is obsessed with sleeping with every male character and wearing
the stupidest outfit I could imagine for this mission. Seriously, it
was so bad that it nearly put me off the whole experience. There
are also a few times you’ll play as two annoying characters that
act as comic relief and are there only to pad the game.
The game is broken up into episodes and so the story tends to
jump around in very strange ways. This isn’t a linear story and
you’ll be doing a lot of flashbacks, flash-forwards, and even flash-
sideways. Hell, there are even times when the game switches to
stuff happening five minutes ago. This sort of thing could work
in theory, but it really makes the game a confusing mess,
especially latter in the game. A few parts really served to piss me
off from a simple logic standpoint. There’s a bit where Chris and
Jessica are in some frozen tundra investigating a base, only to
leave before learning anything because they want to go look for
Jill that’s in the Mediterranean.
Makes sense so far, but as they are traveling across the globe
your boss sends team idiot to pick up at that tundra base which
makes no god damn sense. The only reason this happens is to fit
the circular story into a square peg. There was also a time where
Chris and Jessica were on a helicopter taking off to find Jill on a
missing ship over the ocean only for the developers to forget this
and have the two next show up on a PT boat boarding the ship
they were looking for. Chris and Jessica aren’t the only ones that
this happens to, but it really does feel like the smaller story bits
seemed like an afterthought.
Gameplay is where Resident Evil: Revelations really shines. It
doesn’t do anything to revolutionize the gaming world, but it
works well. The only thing that I could never really grasp was
the dodge mechanic that the game forces you to use because of
the corridor nature of the game. The controls want you to pull
down and hit “A” at the same time just when an enemy attacks to
dodge, but it doesn’t always work. It really doesn’t help that
hitting down and “A” also serves to turn you around, so I often
found myself turning my back to a monster that was swinging
for the cheap seats. Aside from that everything else works great.
Shooting feels fine, and there is a variety of weapons to collect
and upgrade to insane levels, but monsters also seem to level so
it’s never a cakewalk.
As this was a 3DS game first everything has been stripped
away to make this a bare-bones experience, but that
actually really works for the game overall. You won’t be
combing items, crafting anything, or collecting random
bits and bobs outside some of those silly keys Resident Evil
is known for. In this regard Resident Evil: Revelations
would make for a great first experience for those looking
to get into the world of Resident Evil.
Those that have played many of the games in the series
before are probably going to find the experience an easy
one, but the silly story and classic characters should be
enough to warrant a look. That said this is probably the
least scary ex perience in the entire series. I think I was
startled a few times during the entire experience and that
was mostly from my characters teleporting into view.
There aren’t all that many enemies to deal with and they
are all simply a variation on the first one you meet. Again,
this is because of the limitations of the 3DS, but it still is a
shame we don’t get many of the wilder creatures and
especially bosses the series is known for. But at least we
get an armored shark man because why not splice ancient
shark DNA into people. That will never, ever, bite you in
the ass later, especially not on an isolated lab on a cruise
ship. The game also doesn’t really set the stakes very high
because of how silly it is. Sure, there are some bad guys
that were once good guys that are trying to end the world
or something, but it’s all so predictable right from the start
that it hurts. That and I couldn’t keep straight all the
stupid organizations that are in play in this iteration of the
series.
The combat is straightforward and the game really wants
you to kill everything that moves. Ammo tends to be
plentiful and enemies are better blown into bits than
avoided like in earlier games. Ammo management is still a
thing, but I more often than not failed to pick up ammo
because the game wouldn’t let me as the carry limit for
said ammo was full. Another reason for engaging enemies
is to scan then with you magic “do-it-all” scanner thing.
This little Deus ex machina does just about everything
you can imagine, and makes you wonder why they aren’t
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GAMBIT | SEPT/OCT | 2017