Resident Evil Revelations Review

I’m a big fan of the Resident Evil series regardless of the stick the franchise has been receiving for taking it in other directions than its original survival horror genre that it created.
Resident Evil 5 and 6 had kind of leaned more towards the action game genre but Capcom’s recent release of Resident Evil Revelations, which was originally a Nintendo 3DS release, has brought the series back to all the reasons why Resident Evil 4 was so popular.
It kept the action in there however there is more scenes of eerie quiet walks down corridors, jumpy scenes, blood splatters on walls with no reason as to who’s it is or how it got there, it’s all back and has rejuvenated the Resident Evil series back to its horror roots.
Set between the events of RE4 and RE5, Revelations sees the creation of the BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance) an anti-terrorism group specialised on eliminating Bioorganic weapons or BOW’s.
The game centralises on 2 BSAA agents who happen to be 2 of the original Resident Evil cast, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. Chris and his partner Jessica Sherawat goes missing aboard the cruise ship SS Queen Zenobia and Jill and her new partner Parker Luciani board the ship to find them. The game also features playable flashbacks which show the players how the events came to be from different perspectives. I loved the story and the SS Queen Zenobia is the perfect horror setting with its tight corridors and engine rooms. Although I’m not and never will be a big fan of BOW’s being the games enemies, they are more sludge men than actual monsters and take a shed load of ammo to take out. All characters are excellently portrayed with superb voice acting and the story kept me glued.
Resident Evil Revelations plays identical to RE6 retaining the third person over-the-shoulder viewpoint, the left stick controls the players movement including strafing, which was missing in RE5 causing unforgivable problems, and the right stick controls what direction the player faces.
This control scheme is fantastically responsive and makes the game very easy to play. Running, aiming and shooting as well as the inventory system is similar to RE6 however new addition is the excellently useful scanner which can be used to scan dead enemies to find out more about them or scan the environment to find hidden items. The straight forward but absent from RE5 ability of moving whilst aiming is here which is a godsend especially in the heat of battle. Bosses are just as scary and horrible looking as they have ever been, some of which can take a while and a certain pattern to defeat which keep the players thinking. Resident Evil Revelations also sees the return of the infamous Hunters from the first Resident Evil.
Resident Evil Revelations graphics are hit and miss which is expected when it’s a re-master of a handheld game. The environment as a whole looks great however the little details such as blood dripping don’t look so good. What I mean is, seeing blood dripping from a vent for example, front the front it looks great however move to the side and the blood is paper thin, this ruins any kind of effect that dripping blood brings.
Enemies such as the ooze men and hunters look great and the liquefied features of the main enemies mean they are unpredictable and difficult to defeat. I wasn’t too impressed with the visuals which look better on a smaller screen with the 3D effect on.
Summary
Resident Evil Revelations is a nice return to the Resident Evil franchise which brings with it the horror that it made so famous. The visuals may be hit and miss but overlook this and you will find a nice gripping game that will keep you playing until the very end. The console variety brings with it updated visuals and a sickeningly hard “infernal” difficulty.