Tea Leaves

Resident Zombie Lull Killer

The lesson for today is: shooting zombies is always fun.

There I was, lost and directionless, staring at all the games that I was not playing. So on a whim I fired up Resident Evil 4 and started fooling around with the Mercenaries mini-game. I had given up on this before, because it seemed hopeless. I just could not see how to shoot enough zombies fast enough to gather the points needed to advance in the game.

But, after a few tries, I started to get into the flow of the game, and actually managed to make some progress. This taught me two things:

1. Shooting zombies is always fun.

2. The Gamecube controller makes my hands hurt.

So, discarding the last shreds of my self-respect, I shelled out for the PS2 version of the game, and I am happily playing through it again.

The upside:

1. The PS2 controller does not suck.

2. Real 16:9 for a nice big picture without zooming my TV.

3. Same tight zombie-head-blowing-up gameplay.

The downside:

1. Blockier characters.

2. Lighting effects and textures are noticably worse.

3. Some of that PS2 jaggy and shimmering "looks-like-ass" filter comes through. But not that much.

Having spent more time with the game, I think it's actually the best shooter that I've played in the last year. The only one I liked better was Halo 2. Even Half-Life 2 comes up short.

Resident Evil puts together everything you need for a good shooter experience: excellent pacing, nice weapons, lots of exploding heads, and a nice long linear path without too many obstructions. The stupid bosses are a bit of a downer, but I know how to beat them now (even using only the knife), so they don't bother me anymore.

Thank god for zombie killing. How would we ever escape our slumps without it.