| E3 2004 Coverage > Resident Evil 4 |
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| Resident Evil 4 |
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The Many Lives of Leon S. Kennedy
Entering the town, Leon thinks, "Perhaps these not-quite-zombies react to my fear. If I do not show fear, they will have no reason to attack." He cautiously walks into town hoping that the man tending to his cow will sell him wholesome milk. Before Leon can utter a greeting, a scout on a nearby roof yells loudly, and the man near the cow approaches Leon threateningly. Immediately reacting to the situation, Leon aims his handgun at the man's head. A shot to the right eye leaves the man clutching his face, but he continues toward Leon. Another shot to the head and the man collapses, dropping his pitchfork.
Sensing someone behind him, Leon performs a quick turn to face a villager about to strike with an axe. Leon attempts to run out of the way of the vertical swipe, but the villager adjusts his swing and connects with Leon's back. Leon again turns to face the man, aims at his head, but at the very last moment, the man steps out of the bullet's path. Four more villagers step out from behind buildings. Desperate, Leon lands several bullets into the axe man's chest. He goes down, but not before the four incoming villagers surround Leon. Given a prompt, Leon picks up something from the ground-ammo, dropped by the axe man. He thinks, "They've been dropping items this whole time!" but the realization comes too late. A pitchfork pierces Leon's front and an axe stabs Leon's back. He crashes to the ground, and the villagers laugh menacingly.
You are Dead
Blood fills the screen. Leon's life is over. His body conquered. Yet his memory is preserved in the player's mind, should Leon restart his mission. It is a moment of great disappointment. It has taken over a half hour just to get to the village, and Leon's death was so quick and painful. Yet with this memory comes a set of lessons:
- Villagers are hard-wired for killing
- Villagers drop vital items
- Standing in one place is not a good idea
You are Alive
Leon approaches the village once more, making sure to pick up any items dropped along the path. He has a significant amount of ammo and he hasn't used his first aid spray. With newfound confidence, Leon walks directly toward villager circling the bonfire, lifts his gun, and dispatches of the villager before he gets a chance to pull the axe out of its holster.
The scout on the roof spots Leon again, yelling to warn nearby villagers. The older man draws an axe and hurls it at Leon. Clank. Leon's bullet strikes the axe in midair and the weapon falls meekly to the ground.
From the opposite side of the fire, two villagers approach Leon with bloodlust. Feeling pressure at his location, Leon moves to the relative safety of the cow shed. Leon's intuition is improving. Two villagers appear from behind the building he was closest to. Even with four approaching villagers, Leon remains calm-Four immediate threats. A shot to the leg causes a running man to fall to the ground-Three immediate threats. The villagers close in, and a rushed shot hits a middle-aged man in the arm. He grabs it, but is only wounded. Leon backpedals into the shed. In rapid succession, Leon alternates shots directed at the two closest enemies. They fall with loud groans-One immediate threat. The last villager, an old man, is slow with a pitchfork, and Leon removes his final threat with a sigh of relief.
Those seconds of pause are foolish, as two unseen villagers enter through the back of the shed, one slashing Leon in the back with his sickle. The villager in the center of town slowly gets up from his fall, and Leon is in a very tight position. Leon sprints out the front of the shed, looking for refuge. He spots it in the form a large tower near the back of the town. As Leon scales the ladder inside the tower, a second wave of villagers rushes the town center.
From the highest window of the tower, Leon watches as a dozen villagers mingle below him, discussing in whispers. He is rather safe at the top of the tower; he has a comfortable amount of health and ammo. Near an ammo clip lie shotgun shells. "I wonder where I can find a shotgun," Leon thinks.
Suddenly, a source of heat, light, glass, and cacophony explodes just a few feet from Leon's left ear, significantly damaging his health. Checking the window, villagers begin to toss Molotov Cocktails at the window en masse. There's no way to get a decent shot off, and the sole exit is clogged with villagers, their faces menacing. Leon is forced out of his tower of stone, climbing down the ladder to what he knows will be his demise.
Lessons:
- Do not pause, even for one second
- The tower is not safe, especially without a sniping weapon
- Avoid places with one entrance/exit
Trapped and Dangerous
Suspecting a better approach to the village, Leon takes a side path that leads behind a set of houses to a single man taking care of a chicken coop. His daily chores are interrupted by a shot to the back of the head. He's wounded, but not dead. The noise attracts the attention of the scout on the roof, and he cries out to alert his companions. An aged man steps around the side of a nearby house and, without warning, stabs Leon in the back with a pitchfork. Leon whirls around and fires two shots to the man's head, but he's badly injured. He jumps through a first-story window of the closest house to avoid an increasingly grave situation, and the glass shatters onto the wooden floor.
Given a moment, Leon heals himself. In a cupboard, Leon finds incendiary grenades, but the swift increase in the population of the house tells him that he may have made a mistake. He turns around to escape from the broken window, but not before being grabbed by a young villager. Violently struggling to remove himself from the hold, Leon breaks out of the villager's grasp and kicks him solidly. The man's momentum knocks down some villagers behind him, and Leon takes the opportunity to escape through the window.
Wary of tight spaces, Leon runs to the center of town, where several villagers are exiting the house. At the same moment, the second wave of villagers enters the town from the Northeast side. Leon scrambles through an open door, barely missing the sharp edge of an axe.
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| Leon encounters the chansaw psycho. |
Outside, the villagers coordinate an attack plan. They know this house inside and out, and they know how to trap someone inside of it. A balding man with rough facial hair yells to another villager, "Vaya por detrs!" which means, "Go through the back!" Leon quickly blocks the closest doors and windows with furniture, but the vicious roar of a chainsaw on the other side of the door strikes fear even in the determined Leon. The sound of breaking glass reaches Leon's ear from upstairs-the villagers are entering on ladders through the second-story window. He takes out a few of the menacing villagers on the second floor with his handgun, but not before grabbing a framed shotgun off the wall and some grenades from a glass case.
Slowly and deliberately, an overweight man climbs through the window, a deafening chainsaw clutched in his paws. His overalls fit tightly on his round body, and the hideousness of his face is hidden by a burlap sac. It doesn't take death to realize that one swipe of that mechanical beast could cut Leon's head off in a cloud of blood, leather, smoke, and flesh. Eager to keep the spinning chain away from his neck, Leon blasts the man in the chest with a shotgun shell, sending him back towards the wall. With just enough space, Leon jumps out a side window onto the roof of the first story, climbs off the roof, and heads for safer environs. He eyes the solid stone tower, but a voice in the back of his head pushes him away from the deathtrap.
Near the iron threshold to an unexplored area, Leon finds a wooden box containing a yellow herb. Yellow herbs are new to the Resident Evil series, and Leon does not consume the herb for fear of poison or death. Pity, for the combination of this herb with a green herb would extend his health bar. Leon tries to open the iron doors, but they don't budge. He tries again-it's locked. Turning around, Leon finds himself at the wrong side of a dead end. The sac-headed man leads a mob of a dozen villagers closing in on Leon's position.
Desperate but not in defeated, Leon makes his stand. He lets the crowd near him before unleashing the strength of his shotgun on their collective flesh. The result is impressive: The closest member of the group, a middle-aged man, is shredded into a bloody mess from his chest upward. Several other members are pushed back by the impact, sending their followers to the ground as well. The chainsaw-wielding man is flung back into a wall of earth, but he quickly recovers.
The rest of the shotgun shells are spent keeping the villagers at bay, and Leon switches to his grenades. The grenades, while effective, are slow. Their use must be timed well in advance to hit the proper target. Taking the explosion of a particularly damaging grenade to his advantage, Leon breaks through the fallen lines of the villagers and escapes into the center of the village. The burlap man, just as resilient as his adversary, slowly gets up and approaches Leon.
Leon stares into the hidden eyes of his adversary, daring him to approach. This man reeks of death, but he refuses to die. He has taken six shotgun blasts to the chests and one grenade explosion at his feet, but he continues to hold the chainsaw threateningly. The chainsaw races toward Leon, but he rolls an incendiary grenade along the ground just in time to bathe the burlap man with its fiery sting. The man falls forward onto the ground, defeated, a scream as loud as the chainsaw escaping his lungs.
A bell tolls at the top of the church tower, and the remaining axes, sickles, and pitchforks fall to the ground with a sudden clank. The villagers' eyes become completely blank, and they slowly walk towards the place of worship. Leon's face sinks with bewilderment. There is no sense in these people. There is no sense in this place. The camera shifts to a birds-eye view, and Leon is left standing by the burning remains of his police escorts.
Special thanks to Jason Nuyens and Dean Bergmann.