RE4 has hit .au
 

And goddamn it rocks. Woo! Played until 3am last night, and this was after getting up at 5am for work, and being rather drunk.

Agreed, the game rocks so many socks. Have you faced any of the bosses yet? God fucking damn amazing shit right there.

The water boss and the cave-troll wannabe. I just about creamed my pants on both of them, it was so awesome. Baghead, too. I love 'em all!

Wait until you reach the later bosses...the game gets way more challenging and badass. You're going to have fun.

I hated Krauser with a passion. So I had high hopes for the final boss. But when I got to salazar, I was disappointed. Compared to the rest of the game, he was cake. The thing that gets me the most, is he only had one form. It's a staple of the series that the end boss has more than one form, or shows up more than once. Aside from that, I loved it.

RE4 is a whole new kind of RE, makes sense for them to deviate from the forumula (which was actually the biggest criticism of the series, aside from the controls). Still, there's plenty there to help you associate the game with past RE's, documents, typewriter font, herbs, team buddying (ie Jill and Chris, Leon and Claire...) ALBERT FUCKING WESKER...

Seeting is write though, the game gets better and better.

I've got both PAL and NTSC versions, the PAL's only difference thus far is the EASY mode being available from the get-go. I've heard conflicted reports that the mini-games were cut but I haven't finished the PAL version to be able to confirm or deny that.

Is easy the NTSC normal and Normal the NTSC hard? I'm going through on normal at the moment, there's been some tough moments but nothing drastic. Maybe I'm just hardcore.

Do I need to play all of the other RE games before RE4?
I mean in terms of storyline and plot development across the games etc..

Or is it like a Final Fantasy situation where most of the games are totally unique

Well, it would help if you've played previous RE's to understand the character relationships in RE4, but it's not like you will get completely puzzled because it has its own story that sways away from traditional RE games...and it's not complicated.

I just made it to the final boss, and haven't had a chance to beat him yet. I'm going to defeat him tonight and complete this bad boy...I think it took 15 hours for me, which is double what previous RE's took. I think RE3 took me 4-5 hours, and the rest no more than 10. RE4 is almost perfect in length.

The NTSC Normal seems a little harder, the enemies seem slightly more smarter and dodge your shots more often.

RE0-3 and Code: Veronica are all linked, Ruben, but RE4 is standalone. If you can pick up the others, go for it. Start from the beginning and make your way through the series, I dare ya ;)

I have got hold of them all now.

The challenge will begin sometime soon ;)

Nice! Zero is actually my favourite, as far as the traditional games go. It got some slack for not changing the formula at all, really. Said slack was probably from the same people hatin' on RE4 because it changed the formula at all, really.

Finished it just this afternoon. The final battle was pretty easy, but still awesome. Rearing to go again, on the real hard mode =)