Chaos Hour

Resident Evil Revelations 3D Review

Considering Revelations Is A Single Player Game You'd Think That Once You've Finished The Story You Wouldn't Bother With It Again But That's Where Your Wrong.

Platform: Nintendo 3DS

Publisher: Capcom

Developers: Capcom

Resident Evil: Revelations manages to pack everything that has been good about the Resident Evil series into a tiny cartridge that is packed to the brim with content and then some.

The mighty waves crash against the side of the cruise liner sending sea spray in all directions. Wet surfaces glisten in the moonlight as the rain blows furiously in the wind. The atmosphere is tense and moody, after a few steps a bell chimes ominously signalling the start of your adventure, at which point it hits you. This isn't like any handheld game you've played before.

The level of detail in Resident Evil: Revelations is incredible. You can even see the stubble on Chris Redfield and newcomer Parker Luciani's faces. It seriously looks better than alot of wii games I've played which makes you wonder how something like this was even achievable on a handheld system. Long gone are the days of blocky graphics and spiky polygons as Resident Evil: Revelations definitely sets a new precedent for the graphics of handheld gaming.

Having such incredible graphics doesn't come without it's drawbacks however. Throughout the game there is quite a lot of loading screens in the form of doors that can take a fair while to open as the game renders the next area to explore. The game is even audacious enough to occasionally allow you to open a loading screen door only to be presented with another one. Also sometimes when the game is about to present you with more than a few enemies to fight, the game screen pauses itself for half a second. This might seem like a minor issue but when you notice it you sort of know what's around the next corner taking away a bit from the brilliant atmosphere the game presents throughout your entire time with it.

The Circle Pad Pro seems a bit daunting at first but once you get used to the two extra shoulder buttons and second control stick the controls feel incredibly slick. The back of the Circle Pad Pro is ridged and fits comfortably in your hands not unlike a conventional console controller. The second control stick is an absolute necessity in a game like Revelations as once you've tried the game without it the controls feel clunky and confusing. The Circle Pad Pro just fits Revelations to a tee and i strongly recommend investing in one to truly get the most out of Revelations.

The story constantly pushes the player to 'play a little bit more' with great looking cutscenes a plenty and lots of twists and turns throughout. The games split up into 'episodes' which last about thirty minutes each and between each episode you get a handy recap of what's happened so far, which is great if you haven't played the game for a day or two and have forgotten what happened last.

The entire boat setting was a great choice as the narrow corridors and dark lighting makes every encounter with the horrible ooze even more terrifying as there's no where to run and hide. This is all very reminiscent of the early Resident Evil titles which are arguably the best and scariest of the entire series. Surprisingly the game sometimes switches into the shoes of various other characters.Which is fine when you get to play as Chris or Parker but when you get the privilage to play as one of the worst duos in gaming history you wish the developers hadn't bothered. Luckily though this doesn't happen too frequently and for the most part just serves as a nice change of pace from playing as Jill through the entire game.

Considering Revelations is a single player game you'd think that once you've finished the story you wouldn't bother with it again but that's where your wrong. Resident Evil has a second mode called Raid mode where you and a friend or a stranger over wi-fi can play through levels of increasing difficulty in an attempt to make it to the goal at the end. Upon completing a level in raid mode you get presented with experience and BP. Once you get enough experience you start to level up which allows you to wield more powerful weapons which you can buy at the in game store with earned BP. You can also unlock a wealthy amount of different characters and costumes each with they're own different perks unique to each character. This allows you to choose a character suited to your style of play, partial to shotguns? Then you can choose a character who does more damage with them. Adding RPG elements to this mode greatly increases the games replay value and if you have a friend you could end up spending hours and hours in this incredibly in depth and entertaining mode.

Revelations is an absolute joy to play from start to finish and with my ending time clocking in just over 10 hours it's even longer than most fully fledged console shooters. That's without the amazing Raid mode which will keep you coming back to Revelations again and again.