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How was the first time you played: Resident Evil 4

Playing the game when it was first released probably made all the difference at the time. Got it on gamecube and the first time I deflected a flying knife with a bullet, I knew it was something special.
They nailed the setting, there was a good amount of pressure and the controls are were solid. Some of the best animations and they hold up today.

yeah..

hemo memo said:
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Confession time...RE4 was my first horror game and first M rated game. I was scared to enter the first house.

Then I built up some courage, stormed the house, shot the first enemy in the face, and proceeded to drop his ass with a roundhouse kick.

Simply the greatest of all time. It's one of the longest non-RPG single player games I've played. The encounters never grow tiring. The game has stellar pacing with regards to encounter styles, puzzles, and environmental diversity. The puzzles can be challenging, but are well placed, never frustrating, and never take longer to physically solve than mentally solve (what's up, Last of Us?). The bosses are epic and challenging and make you feel like a supreme badass for taking them down. The economy is a fantastic incentive to keep playing "one more room". The pacing of the player's incoming cash flow moves at a nice clip and new upgrades are priced perfectly and are unlocked at, yet again, a nice pace. "Hmm, just beat Salazar; seems like a good place to take a break. *sees merchant* ...WHAT? The Red9 exclusive just became available? 6.5 firepower??!!! I can't stop, I gotta kill some shit with this!"

It's also insanely replayable. All those cinematics and area overview cutscenes? Instantly skippable with the press of a button. And no forced slow walk sequences or real time unskippable cutscenes to kill the flow. RE4 can be 100% fast-and-fluid gameplay if you want it that way, and that's fucking amazing for replays. I wish I could say that for all recent action titles. I can't.

It's a 15+ hour long adventure that never grows tiring and features supremely polished mechanics and scenarios, impeccable pacing, consistently pleasing aesthetics, and is massively replayable to boot. That's not even considering Mercs mode which can be endlessly addicting by itself.

Long live the king.

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one of the greatest games of all time for sure.

being a huge RE fan, all i owned was a ps2 and dreamcast. Found out RE4 was only for GC, so i ended up borrowing it from my friend, played it and beat it, ended up buying a GC and RE4 again to play it again, it was that good.

Introduced the game to my circle of trust, and soon we were all quoting the vendor guy, "I"LL BUY IT AT HIGH PRICE!"
 
RE4 is the first RE game I played (RE5 sucked and I'm not wasting my time with 6, or any of the other ones, mostly cause I hate the horror genre).

RE4 is also the only game I have ever gotten based off of screenshots alone - no video or reading reviews - just screenshots. The European Village setting was so atmospheric to me that I had to play this regardless of the genre. I went in thinking that I wasn't gonna touch it after the village.

Man was I wrong (and happily so at that). I think I have beaten it over 20 times now.

The pacing is perfect - so much so that I have yet to play anything else that comes close to it (I haven't played TLoU....yet.)

Top 10 game of all time imo.
 
I was absolutely blown away when I first played it. For the first two hours it was great although not mindblowing to me. Once you fight the Lake Monster it was 18 straight, and I do mean 18 STRAIGHT, hours of the most mindblowing content I've ever played in a game. It's one of a handful of games where reviewers saying they'd love to give it a 15/10 weren't exaggerating, as it was so far beyond almost every other game out there that it was staggering. Only Metroid Prime bested it for me that generation and Prime is my favorite game of all time. Whichever GAFfer said that RE4 was a decade ahead of its time couldn't be closer to the truth. Hell it's been almost ten years since it came out and no game has come even close to matching it.

Edit: I was 19 when it came out.
 
I was completely blown away by it. For some reason the main thing I remember when first playing it is throwing a grenade in the first village section and having like four enemies blowing up right in front of me.....I knew from that very moment that the game was something truly magical. The graphics and the amount of detail in the game completely blew me away. Still to this day I’d say it’s the most perfect game I’ve ever played. It’s still the game that every single other action game should strive to be. An absolute class act and a true masterpiece! PERFECTION!
 
Got the PS2 version as a birthday present in 2006. A revelation. All third person shooters should play like this. Great atmosphere. So many "Holy shit" moments. I was never really a big RE fan before, but that definitely got my attention. If I'd only known what would become of the series in just a few years.
 
I like RE2, and then when I knew that the zombies are not really zombies anymore I didn't bother to play it. It's not until sometime around 2007 where I finally pick it up as it seems a lot of people in neogaf saying its a masterpiece.

I ended up not liking it much the same, the whole settings of the game has changed so much that I just don't enjoy playing it, stopped playing before I finish the game.

On the other hand, accepting the series is no longer what it used to be I have fun playing RE5 with my bud, I'm sure it will be a lack luster experience if it was not for co-op, which was what I did exactly for RE6... that's another story.
 
I opened this yesterday but didn't get the chance to reply.

January 2005...*sigh* I'll never forget it.

I was really hyped leading up to release. That said, I hadn't consumed much media for it and I think I had basically kept it to just watching trailers and looking at some screens. I don't remember but I doubt gameplay videos were quite as common in 2004, so I hadn't seen much straight play other than snippets in trailers and a few minutes of the demo I had played.

Release week rolls around and reviews start to show up. Holy shit. All high 9s? Is this really happening? I'd spent so much time daydreaming that it'd end up being the perfect game but I don't think I expected it could actually deliver. My hype was through the roof. Few times ever have I been that excited to play a game.

I was starting my second year of community college at the time and I must have just skipped class that day. I remember driving to the mall a few miles from campus where I had preordered the CE at Gamestop. I don't remember the drive but I remember getting into the mall a couple minutes before GS opened their shutter. No one else was waiting but me. What was wrong with everyone?

I get my copy along with a case of severe glee. I make the drive home(25 miles) with the face of a dog who knows he's about to get a plate of human food but has to wait.

I get home, pop in the game and

IT BEGINS

The village(which I hadn't played in the demo). Holy shit. So intense. I don't remember if I died(likely) but I do remember being blown away that the game was so tense at the beginning. I remember some early scenes being really intense. The church courtyard at night. Shooting from behind the crates that had bear traps on the opposite sides(the particular area where that is escapes me since I haven't played the game in...wow, a year and a half or more) and leads to climbing that big ladder(by the fish) a few minutes later. The boardwalk/swamp section with the trip-line explosives. The Del Lago(lake monster).

The first time a villager lost its head to the Las Plagas. I don't know if I knew about that ahead of time or not, but I was definitely a bit scared at how much more difficult they were. I didn't even learn about the flash bang trick my first playthrough.

My girlfriend and my best friend(at the time) came over that afternoon. My girlfriend has never been much of a gamer, but my friend was, and I remember us yelling advice back and forth during the suspended walkway/cliffside/hut area. I can remember making everyone chocolate pancakes with chocolate chips and whipped cream, haha(I love cooking breakfast).

The following days are a blur and my memories playing have been compounded by so many replays, but that first day has always been pretty vivid in my mind. The game is punctuated by an insane number of 'holy shit' moments, and I'm pretty sure two things happened when I finished it. First, it probably took a place on my favorite games of all time list and, secondly, I played a ton of Mercs before starting my second playthrough.

RE4 went on to become one of, if not my most, played game of all time. There wasn't anything else like it at the time and I was hooked. I bought the PS2 version on release day for Ada's content, then got the Wii release the first week. While I don't have the HD release, the Wii version is my favorite since it doesn't have the visual loss from the PS2, has Ada's content, and you can play with a GC controller(my preference).

Thanks for the memories, OP. I'll have this thread open while working today so I can read through all the replies.
 
First time playing a Resident Evil game. I sucked at aiming, ran out of ammo and herbs constantly, and died a lot. I made it to that one huge guy you fight in a burning barn before I became frustrated and sold it. However, when RE 4 Wii came out, I considered trying it again with a reticule and IR aiming. So, in June of 2007, I went to the movie theater at the local mall and saw Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. After that was over, I went to EB Games, and impulsively bought it. I certainly did a lot better this time, even to the point of beating the game, and doing a few New Game+s. Someday, I'll probably go back to it and buy that Infinite Rocket Launcher.
 
I bought RE4 for the first time day one when it released on PS2. I was underwhelmed until I got to the lake. From that moment on I was hooked and it has become one of my top 5 games of all time.
 
I don't think I will ever play something as tense as the village intro.
Shit was getting real real fast, a bunch of lunatics cornering me into that cabin and then I heard "VAYAN POR DETRÁS" "VROOOM VROOOM"

Holy shit is that a guy with a chainsaw?

Nothing will top that "I'm fucking dead" moment. It felt like I was there in the village running for my life, not Leon. It's hard to explain why, but it was perfect at the moment.
 
Loved it - although was a bit weird since I was still new to TPS games (and more well known with old RE style of gaming...

First death was in town....got my head cut off n_n
 
It was birthday, and I was given a check big enough for a black GameCube and a used copy of RE4. I loved Resident Evil, and all the excitement had me curious. Fortunately, I was driven out of interest and not eye-bleeding hype.

The atmosphere, the visuals, all the gameplay mechanics had me wow'd. The whole game is paced so well that the intrigue never slips. You're always excited to see the next area/upgrade/boss, et cetera.

I remember self-reflecting on how uncomfortably tense I was after some encounters. The village, the house hold-out, the giant fish, the Regenerators, blind claw fuckers... I could keep going. Unraveling so much good game design (in what took me 27 hours) was the best gaming experience I've had.

After beating it, I started it right back up, played it four more times, and fooled round on Mercenaries with my friends for another year. I called it the best game of all time then, and I still do. Even the corny story function with the rest of the game.

People keep telling me I need to play The Last of Us. I'm still waiting for a game of similar quality.
 
I initially played it on Gamecube and instantly fell in love with the setting, characters and atmosphere.
The game play at that time was a lot different than the previous titles in the franchise, so it took some time getting used to.
At that time I did not mind it feeling more action oriented than the games before it because it felt so different, fresh and fun! Every time I popped an infected's head off it was such an awesome feeling.
Then further into the game you starting blowing their heads off and an abnormal Plaga head would sprout, shaking the game play up a bit. They were not as easy to shoot off, haha.

As I progressed through the game I found the environment growing darker and the enemies fiercer.

SCARIEST PART HANDS DOWN: being trapped in that lower complex after the sewers with one of Salazar's henchman. That monstrosity was quick and immensely strong. It took a second or third play through to get over the initial fear of that part and actually realize there was in fact a way to defeat it.

All in all, to cut this shorter than anticipated, I fell in love with this game.
It's one of my all time favorites in its genre and Top 20 in my personal favorite games ever.

But before I go...
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I remember I imported it from the US as well as buying a freeloader for my Gamecube.

My hype weren't that big going into it actually but it were impressive technically and it oozed of atmosphere. But it dragged on for too long and I got pissed at the president's daughter always being kidnapped, so I'm not left with the impression of it being one of the best games ever. Sadly.

But it were definitely a great game, and I might go back to it some day.
 
Played that on the Wii for the first time in 2009. That game is absolutely exquisite, and the Wiimote actually enhances the gameplay.
 
I didn't own a Gamecube when RE4 came out and I was hyped as hell when it came out. You have to remember this was back in the days of the Capcom 5. This shit was coming out nowhere BUT the Gamecube. I was a huge RE fanboy, I bought a dreamcast so I could play all the RE games to date etc.

I was half way through my second year of University on release. The seminal UK Nintendo magazine NGamer did a huge, spoiler filled review of it (god I miss those guys, they could communicate enthusiasm like nobody's business.). I was beyond hyped, every screenshot, side bar, paragraph made it look amazing.

I took the weekend off from Uni, and went home. My little brother, 14 at the time, owned a NGC. We headed to Blockbuster and rented the game, it was just him and me as my parents were away for the weekend. Heading home we ordered a pizza, dimmed the lights and fired it up.

Some time the next morning I stumbled up to bed. It was light. We had just got on to the second disc I believe, maybe as far as Krauser. But as the light of dawn pierced our living room sleep took hold and we had to stop. A few hours sleep later we reconvened and defeated Saddler and unlocked mercenaries. My outlook on gaming would never be the same.

I've bought the game several times since. Given away copies on permanent loan. It's one of the best titles ever produced, a perfect marriage of mechanics and level design not often seen outside of Nintendo itself. Ideas are presented, the player asked to master them, and then the same ideas are twisted, repackaged and developed again and again, like Mario's momentum and jump in SMB and The Lost Levels. It's perfect, utterly.

I love Resident Evil 4.

That's even without mentioning Mercenaries, which is the equivalent of Nintendo unlocking a Canablat-esque variation when you complete SMB 3. Pure mechanics, pure gameplay, endless fun. The greatest bonus ever.

Edit: I mean jesus, a "zombie" game where headshots make things worse. It's a tour de force.
 
I wasn't much of a gamer before like 2002 and back in 2004/2005 I got a PS2 and I read some reviews about RE4 and thought that it probably was a great game, but wasn't really interested, especially when I'd never played any RE game.

So I started collecting 'classic' games I had missed in 2011 or so and I bought the DS version of the first game. Really liked it and then I moved to RE 2, 3 and Code Veronica on the Dreamcast (I bought a DC in 2011 too). So yeah, even though I played RE for the first time in friggin 2011 I still liked them. One thing I can't understand is that how the hell Code Veronica HD's rating average is 60 or something. WTF?

Anyway, I bought RE4 in late 2012 and my first feelings were kind of mixed: "Okay, just a ordinary third-person shooter with a great atmosphere, but where has the survival aspect gone?" In the end I thought it was a great game, I would rate it 9/10, but it hasn't aged perfectly. Surely didn't feel as revolutionary as it probably would have felt if I had played it in 2005. RE4 really has some amazing qualities though: pacing, length and difficulty are absolutely perfect, just wow. The difficulty increases smoothly and no difficulty spikes that I can think of. It took me around 20 hours to complete, which is perfect for this type of game and it just felt suprisingly fresh until the end. I think I still prefer Code Veronica, though.

Still havent played RE5, but Revelations 3DS was great. Tested RE6's demo and it's probably the worst demo I have ever played. Horrendous.
 
The first time'? I was a huge Resident Evil fan. I had been intrigued by the Hookman trailers, but I was never a fan of Leon. His entire schtick in RE2 was awful, and I find him to be the consistently poorest written and least charismatic main character in the series by far (an accomplishment in a series notorious for poor writing). So I was already apprehensive about the game from inception.

My living situation at the time was not affording me the best internet access, so when the direction changed, I was mostly unaware. All I remember were some message board murmurs of "no more zombies", and that was enough to get me really nervous.

I actually had to work solid the week it was released, so I didn't get to buy it until it was already 6 days old, but that didn't stop me from catching wind of all the praise. So when my day off came, I pulled some strings, cashed in a few favors, and made my way into town looking for a copy.

I loaded it up and... things went south fast. I believe I have already made my displeasure with the intro sequence made abundantly clear. At the time, it actually made me furious. Echoes of "no more zombies" bounded in my head, and I was further discouraged by the continued lack of anything resembling the Resident Evil I knew and loved. It only ever got worse. The shooting mechanics were fine, but shooting should never, ever be what Resident Evil is about. And all I did was shoot. My heart was breaking.

But I kept pushing through, hoping there would be something redeeming. I had made it as far as the fight with Salazar before I called foul. Not a single element that defined the series was present. It came across as a blatant "fuck you" from Mikami. He was evidently tired of Resident Evil and appeared to not really care about it anymore. He was going to make a different game and slap the name on it because the project had slogged on for too long. And everybody lapped it up.

I finished it. I wasn't happy, but I pushed through. I almost didn't give Mercenaries a chance, which is a shame, because it was easily the best part of the package. I felt at the time (and still do) that the shooting is a natural fit for that style of game even more than RE3's Mercenaries mode was. But these were just distractions, and never a part of why I played Resident Evil to begin with. What I had been left with was Shooter McGunsmack starring Leon. A style of gameplay I wasn't interested in starring scores of characters I didn't (couldn't) like.

To date, however, it has remained one of my most played "disliked" games. I will frequently replay to remind myself of places I had particular problem with so that my grievances will be fresh in my mind as I deride the game on the internet. I've actually bought it 3 times, interestingly enough. But in my annual playthroughs of the series that my girlfriend requests, I omit it from the line-up. I can only consider it the moment that the series died a spectacularly gruesome death, with it's lifeless corpse shuffling around like the zombies that once defined it.

I'm still bitter about it, and all the praise it continues to get even this long after everything it tried has been substantially improved upon in other games, leaves me with my jaw agape. Several times through, and I still can't see what you all see in it.

The game has some pitch perfect pacing, though. I'll give it that.
 
This is one of those rare games where if you could go back in time and relive the first time you've played this game, you would all do it in a heartbeat. One of the best games made in history.
 
I was 13 when it came out and I loved the entire game. Looking back though this was the game that doomed the series and turned it into what it currently is.
 
Bought a Gamecube just to play RE4 after hearing all the hype.

Was totally worth it, and unlike any game I've played before. It was intense, like being in an action movie, and took me a while to get into the game's groove.

The REs since were just imitations by less talented people and don't quite offer the same experience.
 
RE4 reintroduced me to the RE series. I was never too fond of it plus...well I was around 10 when I tried RE1/2/3. The controls pissed me off though RE4's over the shoulder made this a bit more streamlined...kind of.

Anyway after completing RE4, I went back and played the RE games backwards, from code veronica to 3, 2, and finally the remake. I went in with the mentality "It controls like RE4, only with a bad camera angle and not over the shoulder". I finally got used to the controls and went on to beating them...and no I still don't like them too much. I hate tank controls.

I find the REmake an actual scary game, the original RE while charming, is a bit too goofy.

Despite RE6 not being everyone's cup of tea, I vastly prefer it because of better control. I feel like most of the time that if I get hit in RE6 (if there aren't an abundance of enemies) that it's my own fault and not because my character can't back up fast enough when they damn well should since they're about to get hit from a very easy-to-evade attack.

Uh anyway, that's pretty much it.
 
First time I ever played a horror game. Played it without my parents knowing >:] One of my 3 favorite games of the gen, blew my mind
 
I remember in 2005 when the game came out. I had been following gaming reviews at the time, and I think it got more impressive reviews than any other game I had ever seen. Perfect scores all over the place. However, at the time, I was 11. I asked my dad if I could get it. "No, it's rated M," he said. I think I got Minish Cap instead.

A couple years later the game came out on the Wii and my parents let me play M-rated games. I picked it up day 1 and played it. I enjoyed it and thought it was really well-designed, but then it hit me; it's basically a third-person shooter in a horror setting. And no matter how good the game is I don't like shooters very much. The game also felt kinda dated already despite it only being two years since release, I think at the time I had already played a little bit of Gears of War at my friend's house. That being said it still felt really well-designed and I knew how great the opening was right away. Dat village. Dat chainsaw. It didn't have the same impact for me since I had already heard people talk about that specific opening several times and, I dunno, it just didn't have the same oomph for me, but I still liked it.
 
I owned the collector's edition of the game for the PS2 (family member gave it to me, I was too scared to play it at the time) so I ended up playing the game when the HD version came out for the 360 and to be honest, I hated it at first, but I went back a few days later and it ended up being my favorite game last year. I have a LTTP thread about it, but I don't feel like finding it right now (I'm on my iPod)
 
I had issues because the peasants milling about in their extremely modest homes reminded me too much of my family who live in relative poverty from east Europe. They got it too realistic for my liking. One exploded worm neck stump and I turned it off.
 
Knew it was a masterpiece from day 1. Though I didn't own/play i until the wii edition (imo the best version as I own the ps3 hd port and the controls....its actually better with a wiimote)
 
One of the greatest games ever. I remember getting it on my birthday (was 14 at the time) along with Shadow of the Motherfucking Colossus.

BEST DAY EVER.
 
It was great game. Things i remember about.
-It looked awesome (and that was on PS2).
-gameplay felt somehow next gen.
-but then wtf? i can`t move and shoot at same time?
-game was much, much longer than i expected and it kept on delivering.
 
Played the Wii edition around a year after it came out I think. I'd never played any RE game before. I loved it. It was amazing. I even got all the stuff in Mercenaries mode. Played through three times straight, haven't touched it since though. Some day I'll play it again.
 
Got it a few days after release and was initially disappointed after all the hype. Got a bit more into it and would say I liked it in the end, but I really don't get all the fuss.
 
I played it on PS2 back in '05. It sucked me in like there was no tomorrow. One of my most replayed games from last gen. Which reminds me, I bought the HD version on my 360 and I need to sit down and go through it again here soon.
 
Glorious. One of my favourite games of all time and the best Resident Evil game hands down. An unforgettable experience that few games can replicate.
 
Bought it on the wii in 2009ish, thought the grass looked like shit. Couldnt strafe out the way. Still beat it though, costed money
 
I've bought this game several times. It's tied for first as my all time favorites. My other first is RE2. It's been ported to everything and needs one more port...HD Vita baby!!
 
played almost to the end of the game but I felt the game was longer than it should have been and lost interest. Toward the end of the game it just started to hit home that the gameplay mechanics were rather lackluster and the game was severely lacking in the horror
 
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