A Headshot is a Headshot is a Headshot, except when it's all random.

I'm somewhere in the middle of RE4's chapter 3-1. The locked animation issue I spoke of earlier remains. I'm still taking some hits I shouldn't be. This seems to be dependent on what weapon you're using and the distance from the enemy.  Guns like the shotgun seem to be immune to this. The shotgun knocks the enemy back. The knife and handgun don't fair as well.  The action commands that appear situationally can be a bit spotty which adds to this issue. I often find myself reaching through enemies swiping at them with the knife. Which puts them within range to grab me. Their grab animation is the worst offender. Some of the chainsaw wielding enemy animations are also particularly up in the air as to whether you'll break them or not. There is a whole lot of randomness going on here. Most of it is by design. I can't tell how much of the randomness in combat is intentional. The headshots are certainly designed to be random. A headshot is a headshot is a headshot, but not all headshots are created equal. Blowing the head off an enemy is not determined by your accuracy, but by whatever odds system the game engine employs. That's a tad frustrating given the game's redesigned in-combat aiming system. They put you in control, but don't reward your skill truthfully. Shooting an enemy in the arm to cause them to drop their weapon also works on this same random system. It's strange where Capcom decided to cheat, so to speak. Some enemies have unlimited sickles to throw at you. Shooting one from their hands is sort of futile. He'll soon replace it. One place the randomness works is in the items you collect. You break open boxes and barrels, or the enemies drop items.  What comes up is entirely random. It could be money, herbs, ammo, treasure, or it could simply be empty. This plays into the strategy of conserving your ammo and health items. You could be riding high from the wave of randomness, and quickly find yourself desperate for something specific. The game has set item drops in there to help you through certain spots. So the randomness in items isn't broken.  It works. It really isn't broken in the combat either. It's there to help keep things intense. It just sort of irritates me from time to time. It's certainly nowhere near a deal breaking issue.  

Next time I believe I'll talk about cinematic gameplay and boss battles.