GrayChild
Member
I recently started RE4 once more as preparation for the RE7 release in January. While I didn't touch it for quite some time, I remember it (as well as most of the people who played it, especially on GAF) as one of the best games ever even if I'm not too keen on the direction it took the franchise in.
While the game is still a blast to play and has a decent atmosphere, the only thing I'm thinking most of the time is...
"Why I'm not playing The Evil Within instead"?
Of course there are quite a lot of common traits between the two games, but I can't help feeling that Mikami took the very basics of RE4 and transformed them into something that is (IMO) a bit better even with its technical flaws.
While neither of these two titles has ever disturbed me or made me jump from my seat (Silent Hill, Siren and Condemned are still my favorites here), both can be still quite creepy at times. However, The Evil Within is much more consistent in that regard. The encounters with Laura and the Amalgam creature are the most tense experience I had this generation and nothing from what Resident Evil has brough to the table during the past two console generations has ever come close. I would go as far as saying that the amount of stress and tension were much higher than anything RE could ever offer (yes, even REmake).
The atmosphere is second to none and is maybe the closest to what REmake, Silent Hill and Siren had to offer. This is something RE4 lacked due to its too frequent enemy encounters which restricted my ability to just soak in the environment and made disposal of the enemies more routine activity.
Playing both side to side also shows that TEW is the more challenging of the two. And that's not only thanks to to lesser amount of weapons and ammo, as well as the need to pass through some of the enemies unnoticed. The overall amount of encounters is dialed down considerably, but each enemy is much smarter and hard to take down than your average Ganado.
Finally, no matter how better Resident Evil 4 looked for its time compared to TEW (I'm speaking strictly from technical perspective), the latter still has it beat when it comes down to art direction, environment variety and monster design. There is a nice thread about the stunning art of this game that I urge everyone to check out:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1199143
If you have ever put-off by the initial impressions based on the numerous technical shortcomings of the game, give it another try with all patches installed or better get the PC version. This is one of the very few games that get better with each subsequent playthrough and will be looked more and more favorably as the time goes by.
While the game is still a blast to play and has a decent atmosphere, the only thing I'm thinking most of the time is...
"Why I'm not playing The Evil Within instead"?
Of course there are quite a lot of common traits between the two games, but I can't help feeling that Mikami took the very basics of RE4 and transformed them into something that is (IMO) a bit better even with its technical flaws.
While neither of these two titles has ever disturbed me or made me jump from my seat (Silent Hill, Siren and Condemned are still my favorites here), both can be still quite creepy at times. However, The Evil Within is much more consistent in that regard. The encounters with Laura and the Amalgam creature are the most tense experience I had this generation and nothing from what Resident Evil has brough to the table during the past two console generations has ever come close. I would go as far as saying that the amount of stress and tension were much higher than anything RE could ever offer (yes, even REmake).
The atmosphere is second to none and is maybe the closest to what REmake, Silent Hill and Siren had to offer. This is something RE4 lacked due to its too frequent enemy encounters which restricted my ability to just soak in the environment and made disposal of the enemies more routine activity.
Playing both side to side also shows that TEW is the more challenging of the two. And that's not only thanks to to lesser amount of weapons and ammo, as well as the need to pass through some of the enemies unnoticed. The overall amount of encounters is dialed down considerably, but each enemy is much smarter and hard to take down than your average Ganado.
Finally, no matter how better Resident Evil 4 looked for its time compared to TEW (I'm speaking strictly from technical perspective), the latter still has it beat when it comes down to art direction, environment variety and monster design. There is a nice thread about the stunning art of this game that I urge everyone to check out:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1199143
If you have ever put-off by the initial impressions based on the numerous technical shortcomings of the game, give it another try with all patches installed or better get the PC version. This is one of the very few games that get better with each subsequent playthrough and will be looked more and more favorably as the time goes by.
