Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition -- Initial Impression.

Resident Evil 4 originally came out on the Nintendo Gamecube in January of 2005 and it artistically saved a franchise in trouble of imploding. It topped many people's Game of the Year listings for 2005. And many would argue it as the best game on the Gamecube entirely. Strangely enough though the game didn't come close to its potential in sales on the system. It's safe to say it tanked. Maybe people were tired of Resident Evil or maybe they didn't believe the hype or maybe it was doomed because it was on the Gamecube. Nobody really knows. Whatever the reason it sparked Capcom to port the game over to the PlayStation 2. Back when it was a Gamecube exclusive series creator Shinji Mikami even claimed he would cut his own head off if the game ever showed up on any system other than the Gamecube. He was that sure of it. In bringing the game to the PS2 Capcom decided to add some extra content to try and make it worth it to Resident Evil fans to double-dip with the title. The PlayStation 2 version of the game sold a little better than its Gamecube counterpart but still failed to meet its potential in sales. Now here we are in June of 2007 with Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. This is the Gamecube version of the game with the added PlayStation 2 bonus content and newfangled Wii enabled controls. I always wanted to try out the bonus content added to the PS2 version and the game's relatively budget price of $29 and the potential of the Wii's controls has caused me to double-dip with the game. A few things are initially apparent. First off, the advertised widescreen isn't truly 16:9 and that just outright sucks. If your TV is correctly displaying in 16:9 then you're going to have black bars on the left and right sides of the screen. If you're saying your widescreen TV doesn't have the bars, it means your TV is auto-filling the screen by stretching the picture and making the image quality even worse. And worse it is. On the Gamecube Resident Evil 4 was easily one of the most impressive games visually up to that point. Two and a half years later and through Nintendo's own Wii Component Video Cable on a high end HDTV the game looks like crap. Every jagged line leaps off the screen. Dithering can be seen all over the place. As for the controls, you'll need some time to come to grips with them. They're not instantly friendly. I'm not sure yet if they're an improvement or a hindrance. Only time will tell if the extra content and the new controls were worth the double-dip with Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition.