Resident Evil: Revelations 2 – Episode 3 (Video Game)
Developed and published by Capcom
Rated M for Mature
Available on PS4, XB1 (reviewed), PC, PSVita, PS3, Xbox360
I never really got onto the whole “true horror games” are dead train that took hold around the time Dead Space came out. It was a different time, at the cusp of the modern era, where people were genuinely afraid that gaming was going in a more “casual” direction, and the slower and “smarter” franchises we loved would become an exhibit in some video game museum, looked upon fondly and never seen again. It started, as all great things do, with Resident Evil 4, which while everyone agreed the game was fantastic, there was significant debate over whether or not it was a Resident Evil game. This seems incredibly silly in retrospect, especially given the way the series has changed since, but even so there still exist a few die hard old farts who insist that things have forever changed for the worse.
I’ve never given a fuck about this debate, since I really could care less what the method of gameplay is if the horror elements are tight. Dead Space was certainly more space marine than frail civilian forced to endure a horror, but to call it not horror is absurd. Furthermore, the classic style of survival horror has seen a resurgence in the indie market with games like Outlast and Amnesia and a million bagillion less known titles, so the feared death of the survival horror genre seems to have been averted. I think that this is a better space for these games to be developed in anyways, since classic survival horror has always relied more heavily on good ideas and tension than AAA budget graphics. Ideas can thrive in this market, with the downside being that it is often only an idea that carries a game to a successful Kickstarter and not ability to deliver.
Still, people have been looking for a successful way to marry the genres of action horror and survival horror with varying levels of success for some time. Alone in the Dark attempted to bring the franchise into the next generation with an interesting inventory system based on what you can carry in your jacket and a crafting system designed to incentivize item conservation during the combat segments. The game was unfortunately a broken pile of shit, but at least they gave it the old college try. The Evil Within made an admirable go at merging the two, but still fell on the action side of things. The same can be said for the first Revelations game.
I know that since this is the internet someone is going to come up with the perfect example of an action survival horror game that I somehow am just brainfarting on, but I’m going to make the claim anyways that the lofty goal of a real survival action horror game has yet to be fully realized. Oh, never mind, The Last of Us exists. That’s about as good as it gets, and I predict that in a Resident Evil 4 fashion it will be often imitated and almost never matched. That being said, realize how big of a compliment I am giving when I say that Revelations 2 has managed to take the series towards a direction of action survival horror. It isn’t quite there, but with this most recent episode, RE: Re 2 is looking to be the most compelling entry in the franchise in years.
I am going to assume that if you are reading this that you have read my reviews of the other episodes (reviews here and here). If you haven’t, then what the fuck are you doing? It says Episode 3 at the top. Learn to sequence, bro.
So I am not going to go into the mechanics again, and just jump right into what this episode did right and wrong. This episode surprised me, as I enjoyed the Moira/Claire segment more than I did the Barry/Natalia one. I didn’t dislike the Barry/Natalia segment, but considering how much more I had enjoyed their segments in the past compared to Moira/Claire, the fact that they really stepped up the game for the female duo impressed me. In this segment, Claire and Moira track through a series of factories and sewers, each presenting a unique puzzle and challenge. While the first two puzzles are mandatory, this chapter also offers an optional puzzle that can be completed for a reward. Overall, there were far more risk/reward challenges, which are a treat for anyone that remembers the secret treasures of RE4. As a spinning blade trap threatens to kill Claire, Moira is tasked with turning the blade off. On the way to the controls, an optional unlocking minigame lies between you and the end. Do it fast enough, and you are rewarded with an upgrade part, but linger too long and you die and have to start over.
See, this is the shit I loved about the previous Resident Evil games. They rewarded exploration and risk taking. Environments were more open, and while the game was still linear, how you explored heavily influenced how much you could squeeze out of the environment. This is the true essence of survival horror; it doesn’t matter how few bullets you give us, just reward us with extra supplies for putting in the time to really explore the world and take some risks.
The Claire/Moira section is also much longer than the previous ones, clocking in at about twice as long as either of the first two. Barry/Natalia’s section is a bit shorter, and might actually be the shortest of the bunch when played for the first time. Exploration is far less important for him, rather choosing to present a straightforward series of obstacles that can be predictably be searched for extra stuff. Claire’s segment brings 3 new guns and Barry’s 2, but there is a cool crossover effect where Claire has to raise a grate in her section so that Barry can get the gun in his. Its a fun little extra that can easily be missed the first time around, but leads to more desire to explore and replay than frustration.
Speaking of the crossover elements, I get the sense that I have not yet fully come to understand exactly how they all work. Aside from the grate, there was a curious load screen that told me that enemies with pus bubbles on their head that I kill in Claire’s campaign will affect Barry’s. I have no idea what this means, and couldn’t find out anything online, but it is certainly something I look forward to exploring in the future.
My scant few gripes from this segment come from the enemies. They decided that exploding one shot enemies falling silently from the ceiling randomly was a good idea, and if all the fingers on my hands were the middle ones, it would still not be enough to express my displeasure with that decision.
There is also a gauntlet section that splits up Barry and Natalia, so when Natalia gets attacked Barry has to cover her from afar. That was all fine and good, until they brought in the invisible assholes. Normally, you can switch to natalia, point, and get a general good idea of where the monster is to shoot at. In this segment, Natalia was too high up to get a good perspective on the depth of the invisible flying fuckers, and I spent what must have been 70% of my ammo on two invisible assholes. The moment they predictably introduced invisible enemies that only one character could see and only one could shoot, I knew that they would predictably have a segment where one spots from afar and the other shoots up close. As predicted, I fucking hated it.
Barry’s boss fight is also a bit lackluster. With a bit of spoilers incoming, Claire fights the giant mutant form of the person that betrayed them and is the reason they are there in the first place. It is an emotionally wrenching experience for her, and culminates in Moira overcoming her fear of firearms to save her friend. Barry fights a giant pile of corpses with a tentacle arm. A bit inconsistent in scale and tone, Re Re 2, but I’ll take it.
As someone who has played games and watched movies obsessively since I was 10, there is a little game I like to play called “Ted Successfully Guesses the Plot.” Now, I can’t always get it perfectly, especially with a batshit off the wall game like Resident Evil, but I can predict what things will happen. I will forever remember this chapter as the “Ted Wins Again” chapter, since all the things I predicted came true.
I don’t need to pretend that the corporation they all work for turns out to be evil took a lot of deduction, as that has been the plot of every single Resident Evil game, but that was revealed at the end of this episode. I predicted the moment that Moira said “I don’t do guns since the incident” that A) she would have to overcome her fear to save Claire and/or her father and B) she shot her sibling in a home firearm accident as a kid. As soon as Barry tells Natalia that she probably reminded Moira of her little sister, I was certain it was a little sister that was shot. 3/3 at this point, Ted, good job!
I also predicted that Barry would find a recording of his daughter from before, stoking fears that she is dead, but will later prove to be incorrect. The first happened, but I will eat my left eyeball if by the end of the final episode we do not find Moira alive. I also predicted that the little girl has some kind of crazy super power, and while that was only alluded to at the end of this episode, I’m going to chalk it up as another win for me.
What I did not predict was that Moira’s line as she overcomes her fear of guns and shoots her old boss in the head would be “Go jump on a dildo, Boss.” Well played, Capcom. See you next week.
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Resident Evil: Revelations 2 - Episode 1
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Resident Evil: Revelations 2 - Episode 2
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Resident Evil: Revelations 2 - Episode 3
Categorized:Horror Gaming Reviews
