Top Titles to Traumatize Gaming Grandmas: Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 is the wildly successful 2005 revamp of the franchise. The series is well known for its tense, brooding atmosphere and jump scares, but this installment took everything one step further. The focus this time is on action, with the kind of relentless gunplay that would exhaust a whole cast of western movie cowboys. If Grandma has recovered from her experiences with Dead Space in the last article, let's see what she's up against here.

Your combat tactics are brutal, to say the least. Every weapon in the game is equipped with a laser sight (even the Longbow, making for an impressive piece of death-dealing tech indeed) allowing you to pinpoint weak points with ease. A shot to the head will cause an opponent to cover their face with their hands and stagger backward. While they're in this not the face! I was voted most handsome bearded shambling moron villager, European division, you bastard! My face is my livelihood! pose, you can step forward to bust out some fist-based justice. Oddly, it seems a swift kick from our hero Leon rivals the power of a gunshot. Again, impressive stuff. Later, the evil Zealot monks instead fall victim to a suplex that literally leaves brain-juice all over the floor. You'd never know it from the effeminate floppy hair, but Leon is quite the badass.

Special mention must also go to the variety of mutated nasties you'll come across on your jolly romp to rescue the President's half-witted daughter. Among others, you'll meet the Garrador, a blinded Wolverine-wannabe with acute hearing and impractical claws (I wouldn't want to even consider the hazards of going to the men's room). Not to mention the Regenerator, this bullet-resistant beast is a major ass pain. You can blow off both its arms and legs with a shotgun, and it will still crawl spasmodically toward you in an effort to feed its face-chewing habits. This persistent bugger also has the kind of rattling breathing that both heralds its approach and haunts your nightmares.

The motley crew that populates Resident Evil 4 comes fully equipped with some ghastly execution methods. Very much like Mortal Kombat and its notorious fatalities, your character seems strangely keen to die in spectacular fashion. Whether it's impalement on a Garrador's claw, or decapitation by the demented Dr. Salvador (who's quite handy with a chainsaw, and seems to have developed his own sophisticated language consisting only of a range of differing RAAAAAHs and ARRRRRGHs), there's never a dull (or tasteful) moment. The man-sized Novistador bugs take the cake, though, with an acid-spewing attack that will melt your face in a charming, close-up scene.

Finally, the Quick Time Events which require hasty button presses in cutscenes would be a no-go too. Quick reflexes are just too much to ask of oldies who take a half hour just to change TV channels. Between this, and the constant gore the game thrusts in your face like a proud child with a stickman picture, Grandma will want to sit this one out too.

To experience true Resident Evil 4 horror, you'll be wanting the app version. Those touchscreen controls... terrifyingly bad. If Satan made video games, (a little light entertainment between the red-hot-poker-buggerings he administers?) they'd be controlled in this fashion.

Here's the dramatic encounter with a bearded dude from the start of the game, which someone's freshly ‘improved' with some awful music:

Article by Chris Littlechild