You're not alone - RE4 is a fine game in its own right, but it pretty much forced the entire genre down the "action" path. Blatantly abandoning the series' core gameplay mechanics was a mistake, as far as I'm concerned.
RE1, RE2 and REmake remain (no pun intended) my personal favourites.

Mine too I stopped buying them on release day, and my pc disc of 4, has been a coaster, frisbee, etc. I wonder how much damage that thing has. lol

Also what really pissed me off was that RE4 didn't have T-Virus zombies, it had people with parasites in the brain or something. And yet it still had Leon, BUT the game was third-person, and in combat it was like an arcade game with even "lock on" arrows you you aimed a gun at an enemy.

Yeah, fuck you Capcom, how could they make a game so utterly unfamiliar to the games before it.... It felt like the developers never even played a RE game in their lives, they used Leon as a fan-fic character in a new game series

I also played RE1 when it was still pretty fresh (certainly before RE2 was released) but it just didn't do it for me. It just wasn't as creepy as others make it appear (and that means a lot as I was quite a wuss when it came to horror games/films back then) and personally I couldn't stand the wooden dialogue nor the gameplay. Also when I revisited the first game after having beaten RE4 I still couldn't get myself to enjoy it. Maybe one day...

But don't get me wrong - I understand how much hardcore fans of the original series must hate the newer games starting with RE4. I imagine that it's similar to how I perceive the Silent Hill games after SH4. :P

Well I was a fan of alone in the dark before RE1 so I thought the gameplay awesome, having to save ammo and/or scrounge for it was great and added to tension. RE4 you can find it everywhere leon could probably put his hand in an infected persons ass and find shotgun shells.

I don't recall any "lock on arrows". In my memory there was only the laser pointer mounted to your gun.

Well, I think this is actually a porting of the HD version of Re4 for PS3/360.

So maybe a porting of Code Veronica is on the way too.

The only miss RE 1-3 and the Gold edition for Re5 to complete the saga (yes, the DLCs for RE5 are actually good, excluding the multiplayer ones).

Yeah my memory is kinda bad on it, but I distinctly remember some kind of "lock on", perhaps it was the laser thing though

Yeah, it wasn't a lock on mode.
I remember the Gamecube version of the game was better then PS2 one (because all the cutscenes were moved by graphic engine on GC, while they were simply FMV on PS2), but PS2 version also included an Ada Wong scenario.

I am pissed off they did not HDfyied REmake, 0, and Outbreak :(

And don't give me the bull about the first 2 being Exclusive to Nintendo, RE4 was a Nintendo exclusive and it did not stop them from Multiplatforming it :P

I never managed to play =, I found it boring because you must chit-chat with our partner (if he die, is game.over), you must drop supplies on the floor...I hated those thing, I only completed the train section, then I gave up on this.

I'd take 0 over 4 any day at least for the most part is was like the rest of the series.

They don't care about those RE games because they aren't action-games like RE4 and it's offspring. Capcom have said that they're only interested in making action-games these days, so it's not surprising. I think it was the Capcom CEO or whoever who actually used the phrase "We want the Call of Duty audience" when referring to RE5 I think it was...

20€, preorder available now on Steam.

But...the price is too high. I will take it 75% off as usually.