8 Video Games Fans Didn't Deserve
5. Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 4 did not invent third-person shooters. It did, however, reinvent them, with its over-the-shoulder camera and more responsive gameplay.
In the span of a decade, the Resident Evil series had defined survival horror for the PlayStation era. Resident Evil and its two sequels' fixed camera angles, limited inventory and tank controls create an overbearing atmosphere of suspense as protagonists dodge and survive undead abominations.
In Resident Evil 4, however, an over-the-shoulder 3rd-person camera follows Leon Kennedy as he rescues the President's daughter in Spain. Players use button-prompts during quick-time events to interact with the environment - dodging giant boulders, building barricades and implementing hand-to-hand combat during cutscenes.
The gameplay constantly focused on the tense action and the stressful, unpredictable moment-by-moment.
Is this a far cry from the mostly quiet and moody horror of games past? Of course. But a change of execution is not intrinsically synonymous with a loss of achievement or simple enjoyment.
Resident Evil 4's legacy continues in the Resident Evil 2 remake and the upcoming Resident Evil 3 remake, both swapping the fixed-angles and tank controls for that now classic over-the-shoulder camera.