all time favorite video game 3

3. Resident Evil 4 (GC)
Resident Evil 4 how I love thee. I had always loved the Resident Evil series and when they announced 4 was going to be a Gamecube exclusive, fanboys everywhere, including myself, nearly shat themselves. Capcom wasn't going to crap on the company that made them famous?! Incredible! Then they announced more details about Resident Evil 4. Goodbye to the puzzles. Goodbye to fixed camera angles. Hello to an over the shoulder view that is essentially a pretty first person shooter style. Hello to an innovative and enjoyable money system in the game. The changes worked. The franchise (while still not at the point of crappiness), invigorated itself so much with the debut of this game.
One of the first and greatest ideas they used in this game was the concept of a rearrangeable attache case to hold all of your crap. Items could be moved, removed,or re-moved as often as the player wished. If you had any attache case ADD like me, you were always trying to organize bullets, grenades, and health so that everything looked "tidy". Items all had a value and you were free to do what you wanted. Want a submachine gun? Buy one. Want to sell off your pistol? You'd be an idiot--but you're free to do so. The items were all representative sizes as well, so if you were trying to put a rocket launcher in your case, you probably can't fit a machine gun, a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol. Unless you don't want the ammo. And that's one of the small changes that makes this game great. The decision on what to carry is fully yours, and each game plays out slightly differently.
When people saw the trailer for this game several had heart attacks. Gone were the mind numbingly slow zombies of old--that relied on crappy camera angles and the element of surprise to scare the shit out of you. Enter the Ganando. As an infested villager the common enemy took AI to a whole new level. They run. They bite. They pitchfork. They smash through doors. They break windows. They throw ladders to the second floor of a house. They use chainsaws. There were not your father's zombies. The enemies were smart. Too smart. You could still outsmart them, but it was rare. Did I mention that all that takes place in the first four sections of the map? From there it gets even more crazy.
The plot is fairly well conceived as well. Taking a nice departure from the Umbrella mythology was a well needed break in what had become such a tight mythology that there was little room left for improvement. Leon Kennedy, start of Resident Evil 2 is thrust into the starring role of looking for the president's daughter, Ashley Graham. Hell, even the villains in this game were memorable, whether the imposing Chief Mendes, miniature Napoleon, or the mysterious Lord Sadler. Even the creature boss fights were awesome. In addition to this chainsaw wielding baddie here, whom I forgot to mention could kill you in ONE HIT, there were other awesome enemies.
Such as this guy whom you had to fight with the power of sound. If you made noise he charged maniacally towards you, Wolverine-like claws exposed and ready to impale. Great level designs. Great controls (minus the lack of strafe). Great characters.

Even the extras for this game were awesome. The shooting galleries were a lot of fun, and the Mercenaries mini game was great as well. Assignment Ada was fun as well. Nothing--and I do mean nothing disappointed about this game. It was even fairly long and had great unlockables. I can't think of many games that I have no issues with. (I do have issues with Capcom releasing it on the PS2, and releasing RE 5 on PS3 and XBOX 360, but that's another post for another time perhaps) Most gaming sites gave this game a perfect or near perfect score, and I can't agree more. I just started another run through of this game this past week and it still is just as good as the first time I picked it up. Excellent and our final installment for the dominating Nintendo Gamecube.

UP NEXT: The highest ranked game that is NOT for a Nintendo system. What could it be?

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