Title: Resident Evil Revelations
Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC (reviewed on Xbox 360)
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Release Date: May 21st, 2013
Price: $59.99 Consoles, $49.99 PC
Tagline: Bringing Resident Evil Back to its Roots
Family Friendly: Click here for more information.
Verdict: Buy it Already
The Resident Evil franchise has not been looked upon kindly as of late by longtime fans of the series. They see the core values that defined Resident Evil slowly disappearing with each numerical release. That anger boiled to a head with Resident Evil 6, which played more like your standard run and gun shooter, rather than the suspenseful, survival horror game it had been in the past. Resident Evil Revelations, which was released on the 3DS last year, is looking to recapture those fans with a game that is more about creepiness than mowing down massive lots of enemies.
The foundation starts with the focus on Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield and the events that occurred between Resident Evil 4 and 5. Revelations fills in a few gaps here and there while explaining how the BSAA was created and of course, stopping the major outbreak of an Umbrella Corporation virus strain. The game moves us through several locations, mostly focus on the constrained and dark quarters of a couple of cruise ships that store the answers to who is trying to create this new T virus and what they plan to do with it.
As with earlier versions of Resident Evil, Revelations looks to follow some of the core philosophies that were defined by those games. Here, ammunition is limited and you can find yourself on more than one occasion stuck with a handful of empty weapons if you are not cautious and careful with your shots. Spray and pray gamers will find themselves on the business end of the bladed arm of an enemy in short order.
Revelations also plays in a more confined space, with lots of tight corners and evil lurking just around the corner. There were several times where I was walking through part of a level, just waiting for something bad to happen and it wouldn’t. Of course, you then start to let you guard down and bam, that is when it all hits the fan. Revelations is great and building up that tension and keeping you in suspense. It is these tenants that give the game a more nostalgic feel and might be the game that fans longing for a return to the original can support.
Of course, it is not always perfect with those moments. There are several points where we find our heroes away from the claustrophobic drama of the ship and out in wide open spaces where they are using enough ammo to drop swarms of BOW’s that an 1980 action star would feel at home. It is a weird transition that never comes smoothly. One minute you are in a corridor and the next, you are on the aft deck of a ship fighting dozens of enemies.
It also doesn’t help that I really had no clue as to what the story was trying to tell me. There is a story about a prosperous floating city and then it is destroyed and of course, plot twist after plot twist after plot twist, I had to look at the credits to see if M. Night Shyamalan made this game. People are constantly switching sides and changing the dynamics of who is good and who is bad that is never makes complete sense. I am all for keeping the true nature of the final story beat at arm’s length but the journey there should make some modicum of sense.
I thought that if there was going to be issues with Resident Evil Revelations, was with the look and gameplay in the game. This is a game that was originally designed as a Nintendo 3DS title and had features wrapped around that interface. The scanning device does still show up, but is mapped to a simple button press. Door puzzles are also simplified to using some button presses and stick movement to solve them. But the big surprise was the look of the game. For a game that was designed to be used on a smaller screen like the Nintendo 3DS, the characters, levels and models look surprisingly good. Some of this comes from using the highly scalable MT Framework 2.0 engine, but more of it just comes from a lot of care put in by the design team. They had the foresight to make a game that was designed with home consoles in mind down the road. It is a gem to look at on your nice, big television in your living room.
When you are done with the single player story, you have several options to play online. Here is where things did not mesh as well as me as it felt very similar to the multiplayer I played in Resident Evil 5 and 6 and neither of those impressed me. There is a decent community of people playing if you want to dip your toes in and see what it is all about, but I think Revelations is a far better single player experience, but your mileage may vary.
The Revelations experiment to me seems to be a success if Capcom is trying to capture old school Resident Evil fans. Here is a game that provides suspense, tension and the fear that you will never have enough ammunition to survive the horrors within. Sure, it loses its way on occasion with open areas that are more about huge firefights than tension but the overall goal of making an old school Resident Evil game has been met.
You Have Survived:
Captures the claustrophobic nature of earlier Resident Evil titles
Upscaled graphics look great on your big screen
Gameplay mechanics transfer nicely from 3DS version
You Are Dead:
The story is a convoluted mess of backstabbing
Decides to mix wide open action sequences in while going for suspense horror
Multiplayer may not appeal to all and is not as engaging as the single player story
Family Focus
While Resident Evil Revelations doesn’t have any gratuitous violence, its high tension level and occasional jump scares probably keep it from most younger gamers. To avoid any nightmares, keep this one in the hands of those high school level and up. It will save you parents from being woken up by a younger gamer who is having nightmares. Personal experience on this one.