8. Leon S Kennedy, Master Gymnast (Resident Evil 4)
Resident Evil 4 can probably take the dubious honour of popularising the quick time event in the modern video game era, as the survival horror series began its slow and inevitable slide into a more action-based genre. Out went combining herbs, fumbling for keys like a drunk on his doorstep and being unable to kill a single zombie because you'd run out of bullets, before being devoured because the crappy controls wouldn't let you turn and leg it fast enough. In came roundhouse kicks and headshots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfYZgXho-hg One of the ways that Capcom streamlined those much-maligned tank controls that had blighted (or made, depending on who you ask) the previous games in the series was the use of quick time events. Resident Evil 4 had on-screen instructions telling players to hit buttons to avoid chainsaw blades, escape from Indiana Jones-style rolling boulders and - in one particularly ridiculous scene towards the end of the game - dance through security lasers like you were Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment. All with the push of a single button. Technology is amazing!
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
