King Azar 11 years ago #24 II. Resident Evil 4 Fails as “Survival”



I feel a need to further explain what I mean by “survival”. Obviously this means more than just surviving to the completion of the game…otherwise practically all games would have this categorization. Mario games aren’t referred to as survival-platformers, and with a good reason. To me, the “survival” element of survival horror games requires a certain amount of strategy. You have to carefully manage your ammunition and healing supplies to make sure you will have enough when they are needed. You need to think ahead about what you will need to carry with you. You need to carefully consider if a monster can be simply avoided rather than risk entering battle with it. And finally, if you feel a sense of control going into the situation, then the survival aspect is diminished.



In REmake, ammo is scarce. In fact, if you play on the harder difficulties, you probably don’t have enough ammo to kill every enemy in the game. Likewise, your healing supplies are fairly hard to come by. To succeed in the game, you have to be stingy with both. Many times playing the game I have been limping around in the “Caution” status while only armed with a handgun and maybe a dozen rounds. But in RE4, ammo literally falls from the sky like manna from heaven (well, ok, if you shoot the birds). Because of ammo drops from fallen enemies, the best way to gain more ammo is to expend it. Likewise, healing items and money can be gained in this manner. This takes away from the “survival” aspect of the game.



REmake requires careful inventory management, as you only have six to eight inventory slots (depending on the character you chose to play as). You can’t simply carry all the guns, ammo, healing items, and key items you have found around with you at once. But in RE4, this is exactly what you do. You’re given a large attaché case, which you can upgrade to become even more massive. Inside this case you can store all your weapons, ammunition, and healing items. In a further bit of bizarreness, any key items or treasures that you find don’t even take up room in this attaché case, Leon simply sticks them in a extra-dimensional space or something (hey, it’s the only explanation I can come up with). As for where Leon stores this attaché case that has to weigh well over twenty to thirty pounds while he’s leaping through lasers, I have no clue. Not only does the inventory management in RE4 eliminate any “survival” elements, it defies common sense and the laws of physics.



In REmake, because of the scarcity of ammo and healing items and the necessity to manage your inventory so tightly, you will often be forced into the decision: Fight or Flight. Will killing a group of enemies be worth the expenditure of ammunition and healing items? Or would it simply be easier to run around them. This decision lies at the heart of survival horror. But in RE4, this decision never really matters. You are likely to come out of the battle with more ammunition and healing supplies than you went into it with because of the ammo drops. So the biggest decision when faced with a group of enemies in RE4 is what type of gun you will use to shoot them. So this aspect of “survival” is negated in RE4 as well.



Finally, the feeling of control, or rather the loss of it, is a major element in the “survival” aspect of a survival horror game. In REmake, you don’t really have any true sense of control of the situation throughout the entire game. Every time you think you might be gaining an advantage, something happens to pull the rug out from under your feet.

User Info: King Azar King Azar 11 years ago #25



To summarize this section, it is my belief that Resident Evil 4 fails to achieve enough elements of “survival” to truly be considered “survival”. You don’t have to manage your supplies or your inventory, you don’t need to decide if simply avoiding a battle is a better idea, and you never really have a loss of the feeling of control. As such, it fails to provide the “survival” aspect of a survival horror game.





III. Resident Evil 4 Fails as a Resident Evil Game



In my mind, there have been four aspects that have three aspects that have defined the Resident Evil games: they are survival horror, the involvement of the Umbrella Corporation, and the presence of the T-Virus and the associated zombies created with its outbreak. As I proved at great length in the first two sections of this essay, RE4 does not provide an experience that can be considered survival horror. The lack of Umbrella, T-Virus, and zombies in the game is also rather obvious. Furthermore, aside from the involvement of a few shared characters and an introduction clip that has no connection to the game that follows it, there is no real connection to the storyline of the previous Resident Evil games. So I ask you…how can a game that fails to include any aspect of the six previous in the series be considered a true sequel? Resident Evil 4 is a completely non-related game that would have better served both its own interests and that of the Resident Evil series if it had been published as a new IP.

Jack Nicholson is the only man alive that can make dancing to Prince, scary. A ceiling begins to descend on you, or a Crimson Head leaps out of a coffin to attack you, another character you had considered an ally betrays you, or a Tyrant bursts through the floor of a helipad right as you are about to escape. But in RE4, for all of the reasons I’ve stated in the previous paragraphs of this section, you never feel a LOSS of control. Hell, even when you are momentarily taken captive, you are allowed to keep your weapons and ammunition so that they are readily available after your scripted escape. So RE4 fails to provide any sense of a loss of control.To summarize this section, it is my belief that Resident Evil 4 fails to achieve enough elements of “survival” to truly be considered “survival”. You don’t have to manage your supplies or your inventory, you don’t need to decide if simply avoiding a battle is a better idea, and you never really have a loss of the feeling of control. As such, it fails to provide the “survival” aspect of a survival horror game.III. Resident Evil 4 Fails as a Resident Evil GameIn my mind, there have been four aspects that have three aspects that have defined the Resident Evil games: they are survival horror, the involvement of the Umbrella Corporation, and the presence of the T-Virus and the associated zombies created with its outbreak. As I proved at great length in the first two sections of this essay, RE4 does not provide an experience that can be considered survival horror. The lack of Umbrella, T-Virus, and zombies in the game is also rather obvious. Furthermore, aside from the involvement of a few shared characters and an introduction clip that has no connection to the game that follows it, there is no real connection to the storyline of the previous Resident Evil games. So I ask you…how can a game that fails to include any aspect of the six previous in the series be considered a true sequel? Resident Evil 4 is a completely non-related game that would have better served both its own interests and that of the Resident Evil series if it had been published as a new IP.

User Info: Waffen8888 Waffen8888 11 years ago #26



With regards to the inventory space, yeah RE4's is bad, though none of them are top notch. 5 alleviates it to a point by actually showing an extra weapon on your character's back. What would have been nice was that you can't hold more then 3 weapons tops. The handgun on your side holster >2 handguns I guess would be fine as you could have multiple hip holsters or a shoulder holster< a weapon in your hands and then one slung to your back. The other items I suppose are small enough it wouldn't matter, since clips/magazines could be portrayed as being attached to your ALICE gear/belt. "Now there's a face to break a few thousand mirrors!" - Shirox from Dragon Force Nicely written and I'll agree that RE4 has nothing to do with the others in terms of gameplay/story as they're entirely different. The original RE's still aren't survival horror. You ruined it yourself at one point saying "Run around the foes" that still doesn't solve the blatant problem of the fact that in realism sense, you don't just run around them constantly between rooms.With regards to the inventory space, yeah RE4's is bad, though none of them are top notch. 5 alleviates it to a point by actually showing an extra weapon on your character's back. What would have been nice was that you can't hold more then 3 weapons tops. The handgun on your side holster >2 handguns I guess would be fine as you could have multiple hip holsters or a shoulder holster< a weapon in your hands and then one slung to your back. The other items I suppose are small enough it wouldn't matter, since clips/magazines could be portrayed as being attached to your ALICE gear/belt.

User Info: King Azar King Azar 11 years ago #27 actually contributed to the survival aspect and overall horror aspect compared to 4, where it is mostly a non-issue.



Still, you're free to disagree with what I wrote, much like I am free to post it :-). Jack Nicholson is the only man alive that can make dancing to Prince, scary. As I have mentioned before, there's that little issue of ammo conservation that was present in earlier titles whichcontributed to the survival aspect and overall horror aspect compared to 4, where it is mostly a non-issue.Still, you're free to disagree with what I wrote, much like I am free to post it :-).

User Info: quijimarkettwen quijimarkettwen 11 years ago #28



Hmm... quite a shallow explanation of scary.... Knights of the Round...KNIFE FIGHT ON THE BRIDGE!!

A Founding Father of the KOTR Wait, so RE4 isn't scary because nothing creeps up on you?Hmm... quite a shallow explanation of scary....

User Info: scorpion41 scorpion41 11 years ago #29 Its about the element of surprise...what's so scary about knowing there's a room full of ganadoes because the music gives it away? Other than the "oven man" there is no real scare tactic employed in RE4. Can RE4 be intense? Of course it can. But, the intensity resembles more of a pure action game, ala Call of Duty, Halo, pre-Doom 3 games, Duke Nukem,etc. You can see your enemy from a mile away and strategize long before it becomes a threat.The older REs' are intense because of the atmosphere generated by 95% of the environment. It's dark, you have no clue what's around the corner due to oddly placed cameras, and the music doesn't cue everytime the enemy is alerted to your presence. Plus, as King Azar posted in a wonderful essay, the main character is clueless and scared out of his or her mind about what is happening...not an arrogant prick who kicks ass and takes names, and then kicks back with a beer like it was another day at the office.



Unfortunately, gamers this day and age have turned to the simple nature of action-oriented games and the genre of "survival horror" is slowly dying. CAPCOM decided to appeal to the mass market and put out RE4 and 5 as an action game to ensure that the games are sold in good numbers, To put out a game resembling the older REs would have been a suicide move on their part. However many "horror" game enthusiasts believe an older style RE with zombies and such could have been remarkable on a next-gen system...just as REmake was a artistic masterpiece on the Game Cube. Who knows? Maybe RE 6 will see a return to the roots of Resident Evil.



Anyway...to sum it up...Resident Evil horror is achieved through an atmosphere that builds tension, and an element of surprise that plays on that built up tension.