Resident Evil 4 HD - A Capcom Game

Resident Evil 4 was originally released for the Gamecube in January 2005, before the massive critical acclaim it received and successful sales it enjoyed, led to it being ported to several other formats. It finally got a HD release in September 2011 on Xbox Live and PSN along with Resident Evil Code Veronica X.

For those of you new to RE4, the main story involves Leon S. Kennedy and his search for the kidnapped daughter of the US President Ashley Graham in a remote European location. As you would expect, Leon is soon facing biologically altered enemies, but no zombies this time, instead we see the country folk infected with a parasite called Las Plagas which not only allows them to be controlled, but also develop genetic mutations. As you would expect with Resident Evil the story soon develops into one involving a plan for world domination and the Umbrella Corporation.


This version is closest to the PS2 release and you get a lot of extras for your money. Not only do you get the main game, weighing it at 12-20 hours in length, you get Separate Ways ( the story mode featuring Ada Wong) which lasts about three hours, the Mercenaries survival mode, the Ada Assignments mini games and a whole host of unlockable weapons, costumes and movie reels.

The core gameplay of RE4 has held up well over the years, although the initial controls are horrible to use and a massive barrier to gameplay. I highly recommend anyone playing this switches the controls to option 2 in the menu to make this a lot more comfortable. It is a lot more action packed than previous Resident Evil games, with the focus switching from survival horror. The range of weapons offer good variety, allowing the player to choose how to approach each situation and everything is fully upgradeable via the merchants that appear in the game. The boss battles range from quick time event controlled encounters, battles with sea monsters and knife battles with seemingly invincible super soldiers.

The story moves along at a fast pace as you move through several really varied locations. There is still a puzzle element to the game, with lots of fetch quests to find items to open this and that, but they have been hugely simplified compared to the early Resident Evil games. The main focus of RE4 is all out gun battles rather than slow explorations. Although there are still some jump out of your skin moments when you first encounter certain enemy types, the "Iron Maidens" you face late in the game are really menacing and you will probably end up running for your life the first time you meet them.


The graphics are generally okay, as long as you don’t inspect them too closely. Get too close to a wall or a building and you can see that the textures are obviously last generation and really show the age of the game. This is also apparent in the cut scenes and quick time events where the graphics can let the game down.

Achievement wise, the game is pretty straight forward. Completing the game twice and finishing the extra game mode you can unlock for the 1000g. There are a lot of unlockables that you gain once you get the requirements for the 1000g and it's a shame that they weren't more imaginative with the achievement list to incorporate these (having to get x amount of kills with the laser gun would be fun!).

Overall, whether or not you want to buy this will probably depend on if you liked the original game. Getting to play one of the best games ever made, this time with achievements attached, can never be a bad thing but bare in mind its age when you judge it’s graphics and overall presentation. When you play Separate Ways it uses non - HD remastered cut scenes from the original release so this is the first time you'll really see what a difference the remastering has made though. However, the story and gameplay still show why it was so highly regarded in it's day.

Review mark 8.5 / 10


Resident Evil 4 HD is available here from the Xbox Live Marketplace for £14.99

Good review mate, this is one of my favourite games of all time so I'll definitely pick this up at some point.

I still have this on my gamecube and I even played some of it over christmas due to my son making me drag it all out of the loft so he could play wind waker. If I didn't have so many new games to play I would definitely get this for sure.
Top review mate

Good review mate.

This is my favourite game of all time. There's always a new set piece or event around every corner. Can't recommend it enough. I enjoyed it originally on the Cube and it really set a new benchmark at the time for action games. It's probably not the easiest game to control these days, but perseverence will reward I think, and as Nite said, modifying the controls helps.