Resident Evil 4: One Chance Only

Have you ever played Resident Evil 4? I have a few times myself, but after beating it once before, I wasn't so enthusiastic about playing it ever again. I think video games are pretty much trash unless they have a stronger replay value than GoldenEye 64. Resident Evil 4 was never on that list.

One day though, I decided that I was bored and I looked around for a game to play. I'm messy; I generally toss games around and I never keep them in one place, so I had to scour through a bunch of clothes and boxes until I found something I was interested in something I hadn't played in awhile.

The game that I managed to find in the back of my closet, tucked and hidden away in a blank PS2 case was Resident Evil 4.

I don't really remember ever actually owning the game, let alone the case. This case didn't have any cover or instructional guide, either. Just the game. There was no "sharpie" written on a bootleg disc, there was nothing unusual or horrifying about the game. It was actually just a normal Resident Evil 4 disc inside a blank case.

I kind of shook it off as random and stupid, and put it in my PS2.

When the game started up, it didn't show company logos or information at all. The menu had "New Game," "Load," "Options," and "One Chance." I thought it was weird that "One Chance" was an option, considering this was an official game and Extras was always there.

I tried selecting it, and it just brought me to the Extras instead. Assuming this is my head playing with me (as is the case with any game that has something you know it never had before and pretending you're high so it's normal) - I played a new game.

Now at first the game started up normally. The intro video I couldn't skip. As I watched it, I began to notice things like Leon looking a bit more darker than usual. There were graphical errors happening with the video, like pixels being displaced and just general readability. In fact, when the car pulled up to the first house Leon investigates, the game froze and there was just a big black box in the middle of the screen.

I reset the game, sort of annoyed at this stupid problem. I had bet that the game would just keep doing this and sighed a breath of relief assuming that this won't happen again and I'm just going crazy.

I started the game up again, and "One Chance" was back to "Extras." See what I mean as pretending I'm high and assuming it was normal? So anyway, I try to play the game again. I could skip the intro video, which I casually did.

Then I was outside of the house. As I approached the house, the PS2 made a weird crunching noise. Didn't think that was a good sign... still, it didn't bother me. I don't care enough about this PS2 to really identify it and stop playing, so I kept the game on.

Leon went inside, and the cutscene played as normal. I noticed though that as he approached the first enemy, the enemy said something different... I'm pretty sure he said, "Los Iluminados se a por ti!!" I knew he never said something like that, and instead just angrily approached Leon. Shrugging this off as yet another random glitch or soundfile being read, I just kept playing the game like normal.

Let's just cut ahead to the "chainsaw" scene in the game. There's a particular part of Resident Evil 4 that has always been a sort of staple in the game. An impasse if you don't understand the game mechanics; it's where literally all the villagers in the village keep trying to kill Leon and you have to fight a guy with a chainsaw who will one hit kill you. It's sort of a scary part, sort of a thrill ride, if you know what you're doing.

I made the mistake of not getting any ammo for the shotgun and using it early; so I knew that the game was going to be tough when I had to fight the chainsaw guy. I managed to kill him, and I cheered myself knowing I did this in one life without any saves.

The next moment, though... I made the mistake of thinking the people with pitchforks couldn't throw them from a distance, and with a little bit of life left, I left the house to get a green herb to heal with and got killed by a spear.

It showed the game over screen, flashed the screen and black, and remained black forever.

I tried resetting the game. I tried putting it in other people's PS2s. I tried externally extracting it and reburning it. I tried 5 PS2s, a PS3, and dumping the image and everything.

It never worked on anything ever again.

If you ever get a Resident Evil 4 game and Leon doesn't have any visible eyes on the game disc cover, never, ever try to play it.

I was told that the Resident Evil 4 I had in my possession was THE REAL first Resident Evil 4 made by Capcom.

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