The meaning of survival horror has several definitions and is thus often interpreted differently. We feel like many other that Resident Evil in many ways defined the survival horror genre and the fact that you always end up having fever bullets than you need, get jumped and the nightmarish atmosphere soaks you and controls prevents you from making every 2nd shot a head shot.
The content of the game is rich with several episodes the game ended up requiring about 15 hours to complete.
Though none of us on the development team are big fans of the "mutated" zombies which justify all kinds of crazy NPCs to battle and particularly big boss fights the game still handles a cool variation in the encounters making requiring different strategies to beat.
A number of Tomb Raider or some may stay Uncharted styled puzzles where you need to find a lever to pull the door open also adds some suspense elements which works well with the more fast paced action gameplay.
Overall Resident Evil 4 is a great game, though a few years old and if own a Wii you should definitely check it out where as the PC version is a bit more “bulky port” in our opinion and not as recommendable.
If you are struggling completing the game IGN offers a very detailed walkthrough with lots of screenshots and comes highly recommendable.