What do you think are the most overrated video games of all time?

[dscross]

Every game sucks.

Every game is overrated.

Nothing is good.

You are not allowed to like anything.

And you're stupid/******/cuck if you disagree.

Pretty much covers it all.

Nope! You forgot one.

"People like you are responsible for ruining the industry/killing off genre X/'casualizing' gaming."

snip

I didn't say you couldn't have the discussion. I was only saying it's a topic of discussion that accomplishes nothing but to spur on animosity and cynicism. By its very nature it asks people to negatively criticize others for their enjoyment of something others don't like. It's petty.

But let's look at it this way: You're asking people to voice their criticisms of games they don't like. I'm voicing my criticism of your thread. You're voicing your criticisms of my criticisms.

And round and round we go. Everybody gets some criticisms!

Well, just to be clear, I think your point is...

A) based on a false assumption that the word overrated always has to personally insult people and not be constructive (I assume based on experiences of other threads).
B) aggressive because you are using words like 'petty'.
C) cyclical - criticising me for asking people think critically is a moot point, or even makes my point instead of yours.
D) based on another assumption that this thread will somehow turn nasty (the only not amicable posts on this thread so far is between those who are criticising the topic itself)

If you really hate the idea of the thread, don't post on it - but it's no different than naming a specific game and giving opinions on it, which this forum is littered with. If anything, it opens it up for a more rounded discussion on games more generally. Some people enjoy debating, you just clearly are not one of them.

 

[Zydrate]

I never got on the Halo hype train. I played the first one a fair amount on PC and enjoyed it, I have a fond memory of getting banned from a server for going 70-3 by killing everyone on a warthog and they could just NOT kill me, occasionally getting me with a rogue grenade.

Played and beat ODST, but just single player. That was about it for me.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Halo series - they have some of the best TV commercials ever but gameplay and story is meh

WoW - I just don't get it why people play it, I tried few times, it repulses me

GTA series - I liked the arcade-y first one but the rest... I bought them but they're awful and pretentional (I understand that its probably just type of sense of humour but it does nothing to me)

Firewatch - seen Jessy Cox play it, thought it was prelude to something great. Turn out to be overhyped, glorified walking simulator with linear pretentious story. Terrible purchase on hype wave.

Civ 6 - John Bain 'literally' sold it to me. Even thou I were extremely sceptical. It turn out to be downgrade from Civ5. I hope Firaxis will salvage it with DLCs.. I will not be getting them until they are dirt cheap thou.

DA series - first instalment was waaaay overhyped (due to a drought in this genere at that time) but already showed very troubling symptoms of disease: money gated day 1 character and missions, friggin cash shop built into the party's camp, modular gameplay, dumbed down class system and combat, PC unfriendly GUI to appease console controller management, poor writting, flaunting poor mans version of sudo-sex scenes... and then it all went somehow downhill... through 2nd instalment to cesspit aka DAI Yet hype train was going strong all the way.

Fallout 3- it has nothing to do with actual Fallout series. Stolen intelectual property acting as reskin to 'open world' Bethesda template. Then Fallout 4 proved that they can make it even worse and core RPG system even dumber and completely gutted of its merit but at least at that point hype train derailed.

AC series - loooooong line of overhyped buggy games, which consist of depictations of glorious architectural feats and... tedious, brain dead, meaningless gameplay with horrid writting of characters and overarching story. That hype thou.. that H.Y.P.E.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

I think that the game whose reputation baffles me the most is Skyrim. Sure its big and scenic, but the combat is terrible, the story is awful, and the voice acting just funny bad. Apart from being a great platform for modders to do things with, I struggle to find any outstanding qualities in the base game.

 

[stroopwafel]

So what exactly makes Uncharted so different and less of a game in comparison?

Good question. I love Yakuza but am really bored by Uncharted. As for why that it is well firstly I enjoy the story and characters of Yakuza way more. Not the biggest fan of Indiana Jones and I can't stand Drake so I never really felt immersed in Uncharted. Secondly the gameplay in Uncharted feels more scripted. It's true that in Yakuza you just punch dudes but it's a fun kind of combat(not as thin and floaty as Uncharted's gunplay) and besides that there are dozens of distractions and mini-games(also I'm a sucker for Japanese quirk). You feel more in control despite the cutscenes. It's the same kind of complaint I have with GTA5. An amazing game by all accounts but it feels like a more freeroam Uncharted with missions having just one way in and one way out.

I can certainly see how Uncharted and GTA are considered great games but they just don't cater to my personal tastes.

I am quicker to return to RE3 than RE2, because that game is just a lot snappier (it also has the quick-turn, plus the PS3 port of 2 has very shitty image quality). But yeah, Resident Evil 2 was just such a leap, and introduced me to so much I ended up loving about the franchise going forward.

The PS3 port of RE2 is indeed crap just like CV and RE4. Thinking about it just as much time has elapsed between RE1 and RE2 as there has been between now and the time they announced RE2 remake. I wish they just reworked the character models and the backgrounds similarly as RE Remake and keep the rest intact. I think most fans of RE2 would have been fine with that. AAA-games are certainly impressive but making them is such a long and arduous process. I wish they kept the RE2 remake more low-key.

 

[someguy1231]

The Last of Us, without hesitation. People heralded it as the "Citizen Kane of video games", yet it's just another linear zombie shooter with an utterly predictable plot.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

For me its Halo; I liked the first game well enough but then I made the mistake of reading up the fluff about the Spartans. That game, and that character, can go fuck themselves.

 

[dscross]

Resident Evil 4.


It's a really fun game, but I've seen so many people place it above 1, 2, and 3, often in part due to gameplay improvements in 3D. The shooting is fun, but hardly revolutionary, and that's not what I got into the series for anyway. Plus, El Gigante is just rubbish, both in design and execution.

RE3: Nemesis remains my favourite of the series.

I totally agree with this (except REmake is my favourite now). Resident Evil 4 elevates the accessible action parts and dumbs down the bits that made you think. It's what happens when a gamer's series is rejigged for a mainstream audience, and it isn't true to its roots.

At their core, the original Resident Evil games had much in common with traditional point-and-click titles. The controls were real-time rather than mouse based, but for all intents and purposes you were still visiting areas in a hub-based environment, picking up items and working out where they went in order to progress.

To get around, you'd pull up a map and carve the quickest lines between the undead horde. During your journey you'd encounter a thoughtfully-created backstory. This was told through intelligently-placed files which fleshed out the gameworld, making the Romero-esque scenario more believable.

Combat was rudimentary and there to add colour to your journey without being the main focus. Every so often you'd come across a linear section, ripe for exploration and awash with answers, before the next big hub. Your enemies might have been undead but the world felt lived in.

Advancing console technology presented a huge opportunity to organically evolve each of those elements and create a truly next-gen Resident Evil. Imagine a gameworld as cohesive as Liberty City, one where puzzles were less contrived and promoted exploration.

Within this landscape you'd face grotesque monsters, fighting for your life in pitched battles using responsive new shooting mechanics. All the while, you'd uncover further layers of a conspiracy which would overshadow everything that had come before.

Evolved point-and-click elements, intelligent world building and innovative shooting would take the series in a brave new direction - one which would make creative as well as commercial sense.

RE7 was a much better attempt though, I have to say.

 

[stroopwafel]

Resident Evil 4.


It's a really fun game, but I've seen so many people place it above 1, 2, and 3, often in part due to gameplay improvements in 3D. The shooting is fun, but hardly revolutionary, and that's not what I got into the series for anyway. Plus, El Gigante is just rubbish, both in design and execution.

RE3: Nemesis remains my favourite of the series.

I totally agree with this (except REmake is my favourite now). Resident Evil 4 elevates the accessible action parts and dumbs down the bits that made you think. It's what happens when a gamer's series is rejigged for a mainstream audience, and it isn't true to its roots.

RE4 is in my top 3 best games ever made and I totally disagree that this game doesn't stay true to the RE formula. What made the original games so good was not the nonsensical puzzles but the atmosphere and sense of dread which RE4 distilled to it's pure essence(and something the sequels couldn't grasp). Even the cheesy story beats and characters flowed better. I really enjoyed the classic RE games as well but nothing comes close to the revolutionary RE4. It retained the RE atmosphere while giving it the best gameplay of pretty much any game ever. Very few select games are in the same league(Bloodborne just to name one).

 

[dscross]

Resident Evil 4.


It's a really fun game, but I've seen so many people place it above 1, 2, and 3, often in part due to gameplay improvements in 3D. The shooting is fun, but hardly revolutionary, and that's not what I got into the series for anyway. Plus, El Gigante is just rubbish, both in design and execution.

RE3: Nemesis remains my favourite of the series.

I totally agree with this (except REmake is my favourite now). Resident Evil 4 elevates the accessible action parts and dumbs down the bits that made you think. It's what happens when a gamer's series is rejigged for a mainstream audience, and it isn't true to its roots.

RE4 is in my top 3 best games ever made and I totally disagree that this game doesn't stay true to the RE formula. What made the original games so good was not the nonsensical puzzles but the atmosphere and sense of dread which RE4 distilled to it's pure essence(and something the sequels couldn't grasp). Even the cheesy story beats and characters flowed better. I really enjoyed the classic RE games as well but nothing comes close to the revolutionary RE4. It retained the RE atmosphere while giving it the best gameplay of pretty much any game ever. Very few select games are in the same league(Bloodborne just to name one).

I can agree that at least Resi 4 got the shooting engine right. As for the rest? One contrived linear corridor after another, dressed up as one cool action movie cliche after another (does anyone know why that statue came to life, exactly?).

These were interspersed with the occasional mini-hub where puzzle pieces presented themselves within a stone's throw of the actual puzzle, so there was never any real thinking involved. Notes weren't there to be discovered - they were left lying around so conspicuously they couldn't be missed, as if tossed into levels at the last minute.

Puzzles and notes are hub game conventions. In a linear action game they just felt forced. So why were they there?

For my money, because Capcom couldn't decide which conventions were essential to Resident Evil as a brand and which should be abandoned. This would also explain why the hardened government operatives of Resis 4 and 5 can't aim and run at the same time, a feat even weedy writer Alan Wake can manage.

Don't even get me started on the Merchant. Who thought a comedy leper with a West Country accent was a good fit for an immersive survival horror game? Give me linked item boxes any day; they're less distracting and I don't have to offset the very real chance of breaking my game against the overwhelming urge to shoot them in the crotch.

Metal Gear Solid is an example of a series switching it up in the correct way. The PSone installments in the series were stealth games. The PS3 iteration is, astonishingly, also a stealth game. Sneaking has been streamlied via OctoCamo and a camera, while controls cater to action gamers. New converts are thus brought on board without alienating anyone. Even MGS 4's own Merchant, Drebin, is explained in the story. This is how to do a sequel.

In contrast, Resi 4 saw a series stuck in a rut go so far to the opposite extreme it became barely recognisable, aside from a few superficial similarities - returning characters, so-bad-it's-brilliant voice acting and a surplus of potted plants.

What was once a slow, tense, puzzle-led experience was transformed into a series of tacked-together Cool Gaming Moments. Resi 4 feels like the product of ten different minds in a super-macho staff meeting, rather than the singular creative vision of one man.

On a purely mechanical level, it is a remarkable game. It deserves the plaudits received and can rightly be held up as the landmark title which gave us Gears of War et al. In that respect, Capcom nailed it.

But here's the big problem: Resident Evil 4 is not a Resident Evil game. And that's the one thing it should have been, above all else.

 

[stroopwafel]

What was once a slow, tense, puzzle-led experience was transformed into a series of tacked-together Cool Gaming Moments. Resi 4 feels like the product of ten different minds in a super-macho staff meeting, rather than the singular creative vision of one man.

Here you are absolutely wrong though. RE4 is the absolute opposite of design by committee. That you prefer puzzle oriented/pre-rendered classic RE and don't like the merchant I can see as personal taste but RE4 objectively was the product of a singular vision. That is what makes it so good. It's a labor of love and Shinji Mikami's magnum opus. This guy was on a roll in the early to mid '00s. Before that he directed RE Remake which is probably the best remake of any game ever.

 

[dscross]

What was once a slow, tense, puzzle-led experience was transformed into a series of tacked-together Cool Gaming Moments. Resi 4 feels like the product of ten different minds in a super-macho staff meeting, rather than the singular creative vision of one man.

Here you are absolutely wrong though. RE4 is the absolute opposite of design by committee. That you prefer puzzle oriented/pre-rendered classic RE and don't like the merchant I can see as personal taste but RE4 objectively was the product of a singular vision. That is what makes it so good. It's a labor of love and Shinji Mikami's magnum opus. This guy was on a roll in the early to mid '00s. Before that he directed RE Remake which is probably the best remake of any game ever.

While gameplay is the main reason I think they made a complete U turn, it isn't not the only reason I dislike the idea of it. I also dislike the direction they took in terms of story. Look, I'm a huge survival horror fan but even I agree that Resi needed a kick up the arse. By the time Resident Evil Zero arrived in 2003, all that clunky wandering around creepy-but-static mansions, sipping coffee through door opening animations and battling the fixed camera had started to infect the game's fun factor. It was time for a change.

Capcom knew this. And so the first iteration splintered off to become Devil may Cry, while another stab saw a new-look Leon S. Kennedy battling a monster with a hooked hand in a haunted house.

The iteration which made the most sense to me followed on from the excellent Code: Veronica - a fateful charge into enemy territory at Umbrella's European HQ; answers to the questions swirling around Oswald E. Spencer; a battle against a super-powered Albert Wesker; maybe even a revelation about the mysterious shadow company he'd joined, which I'd long suspected could emerge as the series' new Big Bad Biocorp.

Then Shinji Mikami stepped in and ruined it all with three simple words: "Umbrella was finished." Come again?

This is one of the biggest reasons I dislike Resident Evil 4. I'd spent the best part of eight years watching Umbrella get built up to the point where I was dying to take them down. That pleasure was snatched from me, suddenly and unceremoniously, in a single cut-scene.

And what were the series' iconic zombies and devastating viruses replaced by? A mutating midget in a pirate hat. An Emperor Palpatine clone with a giant scorpion tail. An army of quasi-intelligent parasite-infected villagers who were so savage they couldn't even use firearms... Except for the ones who could. What?

And what was Leon's motivation for being there? To save the President's daughter.

Right.

Resi 4's story had squat all to do with the rest of the series up to that point. Putting aside Leon in the lead role, Ada turning up unannounced and a cameo from Wesker, the game could be part of a separate series altogether. It's like Ubisoft deciding the Templars are a bit boring and those Assassins should battle little green men instead.

Compare that (again) to Metal Gear Solid, another stalwart of late nineties, story-driven action adventure gaming. Like Resi, it was a series born of individually conceived, separately told narratives. These were interwoven to form a larger mythology.

Hideo Kojima has gone on record to say he didn't plan it out all in advance, George Lucas-style. All the same, there was never a sense that the MGS team was making up the storyline as it went along. When Old Snake learns the true nature of MGS4's titular Patriots, a decades-spanning story is cast in an entirely new light.

The Resident Evil team seemed to lack this ability to spin a yarn and keep the big picture in mind. And it all came to a head with the end of Umbrella.

The problem is that so many times publishers think that as long as a videogame is fun, its storyline is often thought of as something which is just a bit of a bonus - the medium deserves better

But, as I've said, that disappointing plot twist isn't the number one reason I dislike Resident Evil 4. It's the gameplay. To be specific, it's the fact I spent 20-odd hours playing a brand new Resident Evil game wondering when I was going to get to the Resident Evil bits.

Picture your favourite contemporary game series - for the purposes of this example, let's say it's Call of Duty. Now imagine picking up Call of Duty: Red Insurgencies (play as the Soviet Secret Police, folks!).

On booting up the game you discover the template has subtly shifted: it's now an open-ended, emergent Bioshock-style shooter. All that linear action movie pacing has been taken out and there's nary an explosive set-piece in sight.

Or how about this: imagine excitedly loading the latest Final Fantasy, only to find the expansive overworld adventuring you know and love has been replaced by endless treks round lavishly decorated, sparsely interactive linear corridors. Oh, hang on...

 

[cathou]

I dont think Halo was that an industrie changing gmae that people said it was.

Assassin Creed 1 had an interresting story, but it was so repetitive...

 

[DefunctTheory]

For my money, because Capcom couldn't decide which conventions were essential to Resident Evil as a brand and which should be abandoned.

I don't really think that's the issue here. The 'problem,' as it were, is that you don't like what they decided was essential to a Residential Evil game.

Which is fine. The 'spirit' of what something is, be it a video game or movie or book, in the eye of the beholder. But lets not pretend that because the game wasn't made to your stroke, it's was made badly by too many people who didn't know what they were doing.

EDIT: And I cannot believe I am seeing someone defend MGS's story and story construction as something positive other games should strive for.

 

[dscross]

For my money, because Capcom couldn't decide which conventions were essential to Resident Evil as a brand and which should be abandoned.

I don't really think that's the issue here. The 'problem,' as it were, is that you don't like what they decided was essential to a Residential Evil game.

Which is fine. The 'spirit' of what something is, be it a video game or movie or book, in the eye of the beholder. But lets not pretend that because the game wasn't made to your stroke, it's was made badly by too many people who didn't know what they were doing.

EDIT: And I cannot believe I am seeing someone defend MGS's story and story construction as something positive other games should strive for.

I know it's fine. Thanks. My point is it's not good practice to make sequel and completely change everything a series stood for. I've ranted about it enough in the above posts and I think I'll just be going over old ground now so read those for a fuller explanation. And, in answer to your edit, I wasn't defending the MGS story itself, I was showing how they made it connect to the rest of the series, thus not isolating old fans. I'm aware not everyone will like it.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler

For my money, because Capcom couldn't decide which conventions were essential to Resident Evil as a brand and which should be abandoned.

I don't really think that's the issue here. The 'problem,' as it were, is that you don't like what they decided was essential to a Residential Evil game.

Which is fine. The 'spirit' of what something is, be it a video game or movie or book, in the eye of the beholder. But lets not pretend that because the game wasn't made to your stroke, it's was made badly by too many people who didn't know what they were doing.

EDIT: And I cannot believe I am seeing someone defend MGS's story and story construction as something positive other games should strive for.

I know it's fine. Thanks. My point is it's not good practice to make sequel and completely change everything a series stood for. I've ranted about it enough in the above posts and I think I'll just be going over old ground now so read those for a fuller explanation. And, in answer to your edit, I wasn't defending the MGS story itself, I was showing how they made it connect to the rest of the series, thus not isolating old fans. I'm aware not everyone will like it.

And my point is that not everyone thinks the stuff they cut was what RE stood for. I certainly don't, but that's because I don't think RE's main draw, nor defining characteristic, was bad camera angles, disconnected control schemes and obtuse puzzle work that was more the result of its era than anything else.

Unless a game REALLY leaves it's 'roots' behind, like if Mass Effect was turned into a spaghetti western with no aliens, 'spirit' is an argument no one should ever make. It's built on an automatic fail condition.

 

[dscross]

Spoiler

For my money, because Capcom couldn't decide which conventions were essential to Resident Evil as a brand and which should be abandoned.

I don't really think that's the issue here. The 'problem,' as it were, is that you don't like what they decided was essential to a Residential Evil game.

Which is fine. The 'spirit' of what something is, be it a video game or movie or book, in the eye of the beholder. But lets not pretend that because the game wasn't made to your stroke, it's was made badly by too many people who didn't know what they were doing.

EDIT: And I cannot believe I am seeing someone defend MGS's story and story construction as something positive other games should strive for.

I know it's fine. Thanks. My point is it's not good practice to make sequel and completely change everything a series stood for. I've ranted about it enough in the above posts and I think I'll just be going over old ground now so read those for a fuller explanation. And, in answer to your edit, I wasn't defending the MGS story itself, I was showing how they made it connect to the rest of the series, thus not isolating old fans. I'm aware not everyone will like it.

And my point is that not everyone thinks the stuff they cut was what RE stood for. I certainly don't, but that's because I don't think RE's main draw, nor defining characteristic, was bad camera angles, disconnected control schemes and obtuse puzzle work that was more the result of its era than anything else.

Unless a game REALLY leaves it's 'roots' behind, like if Mass Effect was turned into a spaghetti western with no aliens, 'spirit' is an argument no one should ever make. It's built on an automatic fail condition.

As I said, I've explained all my arguments fully in the above posts and there's not much point in me doing it again with you because I'll just be saying the same things. There are multiple reasons I think they made a complete U turn, not just the ones you mentioned.

 

[stroopwafel]

This is one of the biggest reasons I dislike Resident Evil 4. I'd spent the best part of eight years watching Umbrella get built up to the point where I was dying to take them down. That pleasure was snatched from me, suddenly and unceremoniously, in a single cut-scene.

You keep hammering on about the story but really it's never been the game's priority. It's subject of parody for a reason. I can't think of a storyline that is more shite than Resident Evil so it boggles my mind someone buys these games for story. It's what Defunct says it's the 'spirit' of a game that is worth maintaining and that is what Resident Evil 4 does and RE5 and 6 didn't do. With RE4 I definitely felt I was playing Resident Evil, but evolved. With RE5 and 6 I definitely did not and that is because the director, again, didn't understand the spirit of the games and what made them unique(namely the atmosphere and incremental dread).

 

[Hawki]

Noooooo. Those are some of me favorites. I don't think ALttP aged poorly(that goes for most of the top tier snes games). A Link Between Worlds felt more like a (really good) homage to me rather than a genuine successor.

Name one thing that A Link to the Past does better than A Link Between Worlds.

Graphics? ALttP has aged better than some of the 3D titles that came before it, but it doesn't have the charm of other 2D titles from the era. ALBW has the advantage of full 3D models and better graphics all round.

Story/characters? Not that ALBW is a masterpiece, but it actually does have...well, characters, that you get to know and rescue rather than nameless maidens. Hilda isn't the deepest antagonist in the world, but she does at least have motivations beyond "I'm evil."

Gameplay? Mostly identical, but ALBW does add another, ahem, 'dimension' with its wallhopping segments.

ALttP is arguably the more influential title, but I can't think of anything it does better than ALBW. Heck, I even rank Minish Cap above it, which also uses a similar template (at least as far as the layout of Hyrule goes).

It introduced us to Leon, Claire, and Ada; three of the most popular Resi characters, it was the first introduction to Racoon City, the police station is still one of the most beloved settings in the franchise, and the zapping system was pretty unique at the time and still sort of is. It had Lickers, it had Mr. X, it had Hunk.

It had a lot of new characters, monsters, and environments that have become iconic in the franchise. It's not too weird that people still hold it in high regard.

RE3 was a continuation and slight refinement of 2, but it didn't have the same level of cool, new shit.

All of that's true, but a few points:

-Are we really crediting RE2 with "introducing" Raccoon City, when we only spend 5-10 minutes in the actual city itself before transitioning to an entirely indoor environment? If anything, I'd say RE3 gets that score.

-RE2 gave us Lickers, Mr. X, and Hunk. Hunk is a character who's basically the Boba Fett of Resident Evil, a man with no personality or backstory (barring EU stuff), but everyone seems to love. Lickers, I'll grant you. But while RE2 gave us Mr. X, RE3 gave us Nemesis, which is basically Mr. X on steroids.

I'm not dismissing RE2 (as I said in my OP, I actually like the game), but you yourself point out that RE3 is a refinement of RE2. I'd argue that execution trumps conception in most cases.

Wasn't Halo 5 considered the worst one by the fanbase?

Nowadays, maybe. But I remember the good ol days when Halo 4 was considered the worst. Before that it was Reach.

Personally the worst Halo game I've played is ODST, but Halo 4 takes the second worst spot for me. If anything, it might fall into the category of overrated for me, but it's the strangest case of "overrated" I've seen, because I remember being there when Halo 4 launched. I remember how I hated it, and how most of the fanbase seemed to hate it, but since Halo 5 came out, people now seem to love the game. And in fairness, I don't consider Halo 4 to be a bad game per se, but I do have a chunk of bile reserved for it.

For my money, because Capcom couldn't decide which conventions were essential to Resident Evil as a brand and which should be abandoned. This would also explain why the hardened government operatives of Resis 4 and 5 can't aim and run at the same time, a feat even weedy writer Alan Wake can manage.

No-one could shoot while moving prior to those games either, so I don't see this as an issue. I'm fine with the 'run or shoot' system - adds to the suspense.

In contrast, Resi 4 saw a series stuck in a rut go so far to the opposite extreme it became barely recognisable, aside from a few superficial similarities - returning characters, so-bad-it's-brilliant voice acting and a surplus of potted plants.

What was once a slow, tense, puzzle-led experience was transformed into a series of tacked-together Cool Gaming Moments. Resi 4 feels like the product of ten different minds in a super-macho staff meeting, rather than the singular creative vision of one man.

On a purely mechanical level, it is a remarkable game. It deserves the plaudits received and can rightly be held up as the landmark title which gave us Gears of War et al. In that respect, Capcom nailed it.

But here's the big problem: Resident Evil 4 is not a Resident Evil game. And that's the one thing it should have been, above all else.

I can sympathize with most of that bar the voice acting - honestly, the RE4 voice acting is pretty good. I mean, prior to this, we had RE1 (ugh), and RE3 had its share of wonky voice acting/dialogue.

That aside...well, I'll come out and say that RE4 is my favorite Resi game, and this is someone who played numerous RE games before it (all the main ones at least), and it does get a spot in my top ten. If RE4 has a problem, it's that plotwise, it is a departure from everything that comes beforehand. The fall of Umbrella is relegated to the intro cutscene, and very little in the plot feels that connected to what came before. However, I can forgive RE4 for that because a) its gameplay is enough to carry it, and b) in the context of the wider series, it's easy for me to see where RE4 falls in. It's the transition period between everything that came before, and everything that came after. It feels like a test bed for Capcom to try a new style before getting onto the wider plot. In that context, I can forgive it for its plot shortcomings.

Picture your favourite contemporary game series - for the purposes of this example, let's say it's Call of Duty. Now imagine picking up Call of Duty: Red Insurgencies (play as the Soviet Secret Police, folks!).

On booting up the game you discover the template has subtly shifted: it's now an open-ended, emergent Bioshock-style shooter. All that linear action movie pacing has been taken out and there's nary an explosive set-piece in sight.

"Red Insurgencies" could easily fit in with Call of Duty. Something like BioShock could also work.

To be frank, almost any game that involves firearms of some kind could serve as a CoD game, because we've run the full gamete from WWII to outer space. CoD is to FPS what Final Fantasy is to JRPGs - numerous self-contained installments/sub-series that are connected by only a few key elements.

As I've kind of established, for me, execution>conception. If I'm judging RE4 purely on the merits of its story and how it fits into the overall mythology, then it doesn't do too well. If I'm judging it on its own merits, then it's excellent.

Or how about this: imagine excitedly loading the latest Final Fantasy, only to find the expansive overworld adventuring you know and love has been replaced by endless treks round lavishly decorated, sparsely interactive linear corridors. Oh, hang on...

...Final Fantasy X?

I jest, I know you mean FFXIII, but I have to ask, what separates FF13 from the series as a whole? By itself it doesn't strike me as being linearity, and Final Fantasy doesn't have one single setting, and it left behind its medieval settings from FF7. Wary of commenting too much (FF10 is the only FF I've played), but the point is, those points above don't strike me as being inherent issues, only just part of why FF13 isn't well regarded by many people.

You keep hammering on about the story but really it's never been the game's priority. It's subject of parody for a reason. I can't think of a storyline that is more shite than Resident Evil so it boggles my mind someone buys these games for story. It's what Defunct says it's the 'spirit' of a game that is worth maintaining and that is what Resident Evil 4 does and RE5 and 6 didn't do. With RE4 I definitely felt I was playing Resident Evil, but evolved. With RE5 and 6 I definitely did not and that is because the director, again, didn't understand the spirit of the games and what made them unique(namely the atmosphere and incremental dread).

Well, that I disagree with. RE doesn't have the best story in the world, but there's plenty of worse examples out there, many of which have been mentioned on this very forum. I actually quite like RE5 as well, albeit not as much as 4, and a lot of the reason is that it does have a better plot that's better connected to the series's mythology.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I totally agree with this (except REmake is my favourite now). Resident Evil 4 elevates the accessible action parts and dumbs down the bits that made you think. It's what happens when a gamer's series is rejigged for a mainstream audience, and it isn't true to its roots.

Look, I like the classic Resi games for their slower pacing and spookhouse atmosphere, but they hardly made you think beyond remembering where the nearest item box was. The puzzles in these games were just as easy as the ones in RE4, the only difference being RE4 allowed you to take all the puzzle items with you without taking up space.

The games were always pretty dumb, RE4 just rolled with it and added precise shooting controls.

And what were the series' iconic zombies and devastating viruses replaced by? A mutating midget in a pirate hat. An Emperor Palpatine clone with a giant scorpion tail. An army of quasi-intelligent parasite-infected villagers who were so savage they couldn't even use firearms... Except for the ones who could. What?

And what was Leon's motivation for being there? To save the President's daughter.

Right.

You do know Code Veronica had the incest twins right? I mean, that brother was basically a non-midget version of Salazar. Again, all the characters in the RE universe are silly dimwits. The only time the series comes close to having a sincere character is with Lisa Trevor.

That's not even mentioning how for some reason every environment in these games operates under a weird puzzle system, where people apparently need to insert gems in order to open a gate to the gas station.