Desert Island Games III

This week, on desert Island Games, I'm tackling:

HORROR/SURVIVAL GAMES

As I said in my review of Dawn of the Dead, I'm not normally abig horror fan. Mostly, this is in movies, but some of the worse horror games also put me off my stomach. Not so with today's game. It combines non-stop action with mile-a-minute thrills, and pull sit off beautifully. It's easily one of the best-reviewed games of all time. Thats right, I'm talking about Resident Evil 4!

The Resident Evil series is a long and storied franchise, with a lot of proven history behind it. The games weren't ussauly super-star games, they had more a niche market, but they were usually good and had a cult following. It even spawned a passable-to-good series of zombie movies. They zombies themselves were usually the stadard, slow moving brain-eaters, created by the dastardly Umbrella Corporation for nefarious purposes. But not so with this game. This game is the I Am Legend to the rest of the series' Romero's Living Dead trilogy. No shambling undead, evil corporations, or dank, enclosed industrial setting here. No, instead you have gentically mutated villagers in an expansive medival Spanish hamlet, being controlled by a fanatical religious orginzation. And as much of a departure from the tried and true this is, it works. Well.

First off, the pure mechanics of the game are top-notch. The item system is well thought out and logical, and constantly has you juggling weapons, ammo, health boosts, and key items, in such a way as you never seem to have enough of anything, which adds to the tension. The aiming system is orignal and well-developed, and is just tough enough to make making every bullet count a full time job. The AI is great, each unique type of enemy reacts intellgently to you, their companions, and their surrondings, and your partner character is just dim enough for her personality in-game, but not too frustratingly idiotic. The puzzles are challenging, fun, and often terifying, and really cause you to stop and think. And then there's the amazing graphics. For the time, they were amazing, and they're still good today, as the game really isn't that old. The level design and boss battles are amazing, and even the cutscenes are inter-active. If you don't keep your hand on the controller, following frantic button prompts, you die. End of story.

Speaking of the story, what a story there is here. It's clever, as original as the genre will allow, and terribly frightnening, with a good mix of surprise and straigt up creepiness. You constantly have this feeling that you just barely don't know what's going on, and each new enemy is a terrfiying surprise, no matter how familiar the type of enemy (not to mention that several types of enemies disguise themselvles as easier enemyies before popping out after you think you've killed them). Around every corner is a jolting surprise, each time an enemy rushes you, you feel paniced, and the boss battles are genuinely, wet-your-pants frightnening. The tension is masterfully maintained, and you always want to go forward, just to find out what new challenge awaits you. It's agame thats hard to put down, even at 11:30 at night with no lights on in a dark basement. Put simply, you've never had as much fun being scared out of your wits than you will here.


Runner-Up
This week's runner-up is the very definition of a classic, a game that does not cease to entertain, decades after its release. The original Doom, the scariest 16 bits has ever been, and one of the games that got parents worried about just what kind of things their children were playing with here with these new-fangled video games. The game is not happered by its crude format, but instead takes advantage of it, so you never really know what that next pixilated blob will turn out to be until you're WAY to close for comfort. This is a game thats not for the feint of heart, despite its age, and I heartily recommend it.