I remember back in 2006 I first got this game from my grandmother as a gift for Easter... lol one of the best gifts ever!

So where do I begin with this masterpiece of a game... this game went through 3 different revisions that you can look up for yourself until it was released back in 2005 exclusivly for the Nintendo Gamecube until Capcom screwed them over and released on every other platform-honestly a good reason-and I bought multiple different versions of this. (got it on PS2 first, played on Xbox, played the hell out of the Wii version, and now the best version: PC HD release!)

Story: After the events of RE3: Nemesis, Leon Scott Kennedy is now an agent for the U.S. Government is sent on a mission to rescue the president's daughter Ashley Graham from an unknown organization that's located in Europe. When Leon arrives in a rural area of Europe to discover some bizarre villagers that are attacking him. It then leads to give you some creepy events that you will have find out how the villagers came to be and rescue Ashley.

Gameplay: You may know this game is responsible for revolutionizing the 3rd-person shooter genre and making it a standard today and it still lives up to it. Though without a doubt the gameplay does feel dated since you can't move the camera as you would expect from a modern 3rd-person shooter as well as move while aiming, reloading, and shooting. Aiming might feel clunky since you are always swaying your gun around even when standing still and moving around might be strange but you will get use to after a while. Weapons can be upgraded and bought from a merchant with the games currency to give you a better arsenal or even change your gameplay style of what weapons you want to use for your playthrough. The inventory is probably my most favorite inventory mechanic in a video game I have ever used. It's basically a suit case-which can be upgraded-which is were you store all of your items into including ammo, healing items, and attachments for weapons. It's an entire grid array so you can fit many items into but also make you decide if you should take certain items with you or not since you won't have enough space. Also the game has a NG+ to keep all your items and weapons upgrades to give you replay value.

Survival Horror: This game can give you the creeps at the start making you say "what the h*ll is going here", and leaves it to you to figure out what's happened. Most can be told through documents you find throughout the game and gives interesting plot points. The toughnest of the enemies as well as being out numbered by them and managing your ammo and healing items can make it a tense survival game. Boss fights can be challenging if you don't manage your inventory well enough and they have amazing designs that makes them seem very powerful. Seeing some of the creepy enemy designs latter on in the game will make your skin crawl. Though it can be argued that the game does get way more actioned focused close to the end but for the most part until 3/4 through the game it remains to be a survival horror game and one of the best ever as well.

Sound/Music: Gun sounds still sound good to this day and some creature's sound design can sound scary at times. The game's soundtrack does some relaxing music and even some that is really fitting for certain moments in the game whether it would be for a creepy sewer setting or a big enemy base.

Graphics: Now you have to understand that this game was originally released back in 2005 for the Gamecube so you have to expect to look outdated which of course they are. Though it does have a few graphics options that does make it look better than any other version but it still does look outdated. Though you do play at higher resolution than the other platforms and this game performs very well and pretty much stays at 60fps consitently. In case if you are interested there is an HD rework project for this game that you can try out for yourself to help give the game better textures.

PC port: If you remember the original PC version of RE4 was REALLY BAD. It had no mouse aiming and terrible graphics compared to other versions and was pretty much unplayable. Now with this re-release it's the PC version that we deserved! Decent graphics options, good M&K controls, full gamepad support, and beautiful consitent 60fps performance. You honestly can run this game maxed at get 60fps on a good budget PC and it will run great. No crashes throughout the entire time I played this game as well.

Conclusion: So you could probably tell that this is definitly one of my favorite games EVER! It helped set the standard for 3rd-person shooters and survival horror as we know it today. Sure the graphics are outdated and look very flat and muddy but it doesn't pass up for how amazing the gameplay is. The survival horror is still intense compared to other games these days and nothing has come close to match what this masterpiece of a game has made. This will forever remain as Shinji Mikami's masterpiece work of art and it has made him one of the most important video game creators of all time and he is very deserved.

Rating 10/10

12/10 I would get this game from Easter again! ;)