Resident Evil 4 (wii) First Impressions

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Well, I had been playing Umbrella Chronicles for the Wii for awhile, and I heard that Resident Evil 4 for Wii was an awesome game, so I decided to pick it up yesterday. The first thing I noticed right off the start how responsive the Wii-mote was for RE4 as compared to Umbrella Chronicles. UC seems to have a slight bit of lag, which makes the game slightly harder than it should be, where Resident Evil 4 aims smoothly and responsively. Controls aren't hard to get used to. You use the nunchuck to rotate your character, and the Wii aim as to where you're aiming on the screen. You can't really use the Zapper for this game, since you use the B button (The "trigger") to aim, and the A button (on top) to shoot.... You can't remap the buttons, or else you could use the Zapper "Z" button on the nunchuck as the aim, and B to shoot, but they won't let you do that apparently. Just as well, it works fine without the zapper.First thing about this game that caused me grief is the fact that it forces you to explore, and conserve ammo. Within the first 5 minutes of gameplay, you end up facing a small fraction of an entire town that have pitch forks and kitchen knives that are all trying to kill you. (That's the last time I ever bother the Spanish during a siesta!)And these aren't stumbling zombies... They can jog, and they're in groups up to 5-7 from what I can remember. You can go for their knee caps to slow them down, but by the time you hit them all, you have to reload and they're back up again... Headshots don't take them down unless you hit them perfectly in some spot, and their heads explode (Somewhat like Umbrella Chronicles).Exploration is a must if you want to find enough money and herbs to survive. Later in the game, about a half hour to an hour depending on how quickly you're going through it, you'll meet up with some strange merchant guy that you can use the spanish money you've been stealing out of people's home throughout the prologue. Seriously, the main character "Leon" could be viewed as the Bad Guy at this point in the game... He breaks into people's houses... steals their guns, money, healing plants... And kills everyone he sees... (I know that's not how the plot goes) but I would be a bit miffed myself if someone broke into my house and started crap like that!Graphics are decent, but we hooked the Wii into a HD TV, with component cables (the good quality, not composite) and there seems to be a need for some good anti-aliasing... The lines look all blurry in the distance. I can't explain it. It's not as crisp as a next-gen game ought to be. I may need to check out my setup again though.Sounds are very awesome. If you hear a far-off dog whimpering, that is usually an actual animal, not some ambient noise. The distance of the sound is realistic.I haven't gotten too far into the plot yet to make a judgment call.Voice acting is probably a 7/10. Seems like I've heard better, but it's definitely better than the original RE Good stuff.One of the things that is a bit of a downer is the weird submissions. For example, you find this piece of paper on a tree talking about blue medallions, saying that there are 15, and if you find 10 you get a "bonus." Now, this sort of thing makes sense later because the merchant is the guy looking for them, but the whole "Find em and shoot em down" sort of side mission takes away from the realism of the atmosphere. I mean I spent probably 20 minutes just wandering around an area looking for blue medallions.... Sort of lame.The same button-triggered cutscenes are in RE4 that are in Umbrella Chronicles. You'll be standing there, a cutscene triggers, and suddenly you're supposed to be waving your wiimote back and forth to simulate running.... Then without warning, it tells you to hit A+B, which is near impossible because you're waving it back and forth and don't have time to maneuver your hands to get at the right buttons. *Sigh* I hope they stop using that.That's about all I can think of for now. Pretty fun, but at this time, I actually prefer Umbrella Chronicles.