REVIEW – Four characters from the Resident Evil universe – Claire Redfield among them – must face the hordes of undead once again in the next episode of the Revelations spin-off series. One of the main focus of the game is cooperative gameplay and for the first time in the history of the Resident Evil games, Revelations will be released in episodic format. We have started the horror adventure with the first of the four episodes…

Holy shit, it’s actually scary! That was my first impression once I began my adventure with the unfortunate Claire Redfield who is once again in deep trouble among hordes of hungry zombies alongside Moira Burton. In the first section of the first episode the two of them tries to survive and get out from a strange and horrific prison-like building while hideously disfigured zombies and other monsters are trying to massacre them.

In the second section of the game, we are leading Barry Burton, Moira’s father who is joined by a little girl, Natalia Korda. The story seems to be standard Resident Evil fare so one wonders why Revelations 2 is episodic in the first place.

Nightmare prison

The answer to that question: I have no clue. Resident Evil Revelations isn’t really made like a Telltale game, it’s like any other Resident Evil game, and there isn’t even a cliffhanger at the end of the first episode. Besides being the second episode to the spin-off series, gameplay-wise it could be like any other episode of the series as well – besides the fact, that Revelations 2 is surprisingly good.

What’s perhaps the best about this game that it’s actually quite scary – unlike Resident Evil 6, or – at least for me – the HD remake of the original Resident Evil reviewed not long ago. While environments are a bit bland and not especially interesting, the monsters are very well designed and they look truly horrific. They are also very aggressive, and quite unpredictable. The way the game builds up tension is also pretty excellent.

Survive this horror

Like in every survivor horror, ammo is scarce so you really have to make them count – especially on harder level. For a long period I couldn’t even find ammo for Barry Burton and I was actually out of ammo for both Claire and Barry at the end of the first episode for each of them.

Fortunately Revelations 2 is much more advanced regarding how your character can move and fight – compared to the previous episodes of any Resident Evil (I skipped the first Revelations). You can move while aiming (hello Resident Evil 4) you can jump away from monsters and you can also aim while crouched. Sometimes the messy camera gives you a hard time, but generally the gameplay is much smoother than in previous episodes.

You always learn something

Besides being smooth, there’s also a skill tree system with which you can upgrade gradually your skills thanks to your experience points. It’s nothing exceptional (and some skills are crap) but it makes the same old survivor horror gameplay a bit more interesting.

In a very similar fashion to The Last of Us, you can also upgrade your weapons on workbenches, which you can find across the game. It’s a bit funny that they actually look quite similar to the ones in The Last of Us. Like in Naughty Dog’s masterpiece you upgrade different functionalities of your weapons by using “upgrade parts” which you can also find throughout the game.

Not without my daughter

Besides those workbenches there are also some similarities between the story of The Last of Us and Revalations 2. I know pretty well, that Barry Burton is a long time hero of the Resident Evil series but the way looks and acts, and also his relation to Natalia, (a young girl who is not his daughter and who joins him while he goes after his own) is quite similar.

The story isn’t particularly interesting nor dramatic – it’s decent but basically it’s your standard conspiracy theory and zombie apocalypse narrative but the way it’s presented over two parallel campaign on the same place is quite interesting. The two sidekick girls are both sympathetic characters – even if Moira made me think of Ellie from The Last of Us.

Not without my co-op partner

However what’s vastly different about how the girls are in both games is the way how they act and help you. While in The Last of Us Ellie only had very basic AI functions like passing ammo to you, or stabbing the enemy with knife in some cases, in Revelations 2 they are part of the asymmetric coop mode. It means that instead of just having the same capabilities (firing, stabbing at the enemy opening doors etc.) they are totally different. Moira can’t stand weapons so she won’t use them, but she will use the flashlight and find things with it Claire Redfield cannot see.

The strange little girl, Natalia has even more specific abilities. She can sense undead enemies from afar, across walls (a bit like Hitman in the latest Hitman game) and point to them. It would be an even neater skill if this would actually mark those for Barry (a la Mordor/Far Cry 4) but it can be still a useful skill. She can also crawl into small holes others cannot, and of course they are specific parts of the game where we cannot progress without that skill.

The two girls can be controlled via a coop partner in the game or by yourself, if you switch between the main character and the side-kick. It’s quite fun actually, both in single and co-op mode.

Although the Mercenaries style Raid mode will have online options patched in at a later date (couldn’t they just have waited until it was ready?) there are no plans to offer online co-op for the story mode. That’s another odd choice in today’s climate, but we can certainly imagine that much of the entertainment value would be lost if you didn’t have your partner in the same room with you.

The ugly truth behind the conspiracy

Unfortunately as entertaining and scary is the game, I was a bit less enthusiastic about how it looks. The graphics are distinctly last gen – concerning the environments even the PS3 version of The Last of Us looked tons better than this game on my PlayStation 4. Monsters and human characters look better, although some zombies are a bit boring and Barry Burton could give up on some low res textures.

I understand that the team had a lower budget, but when you take a look at Dying Light graphics wise and you compare it to Revelations 2, you do wonder, why this game of such famed franchise looks so much poorer then Techland’s Dying Light?

A good start

Besides the last gen graphics I had some good, zombie slaying fun with the first episode of Resident Evil: Revelations 2. The game is nothing ground breaking gameplay-wise or dramatic story-wise but it’s still a solid gaming experience. I am not sure however where this episodic direction is going whether if this was a good idea to release the game in such a way but for a first episode it certainly well worth the $5 fee.

-BadSector-

Editor: Capcom

Developer: Capcom

Genres: action, adventure, survivor horror

Publication: 25 February 2015