Resident Evil 4 is one of the highest-rated games of all time and perhaps single-handedly saved the GameCube from obscurity. It follows the adventures of Leon Kennedy as he's vacationing in rural Spain, and suddenly all kinds of startling things begin happening in this surprisingly large and affluent farming community. Things like deranged hutterites kidnapping barely-legal teen girls.

But before Leon was killing Spanish villagers in the most mildly racist manner possible, he was set to infiltrate the heart of the Umbrella Corporation and deliver a portfolio crushing suplex to company president Ozwell E. Spencer. After that he was going to be whisked off to investigate a haunted mansion in Europe filled with zombies, creepy dolls and posessed deer heads. That's why you always ask the landlord if anyone has died in the house before you rent it because how else are you gonna know? When your deer heads start running around and rummaging through your fridge you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

These were the original, unreleased versions of Resident Evil 4 that were shown at E3 and the Tokyo Game show in 2002 and 2003. Each was a cool departure from the series' norms that any Resident Evil fan would have loved to play, and although they'll never be released to the public I still like to revisit the original videos and images and wax nostalgic about what might have been.

The Cradle of the Progenitor Virus
"Rock the Cradle of Love"

The first version of RE4 that was ever shown had Leon wandering around a mostly-empty castle and shooting at fog—and it will surprise you to learn that this was the most interesting version ever shown, at least as far as the storyline is concerned. Either that says a lot toward how lame the plot became over subsequent revisions, or The Fog is secretly the greatest movie ever made.

This was the game that GameCube fans had been waiting for. When faced with naysayers who would point at the GameCube and shout "kiddy console" with a slack-jawed grin on their stupid fucking faces, we could point to sceenshots of Capcom's totally-never-gonna-be-delayed new Resident Evil game and retort, "See!? Do you see it!? Fuck your fucking Gaylo: Cumbat E-vulva-d!" Truly we were a breed of cunning linguists.

Although the environments were fully rendered in 3-D, the game retained the fixed camera angles that had been pissing off players since the series' beginning. You can't argue that it was done to create a scarier atmosphere because it didn't. Pre-rendered backgrounds with awkwardly positioned static cameras were the only way most PS1 games could avoid looking like complete ass and that's the sole extent of their usefulness. There's no reason why the practice should have continued into the new century, which is why I'm sort of glad that Capcom scrapped this version of RE4 in favour of something different.

Besides the idea of Leon becoming infected by whatever biological terror is currently harassing him and his signature Final Fantasy VIII fan's jacket and haircut, there isn't much from this version that made it into the final build of the game.