Capcom knows how to milk its franchises. With so many revisions of Street Fighter II released over the past two decades, its no surprise that Resident Evil 4 is being re-released once more for the Wii, and unlike most re-tooled ports for the platform, this "Wii Edition" of Resident Evil 4 is a better package than any of the preceeding versions before it.

Umbrella no more; Or so we’re told
Resident Evil 4 is the rebirth of the series in many ways. While the Umbrella corporation has often been the center of the series’ plot, it’s not in Resident Evil 4. In RE4 Leon S. Kennedy, one of the star characters of Resident Evil 2, is hired by the President of the United States to rescue his daughter Ashley. Ashley has been abducted by a mysterious cult organization and Leon’s search for Ashley sends him to some remote Spanish village in Europe. The moment he arrives he discovers that practically every living creature around him wants Leon dead for some inexplicable reason. Surprisingly, they’re not zombies.

There has always been a variety of ugly creatures to exterminate and not much has changed in that respect in RE4. Okay, so there aren’t any un-dead, but they have been replaced by an enemy that is a bit more intelligent and called Los Ganados. Unlike the the traditional zombies of past Resident Evil games, these humanoid creatures can wield weapons and even converse amongst themselves; most importantly, they also attack in large packs.

Change can be good
For years Resident Evil games have featured static camera positioning that has always managed to frustrate many players. Directing a character through the game’s environments managed to become a chore and it wasn’t unheard of to have trouble walking a straight line. Resident Evil 4 corrects this issue by finally getting rid of that awkward camera positioning and instead pursues an over-the-shoulder third-person perspective that I must say is flawless in execution. However, if this was the only change made to the series in Resident Evil 4 then most players would be disappointed with the final product.

Resident Evil 4 is without question one of the most satisfying videogame experiences ever created. Not much compares to the immediate gratification felt during the game’s action sequences. The intensity of the game is immeasurable. When surrounded by a dozen enemies on all sides you would normally think that there’s no chance in hell that you would be able to get out of a situation like this alive, but with a shotgun in hand you just start buckin’ shots at the heads of every creature in your sights, seeing their brains splatter all over the place and possibly even feeling a sort of adrenaline rush flowing through your veins; a feeling that only a handful of games provide. Resident Evil 4 is the ultimate thrill ride and not only that but it satisfies the most disturbingly violent urges some players may have.

This may sound disturbing, but I just love blowing the heads off the game’s villagers, monks and other humanoid grunts seen in the game. Why? Because of the game’s new aiming system that allows players to target specific body parts. While many players would’ve liked to have a strafing feature included, the way the whole gunplay aspect of the game is presented is one of the game’s strongest points. Most enemy encounters are head-on, up close and personal and the only way to survive most of these encounters is to target specific areas on an enemy and make sure those hits count. As expected, the weakness of almost all enemies in the game is their head or what seems to be a head. If their head isn’t exposed because they’re shielding it with some sort of appendage or a plain ole’ wooden shield, you can choose to blast that object out of the way with a shotgun, which immediately shatters the wooden shield, or send a bullet towards one of your enemy’s knees, making them drop to one leg, exposing their head and leaving you open for a shot to blow their brains out. It should be noted, however, that with this "Wii Edition" of Resident Evil 4 the aiming mechanic has improved significantly over the previous GameCube and PlayStation 2 versions of the game thanks the the extremely precise use of the IR sensor on the Wii-mote to move the on-screen cursor. It’s so precise that it makes the game significantly easier than any previous version, but at that same token it also opens the experience to a number of gamers who still may have not warmed up to the series’ control even with the original changes made with the GameCube version.