Resident Evil 4 Xbox 360

Warning this is unproofread temporary version of the review that I posted to test out the links. It may often be incoherent, unorganized and difficult to get through. Read it at your own risk. A fixed final version should be posted by June 10th, 20013, if not sooner. obviously I missed that deadline, but my new target goal is June 20th or soon. When I remove this warning the proofreading will be finished.

Resident Evil 4 is of course the classic fourth entry into the Resident Evil series, even though it's actually the fifth when you count Resident Evil: Code Veronica which the game directly references at times. Unlike most people I didn't play the game too much when it was originally released mainly because I sucked at it and due to the peculiarities of the Game Cube version. So I was excited when Capcom released Resident Evil 4 HD digitally for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in October of 2011. Finally there would be definitive version of the game, with every feature, good controls and the best graphics. I'm glad to say that Resident Evil 4 holds up amazingly well, and is just as much fun, if not more so then it was back in 2005 when it was originally released thanks to the better controls and higher resolution graphics.  

Since the events of Resident Evil 2 Leon Kennedy has become a special agent for the United States Government. Leon is sent to a rural Spanish village to investigate the disappearance of the President's daughter Ashley Green. Leon knows he's at the right place when everyone in the town tries to kill him. It turns out that the evil cult Los Illuminados and its leader Saddler is controlling the entire population of the town using a parasites called los plagas, and there goal is to infect and control world leaders with plagas in a pod people exque plan to take over the world. Eventually Leon finds Ashley and together they must escape the village, persevere against heavy resistance, countless traps and a cavalcade of psychopaths in order to escape the dire situation and get back home. The tone of the game's story is pretty weird and all over the place. Some scenes are very serious, other times there's melodrama, horror, comedy and even becomes a farcical parody of action movies in general. Overall I would say that the story is pretty entertaining, but as I mentioned that it can be inconstant in tone, and sometimes it seems like events are being dragged out or are repetitive for the sake of gameplay like fighting the same boss again or repeated kidnappings.

As you probably already know Resident Evil 4 is a departure from the typical Resident Evil and survival horror gameplay found in previous entries in the series. The biggest change is that the camera angle is no longer fixed, and is now centered behind Leon at all times. Some might refer to the camera angle as a third person perspective, however since you can't see Leon's legs, it's more fittingly identified as a second person perspective, where the camera always centers on the character from the waist up. Another big difference is that the game now has full analog control so that you can move freely in any direction and the old tank controls are gone, but you still have to hold down a button to run. Also gone are the gigantic item crates that held any belongings that you didn't want in your main inventory. Instead you start out with a very small, but realistic briefcase to hold all of your items in. Items take up more space based on their size, so a egg is half the size of a box of shotgun shells, and a handgun only takes up half the room that a rocket launcher would take to carry around. Fortunately you can eventually buy upgrades to increase the size of the briefcase to make it four times as larger than it was originally. This leads me to another new feature that the game now has an economy where objects have value and can be bought or sold to the merchant in order to acquire new weapons and upgrades to your arsenal. To make things easier so you don't have to constantly worry about what items to sell and what carry with you, various treasures, gems and trinkets are hidden throughout the game that only serve the purpose of being sold to the merchant to raise money for profit.

The biggest change however is that there are no zombies in the game. They are instead replaced with los plagas infected villagers referred to as grados. Grados can move pretty fast at times and can also use weapons and tools such as pitchforks, axes, knives, scythes, cattle prods, or even dynamite. They usually attack in groups and love to gang up on you all at once from every direction. When fighting a Grado you are not actually facing the person, instead you're actually fighting the plaga parasite that's controlling them. Because of this shooting a Grados's head off might not necessarily kill them, and just piss them off further as the parasite is actually lodged in the center of their spine. If you're unfortunate enough to decapitate a Grado that doesn't drop, then soon a razor-sharp tentacle will pop out of the bloody neck stump swinging wildly and continue attacking you. At this point you're better off keeping your distance, and focusing your fire at the exposed plaga before it can hit you as it does tremendous damage. Because enemies constantly swarm you in the game from all sides it's best to camp a wall or corner so that all your adversaries will approach you from one direction and easily subdue the mob by shooting whatever is closest to you first. This isn't entirely safe however since occasionally a grado will throw a weapon at you that will clip through other enemies bodies and hit you. You are able to shoot weapons out of  the air to deflect them, but if you can't see it coming, you obviously can't dodge it. I find that the safest way to deal with a large group of enemies is to camp the very top of a ladder and wait for the grados to slowly climb to the top one by one. Then shoot each grado once when they reach the top of the ladder so that they fall back down to the bottom taking a substantial amount of damage, and repeat the process until you've cleared out the entire group. Another strategy is to find a room with only one entrance and then wait by the door for the Grados to brake in, and then proceed to either kick or shotgun the cluster just outside the doorway. You could also lower an enemy with dynamite or a rocket launcher into taking out a big group of his allies by luring one to fire while a mob is following you, and then running behind cover or entering a building at the last second you see yourself from damage. If you're trying to conserve ammo then you might want to use your knife to kill unarmed enemies who are by themselves. The knife is surprisingly powerful, since it only takes between 3 to 7 slashes kill most enemies and it's much more effective than in earlier Resident Evil games. Alternately you could also knock down a group of enemies with a shotgun blast, and then run over and finished them off with repeated knife slashes to their legs before they can get back up. You can also stun enemies by shooting them in the head or legs, and then once their stunned attack them again with a close range roundhouse kick or suplex grapple move which will usually finish them off and hurt any surrounding enemies as well. Enemies in the game are fairly intelligent, and will bob and weave to avoid your fire, and even put their hands in front of their face to block you from shooting them in the head, as if that wouldn't hurt just as much. One thing I don't like is that it seems like shooting a enemy on the ground is far less effective than does hardly any damage when compared to shooting them when they are standing up right, which really doesn't make any sense, especially when I'm targeting the same area of their body. I could shoot them three times in the chest when they are standing, or 10 times when they're on the ground will they finally die, it is ridiculous. There are other more powerful enemies in the game that are sort of like sub-bosses. For example there are the difficult to kill chainsaw or machine gun wielding grados, Iron maiden tall blind men with scissor like claws that react to sound, gfhfhf large insects that can turn invisible, fly and spit acid, or finally regenerators who resemble traditional zombies, and have the ability to rapidly heal and regenerate any part of their body that's damaged. You have to say I don't like that you can only see the weeks spot of the regenerators with a thermal scope rifle, and if you don't use a rifle like me you'll have to fire blindly away at their bodies, while wasting a ton of ammo to hopefully hit the weak spot by accident and finally kill them. Eventually I decided that they  weren't worth wasting the ammo on, and just used three grenades to kill every regenerator I encountered.

Another change from earlier games in the series is that enemies drop items when they die such as ammo, herbs to refill your health or money to buy things from the merchant. I think of Resident Evil 4 as a game that can be played many different ways, and because of that the game gives you enough rope to hang yourself so to speak. So it's easy to become over powered by getting the right gun and upgrades or get yourself completely screwed over by selling the wrong thing, or using too many herbs early on. The temptation in the game is to buy every weapon that the merchant sells, but you won't have enough money or inventory space to do that. So you'll have to decide on what you want and what you actually need to survive. It's tempting to sell your original handgun in favor of the newly offered Red 9, but the Red 9 reloads a lot slower, and its three round burst fire wastes ammo, especially if you miss. So you might actually be better off just upgrading the default handgun, by increasing its damage, firerate, reload time, and magazines capacity instead. Basically you always want to carry around enough weapons so that you can use at least three different kinds of ammo, and you never want to carry more than one weapon that use the same type of ammo. You'll want one weapon for basic enemies, and shooting miscellaneous things in the environment, one weapon for crowd control, and one weapon that you pretty much only use to kill bosses with. You could carry more weapons or less, but sometimes the game will be pretty stingy dropping certain kinds of ammo so it's always good to have another weapon to fall back on if you're running dry. For example I always carry around the basic handgun, TMP machine gun, and regular shotgun with me throughout the entire game, and I didn't have much trouble running out of ammo, although it did pike up a lot of grenades along the way. You have to think about your play style, and gun pairings. For instance carrying around only a shotgun and a magnum is a bad combo since they are both overkill and have little ammo available, likewise having only a handgun and a sniper rifle would make you incapable of firing fast and dealing with a large group of attackers at the same time. It's interesting how the limited inventory system and ammo supply can make decisions on what to buy from the merchant so complex. One thing I have to mention is that for some reason you can't buy ammo from the merchant, but he will buy it from you and can oddly however buy first aid sprays from him. I guess they must've thought that it would make the game too easy to you could buy ammo whenever you want, but I think it would be a good feature even if it was regulated to only a lower difficulty setting, that way you could get screwed over by being too trigger-happy.

Resident Evil 4 is a pretty hard game, so much so that it can actually be a bit brutal and intimidating when you're first starting out and don't yet have the hang of the controls yet. I guess the high difficulty is really the true horror element of the game, since you're always paranoid that a enemy will pop out and hit you. I would use the old cliché and say that the game is tough but fair, but however too often the game is incredibly cheap and totally unfair, so that wouldn't be true. In fact the game is riddled with what I like to call noob traps, where if you don't know what's coming you will almost certainly die the first time you reach that area. Examples include sudden button mashing  QTE sequences, QTEs inserted into the middle of a long cut scene, dynamite or rocket launcher ambushes, or what I hate the most bear traps placed on the path that are just outside your field of view, so you only notice them if you turn the camera down, but you wouldn't do that unless you knew they were coming and were looking for them. Also most areas have a certain number of enemies that can spawn in them. Usually players will kill everything, and then explore the area, however if you collect a certain object it may trigger another wave of enemies to spawn, sometimes even directly behind you, and had you played the area before you would know that and be prepared by switching weapons, quickly running away. Resource management also comes into play, for example if you know that you're about to fight a boss then you likely conserve healing items and ammo were more powerful guns, and if there is a long stretch until you get another difficult part, then you might waste a herb to get back to full health, since you know that you'll plenty of opportunities to find some more later on. Also if you managed to beat an area, but are worried that you may have used up too much ammo or healing herbs in the process, don't be afraid to reload your game or revert to the last checkpoint and try again, since you'll hopefully do better now that you know what to do. Just be sure not to revert to the last checkpoint during the middle of a boss fight, or else you'll likely have to start the entire fight over again, regardless of what phase of it you might have been on. Speaking of waves of enemies I don't like how sometimes will be a good minute or so between the waves spawning so you think the coast is clear, leave your defensible position, take a few steps, pick up some items, and then be swarmed by six that shoot acid surrounding you from all sides.

One thing that did return are puzzle elements found throughout the game. Although puzzle have definitely been deemphasized, you'll still run into a locked door every three or four rooms and you'll have to fetch the key by beating a boss, a collect a series of talismans to reveal the path, move furniture to open a door, press switches in the right order, or unscramble a painting to move on. I really hate one particular sliding picture puzzle in chapter 4-1 because there is only one solution, and if the pieces get too messed up, you'll be screwed over and you had to leave the room to reset the puzzle and try again. Even this simple task of selling treasures to the merchant is made more complicated by puzzle elements. Periodically you come across jewelry with indentations that mean that they used to hold more gems. You could sell the crown or tiara right away for a modest amount or wait until you find all the missing gems, and then combine them to make the object be worth ten times as much. I wouldn't have a problem with this mechanic, if for example I find the setting on chapter 1-2, but can't complete it with all the gems until chapter 3-1 which is a ridiculous amount of time to wait to sell something that's only purpose is to be sold. I wouldn't mind if the gems were harder to find, just as long as they appeared sooner after I acquired the original object. As a side note there are way too many spinels and sapphire gems in the game, I mean I must've picked up at least fifty of each in one playthrough.

Resident Evil 4 certainly offers oodles of gameplay variety some of which could even be referred to as minigames. As with all minigames they vary wildly in quality with some being so fun that you want to replay the game again, to others that you'll dread even thinking about. I'll go into the side quests and minigames that you unlock after beating the game later, but for now I'll just address the ones you'll encounter during the main campaign. Rarely you'll sometimes operate a vehicle by steering it with the left analog stick. Movement is a little loose during these sections, but they are mainly meant just to be flashy cut scenes and don't require all that much skill to get through. There's also a section where you must protect the back of a vehicle from enemies that try to hop on it while it's driven down a narrow road, which is actually one of my favorite sections of the game. I also really liked a area where you must prevent a huge horde of grados from breaking in to a small cabin in the woods. It gets really intense once there are fifthteen  or so inside and you don't know who to shoot first. Another cool section is when you must briefly travel across a ravine using a gondola and shoot any grados that try to hop on or some in other gondolas that try to throw axes at you, it's crazy. The game also tackles some video  game clichés like mine cart levels, elevator sections or boulders chasing you. I thought that the mine cart area was cool and fun but the lift was too small so it was hard not to get hit regardless of what weapon you were using. I found that since they were falling into the center of the elevator so fast, that I was better off just knifing the ground on the center where the cultist all seemed to pile up. There is also a claw machine parody and several instances where you'll have to protect Ashley at a distance with sniping. Occasionally you'll have to quickly shoot a target in order to disable a trap or open a door to escape. Even though it's entirely optional I have to say that I really hate the gun range minigames at the merchant's shop, they're just terrible. Three times throughout the game you'll notice a purple door next to the merchant which leads to the gun range. Inside you can  play a shooting gallery minigame where cardboard cutouts of enemies from the game such as grados or cultists pop up and you'll have a limited amount of time to shoot them before they go back down. There are usually about twenty five targets and for extra points try to get only headshots. Shooting gallery as two courses one with rapidfire weapons like the shotgun and TMP and one with sniping with the handgun and rifle. Beating each courses gets you collectable figurines of characters from the game in dynamic poses, which are for some reason referred to as bottle caps. Perhaps it's a mistranslation of capsule toys from Japanese. Regardless I don't like the minigame because it's way too hard and unfair. To get the first figure you only have to hit every target, but they get the second figure you have to get a high score which requires you to get a head shot on practically every target and completely memorize the pattern of the targets and get a perfect run in order to succeed. Targets move back and forth which makes it harder to line up headshots, particularly with the shotgun since it has piercing and you can accidentally hit the target behind the one are actually aiming for. You could also get screwed over by having to reload at a bad time, or sometimes you'll have more than enough ammo in the barrel, but the game will lower the amount of ammo you have down to only one or two shots, when you just reloaded a few seconds ago just to make things harder. Now maybe other people are a lot better at the minigame then I am, but it took me a few hours before I could get all the figures for even a single course, so this one boring minigame could add an  additional ten hours to the game which aren't fun.

Shooting controls in the game are okay, but not ideal. You must hold down one trigger to draw your weapon, and then depending on what control scheme you're using press either the other trigger or the A button to shoot. I don't like having to use the left analog stick to aim, and would prefer to use the right one, but it's not too much of a problem once you get used to it. The main issue I have is that all be it realistically. Leon's hands constantly shake and wobble while aiming which move the red targeting line and makes sniping anything at a distance of over fifteen feet away from you super annoying. Leon's hand spasms make sniping pointless as you'll just waste a lot of ammo trying to hit a far away target, while a nearby one hits you in the face. That's why I don't even bother to carry around a sniper rifle anymore, since it's not worth the frustration or inventory space. On the plus side all the guns in the game feel very powerful and sound great. Shotguns have a tremendous knockback on targets, and the sound of the TMP's high rate of fire makes it very satisfying to use. What's also satisfying is how much gore there is in the game. I like the expression grados make when you shoot them in the leg, or the sound effect their head makes when it explodes. It's especially impressive when you blow off the limbs of a regenerator, and then quickly see them start to reform and change shape again. With as much gore that is inflicted on the enemies, arguably even more gory even are the game over deaths of  Leon himself. It seems like practically every enemy has a way to decapitate Leon, be it by chainsaw, scythe, or claw, once his head pops off a lot, you'll have to restart. My favorite is probably when the ggf insct monster spits acid at Leon which burns his face off reveling a bulging eyeball and raw flesh covered skull, it's really sick and awesome.

Once you rescue Ashley you'll be forced to escort her throughout most other areas in the game. Ashley isn't a idiot, and most of the time does a good job at keeping herself alive, however she can't attack enemies, and she has her own health bar and if it runs out you'll have to restart. Most enemies will actually intentionally attack Ashley, instead they'll pick her up and drag her off over their shoulder. If an enemy is the area with Ashley then it's also game over. What I don't get is that at certain points in the story Ashley is supposed to get captured, but when basic enemies do it, it's game over, it just seems arbitrary. You don't have much control over Ashley, all you can do really is tell her to wait or follow you. Usually it's a good idea in a big firefight to have Ashley waits in a corner that you're protecting or in another room while you deal with the enemies. Sometimes though if you leave her by herself too long, an enemy will magically appear in the room and try to carry her off, so you don't want to ever be too far apart. My problem with Ashley is that for AI programed to freak out every time Leon's head is anywhere near her skirt. So often I'll climb a ladder she'll follow and then I jump down after since  I collected all the items, but she'll accuse me of trying to look up her skirt. Worse is when I get hit in the head by a regenerator and fly backwards then land on the ground. Leon then stands up immediately afterword, but while I was in was being flung through the air Ashley calls me a pervert for having my head on the ground for two seconds, even though I landed far behind her and nowhere near her skirt. Ashley is good about ducking when she's in the way of your line of fire, but she doesn't have the best instincts when it comes to running away. When you shoot a gun near her, she'll duck down, cover her ears, and quiver in terror. The problem that sometimes she won't leave cover until all the enemies nearby are killed, so if you shoot off a few rounds, and then realize you're going to get hit, and beside to run away instead, Ashley might not follow you, even if tell her to, get hit, and you'll have to restart. Another annoying thing about Ashley is that she can climb ladder s fine, but she is for some reason incapable of jumping down off the platform like Leon does. So every time Leon explores an area and climbs a ladder while actually is following him. once Leon jumps down you'll have to stand at the base of the platform or ladder and catch Ashley when she falls. Much later in the game there will be smaller platforms without ladders that Ashley mysteriously seems to have no problem climbing or jumping from, which leads me to believe that she is for some reason incapable of walking down the ladders but is perfectly fine with climbing them, which is really weird.

Sometimes you might want to conserve ammo and focus on stunning enemies and then moving up to the group for a melee attack, which is usually pretty safe. But sometimes a grado from the back of a group will rush and grab you, even clipping through other enemies on the way. Getting grabbed does a lot of damage, and you annoyingly have to quickly shake the left analog stick to make them let go before they have enough time to flip you for even more damage. Another thing I find strange about the game is that is that it seems to have a pretty big difficulty hump. I mean at the beginning of the game you have very little health, and one hit could leave you almost dead. Yet there are hardly any herbs around to heal you. By the time you get to chapter 4-1 you'll have tons of herbs, and you could find one in practically every room. You can even find golden herbs that increase the size of your life bar permanently which also makes thing easier. You could also give golden herbs to Ashley, but I wouldn't bother until you've already maxed out Leon's health first since he's the only one that gets hit anyway. Basically what I'm getting at is the game has a tremendous difficulty hump when you first start playing it, and as you progress it will get easier and easier, when you're healing and ammo stockpiles increase your weapons do more damage but the enemies don't get stronger.

When you beat the game you'll unlock three additional modes. Spoilers ahead obviously. Too much shorter campaigns Separate Ways and Assignment Ada where in both which you play as Ada Wong and the much lauded Mercenaries mode. The reason why there are two different Ada campaigns is that the original GameCube version you only unlocked Separate Ways when beating the game. When they controversially ported the formerly exclusive Game Cube game to the PlayStation 2 they added Assignment Ada to differentiate it from the original version and to bait people who already owned it to buy it again.

The graphics in the game are spectacular, and are still impressive to this day. It proves to me that character models, animation and art design are what's most important when it comes to graphics. Character models look very realistic and have nice detail, especially on faces. It does seem like to me though that Ashley is a bit more cartoonish when compared to the other characters in the game which seem more gritty and realistic looking. The only problem I see is occasionally fingers or the edges of clothing might look a little blocky but it's barely noticeable. Resident Evil 4 is a very scenic game, and you almost want to keep playing just to see what the next backdrop will be. Textures, though dark still hold up amazingly well, and the contrast between colors is vivid and striking. Resident Evil 4 is truly a graphical triumph and it's a shame that no other games were ever made using it's amazing engine.

Music in the game is often ominous and haunting, but becomes faster and exhilarating when the action picks up. I especially love the classic theme when you save your game. Audio plays an important role in the game since it tells you when enemies are searching for you and what kind are after you. You can often identify what enemies are approaching by simply listing to their footsteps. Grados and cultists constantly murmur to themselves while they search for Leon, but their dialogue often sounds a little too compressed, perhaps this is because of disk space issues on the Game Cube. All the rest of the voice acting in the game sounds great however and is excellent quality. hgfjgj hjfghf does a great job as Leon, always giving the right credence to each line regardless of how ridiculous it might be. I think that Saddller, Krowser, and Luis's actors give great performances as well. I find Ashley's voice to be a little shrill and annoying, which I guess is incentive to save her quicker when she's in trouble, and it could be intentional because Ashley is often portrayed in the game to be a little bratty.

On the 360 with control scheme B: The left analog stick moves the character. The right analog stick is just the camera to look up or down or left or right. However unlike most games the camera snaps back to the center of the screen as soon as you stop moving the stick. Holding the A button down allows you to run, and having A while pulling back on the left analog stick allows you to perform a quick turn and easily change directions in a hurry. The X button is used to pick up items or interact with the environment such as pressing a switch. The Y button brings up the map. The B button is used to cancel out of menus or exit dialogues during gameplay. The Left Trigger aims your weapon, and holding it down while pressing the Right Trigger fires it. hgd While aiming with the Left Trigger, use the left analog stick to move the targeting reticule. The Left Bumper draws your knife, and while holding it use the Right Trigger to slash with it. The Right Bumper to toggle between having Ashley fallow Leon or wait at her current location. The Start button brings up your inventory. While at the inventory the A button and select items, and the B button unselects them. The Y button is used to move an object in your inventory, and once  moving it, you can rotate the direction the object is facing with the Left and Right bumpers. The Back button pauses the game, and allows you to access the options menu and quit or reload the game.

Since its original release Resident Evil 4 has earned a reputation as being one of the greatest games of all time. Although I wouldn't go quite that far, it's difficult to find that many flaws with the game that could warrant a decent counter argument. Graphics are great, shooting mechanics are amazing, the enemy designs are awesome, story is entertaining, the music and voice acting is really good, and the game has tons of replay value thanks to our good the overall package is and the mercenaries mode. The campaign is even pretty long and takes about ten to  twenty hours to beat the first time through. My only real complaints with the game are that it's often too hard early on, there's too many QTEs where you have to press buttons really fast, you can't replay individual chapters without restarting the game, the merchant sells guns, but not ammo, and finally that Ashley's voice is a little annoying, and it would be nice if she could carry items, attack enemies and actually carry her weight around. I didn't fully appreciate Resident Evil 4 when it was originally released because I couldn't get over some of the flaws in the controls or presentation of the Game Cube version. Now however with the 360 version all my gripes have been rectified and I can finally recognize Resident Evil 4 for being a modern classic, so I give it a 9/10.

I love how it seems like so much thought was put into everything in the game, how everything is so well plan-ed out and flows together. The downside is that sometimes the game can be a little too liner, and you can't reenter the room that you were just in. This is emphasized by that early on in the game you have much more freedom to go back and forth as you please. I certainly wouldn't want more force backtracking because of puzzles in the game, but it would be nice to have the option, or at least give the ability to replay chapters individually without restarting the whole game.

The story still hold up and isn't dated except for one point when Saddler refers to one of his minions as it, and Leon thinks that Saddler can't remember his name and accoiss him of having a Senior moment, which was a buzz word that I haven't heard anyone say in six years.

Leon's contact at control is agent Hunnagan, and is it me or does her name really sound like it sound be Hannngan instead. All of the cutscenes in the game are done using the in game engine, with the exception of only a few being prerendered during Assignment Ada, since it was ported over directly from the PlayStation 2 version. Because of that they look a little grainy and pixilated. Since all of the game's cut scenes uses the in game engine they still hold up well and make the transition to HD resolution really well
and one scene where the bridge in the castle rotates to the left.
I guess that they couldn't find the original likely higher quality recordings

Enemies will also raise back up ladders that you knocked down to get you. If you barricaded the doors of a building they might brake in the from the window, even upstairs. so you have to be sure that you're actually safe.

I remember when the game first came out people said that it had a unique difficulty setting where if you were doing really well at the game, larger groups of enemies would spawn and less items would drop, but if you died all the time, there would only be a few enemies that aren't very aggressive and you'd get a ton of ammo and health drops.

Separate Ways is a shorter campaign that's about one fifth as long as the main story and is only unlocked after beating the game. In Separate Ways you'll play as Ada Wong and get to see what she was up too during Leon's adventure. Ada's story line is split up into five chapters, and unlike the main game, there are no multipart chapters like 2-2 or 4-3. Each chapter has a different objective, and a different setting which is usually pulled from directly from Leon's campaign, but most of the time however it boils down to get to point A to point B. The first chapter tasks Ada with simlpy ringing the Church Bell in the cemetery of the starting village. The first area of the game actually seems to be the most difficult since you don't have much ammo yet, there isn't a save point until the second area, and enemies seem to spawn endlessly. It's important to exploit the infinite enemies however in order to gain a surplus of ammo and healing items by luring a big group into a single doorway, stunning one, and then use a melee attack that hits all of them. Chapter two has you exploring the rest of the entire village area for Luis, and I think that it's probably the low point of the campaign, since it feels like way too much of a rehash. Chapter three has you once again trying to locate Luis, but this time in a very small section of the castle area. Chapter four is probably the highlight of the campaign, since it's the only one to feature a new area. Two disheveled battleships are controlled and overrun by plaga soilders. The area features some intense combat, and it's  interesting to figure out how to maneuver around. Throughout the section you'll sometimes be under heavy fire from cannons and gun turrets of the ships and you'll have to commandeer a cannon for yourself to stop it, which you actually get to aim and fire. Chapter five is unfortunately also a big rehash of what Leon did, but it ends strong with a fight against the final boss in human form and a tiny new area with scaf-all-ding. Ada move a lot faster, and her knife oddly seems to do less damage, but otherwise she plays exactly the same as Leon. She also has a hook shot grapple gun to reach higher platforms, which can only be used when a button prompt pops up contextally, and it's too bad it can't be used to fight enemies like in the intro cutscene. Ada's exclusive weapon is the bow gun, is actually very powerful and deadly since it fires arrows that explode on impact, but I could only find forty rounds for it, and you can buy it until the start of chapter three. Separate Ways is pretty short, with exploring everywhere, killing everything, and getting lost occasionally I still only clocked in a game time of five and a half hours, since there simply isn't that much to do. Most areas are pretty straight forward and you just have to run from one end of the map to the other. Chapters usually only have one puzzle and there are only two boss fights in the whole campaign, that is unless you count chainsaw grados as bosses, in which case there are about eight. My point is that Separate Ways seems meant to be rushed through, and won't take most players longer then two or three hours to beat. The merchant appears periodically and you can save your game, but you oddly can't upgrade your weapons. Because of this your weapons start out a lot more powerful then Leon's. However the pistol become almost useless by the time you reach  chapter three since it takes six to twelve shots to kill a single enemy, so you'll have to rely on other weapons like the TMP, rifle, or her very powerful but inaccurate shotgun. Maybe I just suck, but it seems like the enemies are more aggressive in Separate Ways and I seem to get hit a lot more when compared to the regular game.

In Assignment Ada you'll play as Ada Wong in a unusual black tactical outfit and try to collect five plaga samples and then escape the island. The main difficulty in assignment Ada is managing your inventory space, since you'll be stuck with the smallest briefcase possible for the entirety of the minigame. The first problem is deciding what to pick up and what to leave behind. All usually skip over grenades since I never use them and they take up a lot of space. Ammo and health however are vital to survival. Your only armed with three weapons, a pistol, TMP, and a sniper rifle and must constantly manage your inventory and switch weapons based on how much excess ammo you have, and how dangerous the enemy you are facing is. Generally you should only use the sniper rifle to take out machine gun toting grados, and ones with mutated plagas, and if you kill everything else with a handgun, TMP or the good old knife. In the searchlight area I'd like to climb the ladder of one of the buildings, and then wait for the parade of enemy soldiers to climb the ladder one by one, and then shoot them every time they reach the top with the pistol so they fall back down and take a lot of damage to conserve ammo. Things get more complicated when you reach the bio lab, since you'll discover that each plaga sample must actually be carried in your inventory, which of course takes a ton of space, and limits the amount of ammo and herps you can collect. Generally you shouldn't have more than three packets of ammo for any weapon, if you have more than that then switch to the TMP for example clear out the next room enemies until you do less than three boxes of ammo for it. At that point just switch to whatever weapon you then have the most ammo for. Herbs aren't as important as ammo, and you can mix them together to save space in your inventory, plus if you're really in a bind you can always use of herb to make room for a plaga sample. I thought that Assignment Ada was really fun despite it only lasting between fifteen minutes to a hour depending on how much you rush through it, and if you try to kill every enemy.