Back when I first played 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil 4 in 2♎016, I devoured it. I took little bites at first, putting in an hour here and there. But, around the time I reached the back half I could hardly pull myself away. I marathoned the last eight hours in an all night session, and saw Leon and Ashley jet ski into the sunrise as the dawn’s early light was shining through my windows.
Now, as I play 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil 4 Remake, I find that the game still has t𒊎hat kind of hold on me. Over the past few years, my gaming has become more strictly regimented as I attempt to manage my interests in gaming, film, reading, and a post-COVID social life that has gradually rebounded over the past two years. I rarely get lost in a game. Typically, I set an alarm for an hour on my phone, play until the timer goes off, and then move on to the next thing on my to-do list.
But, something about Resident Evil 4 refuses to be contained within those confines. I still set the timers. But, I set them for two hours instead of one or ignore them when they go off. Playing widely in a bunch of different games and genres is part of the territory that comes with this job. To write about games you have to know games and you have to play games to know them. Most of my job is coming up with angles that I think readers will find interesting and, for a lot of readers to be interested, that tends to mean playing the biggest, newest games. So, I play a lot of games, but don't always finish them; the interest tends to move on before I have time.
But, Resident Evil 4 doesn't care. It demands to be played to completion. As soon as possible. It is a “your eyes are bigger than your stomach” kind of game.
There are a lot of factors that contribute to that compulsive playability. It feels good to play, which goes a long way. But so does Mario and I don’t have trouble stepping away from a platforming sesh. Its story and lore are fun to uncover, and played wacky enough that the it never gets so heavy you need to take a break to process. Leon and Ada are both really hot, so it's fun to look at them. And, the characters who aren't hot, like Mendez and Salazar, both transform into big gooey monsters, and that's fun to look at, too.
All of those factors contribute, but the biggest key is the game’s pacing. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Civilization fans talk about that series' “one more turn” structure. It’s hard to step away because you have so much you want to do, and turns are short enough that it isn't too big a commitment to keep going, so you talk yourself into playing another round.
Resident Evil 4 has something similar. Its missions are fairly long and take an hour or two to complete. But each is broken up into more easily digestible chunks. Each section has a rise and fall, moments of high tension and moments of rest. You explore a part of the castle, it gradually gets more and more dangerous, and you barely make it through alive. But then you immediately find the Merchant and have a safe room to recuperate, buy som𝄹e items, practice shooting,✨ and sell off some of your treasures.
If Resident Evil 4 was all excitement all the time, you would need to make your own breaks, stepping away once your nerves were shot. But, because it builds the breaks into the structure of the game, you can take those breaks without putting down the controller. It demands to be completed, and I'm happy to oblige.