Yet again, Capcom’s decided to deliver us yet another installment to yet another spin off of the highly renowned, and sadly degenerating Resident Evil series. Resident Evil was once great with its intense survival gameplay, strong tension, and lovably corny characters.
You all know the story, the series lost its way after 4, and has never been the same since. It seems like Capcom have come to reason with their latest title, Resident Evil Revelations 2, implanting what made the original series once great. Darker themes, stronger horror elements and more intense game play through survival, rather than action. It’s only one episode so far that’s been released, but this gives an indication of what to expect.
Resident Evil: Revelations 2′s set a couple of years after the first. Originally a new virus has emerged, turning countless innocents into mindless murderers – part zombie and part aquatic, but both cannibalistic. After the events of Revelations, Claire Redfield from Resident Evil 2 has joined Terrasave, an organisation who’s sole purpose is to rid the world of terrorism, displayed in some pretty good satirical promotional videos, mocking the cheesy nature of military propaganda.
At a fancy dinner party one night, Claire’s introduced to her new partner, Moira Burton, daughter of legendary Barry Burton. Soon after their meeting, a swarm of masked gunman kidnap the pair and take them to a seemingly abandoned military prison.
A simple narrative so far but, one filled with mystery that will allure you to find out more as you progress. The original Revelations also had a gripping narrative, but was filled with some pretty awful comic relief, bad dialogue (not even entertaining), and some shallow twists. Revelations 2, however, does a better job at bringing a darker tone to its story and a more engaging mystery about why the events are occurring.
All I can say is that Moira seems to say f**k a lot – which is rather annoying. I don’t mind swearing, but in all honestly, she could’ve had wittier dialogue – anything that’s more amusing than just swearing. And everyone else here can pull a good joke or deliver an emotional statement here and there.
Graphically, the game’s okay. I know graphics aren’t everything, but you can clearly see the budget for this title was lower than any other Resident Evil game recently. Even the HD remake looks much better. It’s not awful, but the game is graphically presented very bland, colourless, and too smooth, with a lack of healthy textures or detail to make the world organic. The monster animations are much better looking and the 60 frames per second’s a welcome touch to current-gen consoles. Sadly, it looks somewhat the same as the first Revelations. Not a great improvement, but not totally awful.
Though the graphics are a slight let down, the gameplay makes up for it. The most interesting aspect so far is its co-op feature. I know it’s been done already, but Revelations 2 offers a new twist on Resident Evil’s co-op. Each player has a purpose in the game, where one can not function or survive without the other, mixing other forms of action and survival game play into one experience through the means of co-op.
One player (Claire for example) will have the means to fight back, shoot and kill the enemies in the game world, whereas the other (Moira) won’t, but they have their function in the world by spotting concealed/hidden items, accessing hard to reach places and being able to track enemy movements or have means to temperately blind/incapacitate them.
Its a great method of combing both survival and action game play. It also offers two options for players, giving both a slight action orientated experience, or something more along the lines of Alien: Isolation. The game offers a strong survival horror experience as those who play as Barry or Claire will have to use resource management and lateral thinking more over brute force. Yet, this can be altered by using the other character (Moira and Natalia) more effectively in finding hidden ammo and health.
An interesting and more engaging aspect of co-op gameplay, where one character relies on the other to survive, creating an intense and fresh experience unlike other Resident Evil games. Besides, the first Revelations felt unfair as your AI partner never seemed to help out and never did they draw the attention of every monster in the room. Here, it’s balanced and enemies will see both characters as threat, even if one if holding a flash light, they understand her importance to the other’s survival.
There are some neat set-pieces in the game so far, including Barry and his companion Natalia traversing a darkened forest with creatures lurking in the darkness, Claire using a giant mounted flame-thrower to fight off hoards of fiendish monsters, and a brutalizing battle in a logging yard.
What does make Resident Evil: Revelations 2 a great game to play is Raid Mode. Seen in the first Revelations game, Raid Mode’s a brilliant survival/action experience that pits players into multiple challenges, offering rewards and customizations for your efforts. Players can unlock certain skills, weapons, and new characters by playing multiple maps, taking on different challenges and earning medallions. Raid Mode has tremendous immersion with its unlocks and offers much more engaging gameplay elements than even Resident Evil 4‘s Mercenaries Mode.
The slight problem I do have is the amount of meaningless micro-transactions. They can be ignored if you’re a skilled enough player, but still shouldn’t have a place here. Hopefully the game won’t become unfair and soon force me to buy extra credit with real money to progress like so many mobile games.
I’m also baffled to the episodic content, as it works well to build intrigue and suspense, but honestly with each episode lasting only 2-3 hours, its just annoying and has the chance of destroying any interest for the next episode. Thankfully, Raid Mode’s here to help fill out time nicely.
Resident Evil: Revelations 2 is a very good game, offering you an intense experience with strong elements of horror and action with the fantastic Raid mode to help fill in the space between episodes. Worth its low price tag, and joyous for any old school Resident Evil fans, even with the sub-par graphics and tacky dialogue.