25 essential video games every gamer should know

17. Resident Evil 4

The sixth major installment of the Resident Evil series might not be the most classic, but it brought a new style of gameplay to the franchise, switching from a pure third-person perspective to the now-popular over-the-shoulder third-person view. The switch made the game more accessible to gamers who found the original controls clunky or difficult as the over-the-shoulder gameplay was much more intuitive. Additionally, this new perspective got rid of a lot of the problematic camera angles that were common in the earlier games of the franchise.

Resident Evil 4 was one of the first games to create this style of gameplay and also popularized quick-time events and contextual actions. The quick-time events allowed the player to feel they were still playing the game, even during cut-scenes, and the contextual actions made it so complicated combinations of buttons were no longer required for certain actions. The game is critically acclaimed with almost perfect scores and is considered by many as one of the best games of all time.

If you didn’t get a chance to play it on PlayStation 2, you’ll soon have the opportunity on modern consoles, as it was announced recently that Resident Evil 4 is going to be remastered for the PlayStation 4.