I kinda gave up on the Nintendo DS at some point, Maybe around the DS light. Not long after the DS market got flooded with about 13 billion Imagine girls games (and my asshat 2nd cousin loaded Imagine: Ballet Star on my MD real) I just kinda quit. None of them appealed to me anymore, and because of that I never got or played a DSI or a 3DS.
Because of this, I never really got the opportunity to try any of what they had to offer. I've heard fairly positive reviews about this incarnation of Resident Evil but I do have some cause for hesitation after the train wreck that was Resident Evil 6. Well, maybe train wreck isn't the right term, maybe homogenization is more accurate. In any case the game has been glossed up and re-released on the current gen consoles. So after waiting for a day off, I hit the ole local Redbox to give crack at....
RESIDENT EVIL: REVELATIONS (XB360)
Our tale picks up between the events of Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5. After the fall of the Umbrella Corporation, the use of biological weapons in terrorism increased and to neutralize this threats agencies like the Federal Bioterrorism Commission (FBC) and the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA, Founded by series protagonists Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine) we organized to respond to them. One such instance happens in 2004 where Bio-Terrorist faction Veltro launched an attack on the city of Terragrigia with Bio-Organic Weapons (BOWs, Hunters) to oppose their work with solar energy. The situation spirals out of control, and the entire city is sunk with a high powered laser satellite from space in a last ditch effort to neutralize the threat.
One year later, Jill Valentine and her current partner Parker Luciani are given orders to a derelict ship adrift at sea. They are looking for Chris Redfield and his new partner Jessica Sherawat have gone missing while following a lead relating to possible Veltro activity, after going silent since the Terragrigia Panic. There is clearly BOW activity on the ship and appears to be one of Veltros, but once the "find Chris" on the ship, they realize the whole thing was a trap and are ambushed.
God friggen damn, it gets harder and harder to explain the tangled mess of threads the Resident Evil story is becoming. I suppose I could have reduced it to "Jill is looking for Chris" but honestly if it was just that then we've played that story in Resident Evil 2 (only it was Claire). But really, the bigger issue for me isn't so much that the story idea is tired. My issue is that the story line is just flat out uninteresting.
Here's the problem, Resident Evil likes to throw out a lot of confusing terms and show a lot of people getting nervous or sounding evil about them. It's like the story is written by a group of young kids who are told to write the story for a horror movie. They can be complete complex and nonsensical while at the time time being incredibly predictable. How many actual Resident Evils have you played where you couldn't figure out who the villain was by mid way through. Was anyone surprised when Wesker was evil in the first game?
Which really brings us to our other problem. Resident Evil historically have a pretty weak cast as far as I am concerned. On the "mainstay" side of it I find Chris to be overly macho and generic, Jill never really has decided on a tone for her character throughout the franchise, and Ada and Wesker (not in this installment) are complete franchise Mary Sues. All powerful, All knowing, Undying. Even Leon could possibly fall into that bracket as well. The only character I really seemed to like was Claire, because she was only one to really show any realistic human emotion or rationale when dealing with people or situations around her (sans a bit of Mary Sue-ism in Code Veronica).
But this new crop of characters couldn't be less interesting. Parker and Jessica I assume are going to be integral to the plot since the flashbacks you play of the Terragrigia Panic have you take control of them as a team *spoiler alert* but they are both annoying and generic, and you also are forced to play as a pair of other BSAA lackeys who were so lame and uninteresting that I can't even remember their names, and don't care enough to look them up. One called himself Jackass, fitting. Whew, 750+ words in and I haven't even spoken about the game. Not a great start.
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| "Dat Ass" Is becoming an RE staple lately. |
So ok, getting to the game? It's pretty functional. I was pretty worried because this game is a port of one from the 3DS so I was very concerned it was going to be a graphical mess, and I was even more concerned that it was going to use the Resident Evil 6 homogenized generic 3rd person shooter system that is working its way into every game like the horrible STD that it is. Well, part of that fear was well founded but Capcom does do a great deal to make Resident Evil right again, if only in subtle ways.
If you are like me, you go right to the options menu first to make sure you have your subtitles and brightness right. In there, I found that you have the option to switch from the 3rd person shooter controls, the to classic Resident Evil style tank controls. This was a gesture I honestly appreciated having. I tried to start the game with the classic controls but after not using them for so long, I found it a bit of a jarring experience. Since my time was limited, I stuck with the controls I was already used to.
They do a very good job with the main set piece as well. As mentioned previously, the majority of this game takes place on a ship. After a year floating at sea, the ship has seen better days. Much of the rooms are dark, tight, and falling apart. It is well representative to some ships because many of the halls are very tight and narrow, and in these tight areas the camera makes sure to be right up the ass (but not as bad as RE6) of the character you are controlling (usually Jill, thankfully). This allows the environment to be used against you, much like the classic Resident Evil's did with the fixed camera angles, or like the Resident Evil 5 DLC managed to do.
Revelations tries a type of hybrid system when it comes to the inventory. Since this is falling slightly into that 3rd person shooter archetype it uses a limited carry system. You can carry up to 3 guns of your choosing and a number of grenades, and when you find weapons out in the field you'll have to dump one of them to get the new one.
Initially, this pissed me off for the same reasons I went off on in my Bioshock Infinite review, but another Resident Evil throwback that returns is the crate system. When you swap out one of your weapons for a new on in the field, the old one can be found there. Crates are all over the place so you can pretty much pick and choose as you need them and if you die in certain areas a checkpoint is usually far enough to reach them.
When using the crates, it also has a weapon upgrade system to use when you find kits throughout the stages. So there is no cost to use them and the upgrades aren't permanently attached. This allows you to interchange your upgrades and switch them out for better ones as you get them, or switch out ones for better versions you get along the way. So when I do get that sniper rifle, I can come back for it in a situation where I might actually need it. So all in all, that's not too bad.
The game has a scanning mechanic that I'm sure was used in the 3DS version of the game. Its use is to find hidden items or occasional help with puzzles. You can also scan monsters either alive or defeated for points and whenever you max to the percentage they reward you with a healing item. The game balances just the right amount of items to make it seem like they are always about for you to grab, yet at the same time having just enough for you run out in a tough scrap and raise the tension. There are a handful of sequences where enemies just don't stop coming and quickly depleting ammo will put you in panic mode real quick.
Call this a throwback maybe, but one thing I noticed about this installment of Resident Evil is fucking awful voice acting. Ugh, like douchechilling levels of bad. Chris still has the same voice actor we have come to recognize from the series so he kind of knows his part at this point, but Jill seems to deliver her lines in the same hokey, pausing way you know from the old games. "Dont... Open... THAT... Door!" It gets pretty rough sometimes and UGH, the Jessica character? She's even worse, but instead of concern or fear she's hokey while trying to be flirtatious with Chris (Given her dumb wetsuit, I don't blame him for totally ignoring her).
You know, now that I say that? What is it with this series or action games in as whole that has to stuff their female characters into some kinda latex catsuit? In the Resident Evil 5 DLC Jill is sporting a modest and sensible shirt and pants outfit for some kind of PMC operation. Chris has his combat attire, and Jill has one similarly complimenting it. In Resident Evil: Revelations Parker is dressed as military professional would be: Pants, shirt, faultily vest, boots. Jill however is wearing that dopey full body purple catsuit you saw in Resident Evil 5 that the game industry loves to stick every female protagonist in.
Maybe its going for the comic book kinda thing where the female characters are overly sexualized for their horned up male dominated demographic, but the costumes in these games are getting borderline ridiculous. It was hard enough to accept Jill's blue tube top and mini, but her's and Jess's catsuits are just retarded. None of the girls in 6 had to dress like a Marvel comics reject to look good. Its fine for the unlockable bonus, but as the standard its just retarded.
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| Dumb |
I suppose my biggest complaint is the game's major catch 22: The BOW's. Maybe its different sticking point for younger audiences, but what is the common thread that is in Resident Evil 1,2,3, Code Veronica, Outbreak 1 and 2, Survivor, and Dead Aim? Zombies. Zombies are what Resident Evil has always been about. They kind of stepped away from it in Resident Evil 4 but they were still close enough with the same controls to provide that same experience.
But the Palagas, J'avo, and Uroboros just weren't the same and doesn't give the game that same feel. Resident Evil: Revelations is in this same boat. The BOWs in this game are just some kinda humanoid slime monster thing that kinda melts when you kill them. And while I appreciate a non-monster human design, they feel kind of uninteresting and don't help the game feel like I'm playing a Resident Evil game. Because of these bland iterations of monsters this time around, Revelations is lacking an element I don't think has been in the series since 3: Fear.
When was the last time a Resident Evil game scared you? When was the last time ANY game scared you? The horror niche is going away people. They want panic, not fear. They want nonstop onslaughts of action and bullets. To hell with pacing, loneliness, and fear. Those emotions are for squares daddie-o. It is highly disappointing but I think I'm going to have to learn to accept that games aren't really gonna be scary anymore sans the occasional exception. Which is a real shame because the environments this game has were set up for good scares. I was pretty hopeful early on as you'll hear in the video. It was designed for good scares and they just didn't happen. Bummer.
So between this games 24-esq switching of scene and playable characters, cheesy voice acting, and somewhat breakneck pace of story speed, where do I find my feelings? Pretty much exactly where they were before I picked it up. Which is pretty impressive to be as completely unmoved to a game after I've played it than I was before I started. They take some steps to make Resident Evil: Revelations look and feel like it should, but the addition of completely uninteresting characters, monsters, and tangentially unrelated story line do virtually nothing to sway my feelings towards the franchise as a whole.
Which in retrospect is kind of a sad feeling. I keep picking up Resident Evil games because its a franchise I've basically grown up with over the past 17+ years. I know that it couldn't go back to being how it used to be before, but it can certainly do better than this cookie cutter action game mold is being being crammed into, can't it? My feelings to this game are pretty much my feelings to when a new Zelda game comes out. The same game I've been playing for years with some slightly different text on the box. Its becoming a lot like Silent Hill in the regards that I'm anxiously awaiting it to get better like the old ones were, and they just aren't. Perhaps they just don't remember how.....
So take this diatribe for what it is. If you are looking for another Resident Evil experience this one is certainly playable and its probably a step in the right direction for how the series should go when compared to Resident Evil 5 or 6. But it was ultimately a lukewarm experience: Splashes of nostalgic feeling in a game that breaks no molds, brings nothing new to the party, and just kind fluffs up for 8 hours or so. You can certainly do worse than Resident Evil: Revelations, but you also do better. Might wanna wait for this one to come down in price.
Oh yeah, the other awesome character is Carlos. Duh.
