Our 31 days of horror games series continues with Resident Evil 4, the only GameCube game you'd ever need...
In celebration of Halloween, we’re counting down the days with some of the greatest horror games ever made -- 31 of our favorites! Every day, we’ll take a look back at a horror game that gave us goosebumps, made our controllers tremble, and chased us out of our living rooms. Long live the horror game! And make sure to check out our full list of 31 Great Horror Games To Play In October!
There weren't many games that gamers NEEDED for their GameCube after Shinj Mikami's return to the Resident Evil series. It's not often that you can claim that you changed the face of survival horror, let alone TWICE. Mikami did. Will his upcoming The Evil Within change things for the genre once again?
Resident Evil 4 was a horror gem of the era, one that basically pioneered the over the shoulder view. The story follows Leon S. Kennedy (now considered one of the best characters in the series) as he rescues the president's daughter, Ashley Graham, who has been kidnapped by a cult. Leon has to fight through hordes of mutated monsters known as Los Iluminados. This is the first time in the series where zombies weren't the main enemies. We saw the series move away from that concept, in fact, as later installments adopted RE 4's parasitic virus.
It's a scary situation to have a mob of monsters slowly coming your way, but it's even scarier when you're not familiar with the type of gameplay required to defeat them. This new over the shoulder look and laser sights were brand new. Not only did it provide for some scares, but the use of laser sights made it a lot of fun; lining up your shot for a perfect head explosion was very rewarding.
Resident Evil 4 was one of the most influential titles of the 2000s, and opened a lot of doors for other action-oriented games. Capcom took a risk, and it paid off. And now, Resident Evil 4 is widely regarded as the best game in the longstanding horror franchise, even if it did replace the scares a little with more action sequences. But it's still very scary.
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