This is one of those games that makes being a Gamecube owner feel so proud, just an amazing, pretty much flawless game.
The biggest part about RE4 is the new gameplay, which to be honest is quite flawless. To replace the very dated, and kinda annoying, controls of the other ones, RE4 has an entirely new control skeme. The camera is placed just above Leon Kennedy's(The hero from RE2, who makes his great return) shoulder. This completely removed all of those pain in the ass camera angles that plagued the other games in the series. when Leon wants to aim his gun or use his knife, the player must press the R trigger, you cannot move while you aim (and you can only shoot when your aiming) so it adds a huge gameplay element. You must run away from your enemies before they surround or get to close to you and then shoot them, and if they keep coming you must stop shooting and move again. It sounds bad at first but its actually quite brilliant. It is also controlled so rediculously smoothe. It feels amazing.
It also improves upon a bunch of other issues that the other games had. One such is the item inventory system, which you can now manage the items yourself to make things fit (and anybody who has played the other RE games knows that thats HUGE). Another big problem that the others had was that you had to always conserve your resources and try to avoid wasting ammo whenever possible. Things have changed in RE4. You will be doing a lot of shooting, and we mean it. The action is relentless, and you wont have to worry about ammo nearly as much. The game just keeps on throwing one fantastic action sequence after another and it never lets up, it goes on all the way until the end of the game, which is not short.
RE4 also has a very interesting story as well. Leon is sent to search for the presidents daughter who is missing, and he comes across this village. The village isnt filled with zombies, but with people. You wont be fighting the same mindless foes as you did before. These enemies will dodge your shots, call for backup and sneak up behind you. They are much, much, smarter from the old zombies, and not too spoil anything, but you'll be fighting plenty of other extremely disturbing enemies in RE4. Honestly, these foes are freaky and the bosses are some of the biggest and most well crafted fights ever.
Graphically, RE4 is the best looking game for the gamecube so far (until Zelda: twilight princess). There is just so much detail being put into the environments and the charecters its staggaring. Its just simply a beautiful game. It also boasts amazing audio to boot. The world just comes to life with the sound of every step you take. It is also awesome how the creepy music starts kicking in at the perfect moments. The voice acting (while a little cheesy at time) isnt bad at all. Actually its quite good. RE4 is just as much a technical masterpiece as it is a game.
You will also definately get your moneys worth. RE4 is a long game (the main story is about 30 hours), with tons of extra content and sercrets. TONS!!! But the best part is that you can play through the game multiple times and its fun every time, especially with the higher difficulty modes, and this game is hard enough on normal (On professional mode, its just damn brutal). Ive played through it about 5 times and ive enjoyed each time. It also has a mode called Mercenaries where all you do is go around and kill enemies in a certain amound of time and you win points (its an awesome minigame).
Overall RE4 is just an incredible experience. It has saved the Resident Evil series and made it the king of survival horror again. It just creates an amazingly creepy atmosphere and has relentless, tough, heart-pounding action. Also, you can expect the brilliant control skeme to be used over and over again. RE4 is definately the king of all survival horror games and it revolutionised the genre, and just simply one of the best action games in history (if not the best), and its one of the very few games that Gamecube owners get to brag about. Incredible, awesome, amazing. This is Resident Evil 4.