REVIEW – Claire Redfield and Barry Burton returns as the main protagonists in the next episode of Resident Evil: Revelations 2. After a surprisingly good start, we wondered, whether Capcom can keep up the pace and deliver us another satisfying – albeit short – survivor horror adventure. Let’s see what’s this episode has in store for us and whether it worth to buy the whole game, once it’s out on disc format…

Disappointment. That was my first impression, once I started to play Contemplations. The prison milieu is gone and so was the suspenseful and horrific ambiance with it. The coastal village, which was the next main location lacked any kind of clever design, which successfully installed fear and suspense in the first episode.

Gosh, it looks dated

Also the shortcomings of the graphical engine are more apparent in daylight, than in the dark “penal colony” of the first episode. It’s like an older woman who you find sexy in the evening and who you try to pick up in a poorly lit, dark pub, and when you both had sex during the night, you find out the next morning at daylight, that… well… she’s not quite young anymore. I had the same feeling with the next episode of Revelations 2, which seemed quite “dated” – in both sense of the term, lol.

Low resolution, bland textures, drab sea water graphics, which reminds you 2005, some badly designed human characters and other disappointing graphical properties, which were not apparent in the first episode.
Later parts of the game fare a bit better graphics wise – essentially because we are back in locations inside demolished, scary buildings and the developers are visibly more familiar with those, than with outdoor locations. In any case this game won’t win the award of outstanding graphics, that’s for sure.

Attack of the horde

Another big disappointment I had was one of the main sequences early in the game, when a horde of aggressive and hungry zombies tried to attack Claire, Moira and one his friends in an abandoned house. In The Last of Us, or even Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 4 (where there were several similar sequences) those parts were far more sophisticated and better done.

In Revelations 2 all you had to do is shoot zombies attacking from several windows, and when they are finally inside the small house, run and try to kill them fast enough. It may sound exciting but technically it’s so inferior to the aforementioned games that I couldn’t feel but a deep sense of underwhelming. When you are clearly not doing a big budget game, then don’t try to put “cinematic” gameplay elements like that in there for Christ’s sake.

Other parts of the second episode are a bit better, except for the lack of variety concerning the zombies this time. For some strange reason the truly dreadful basic zombies were missing in action in this episode – fortunately some main bosses are overall better designed this time.

Friends will be zombies (but zombies won’t became friends)

The story is also somewhat cornier this time, than in the first episode, which was an excellent introduction to the whole story. Some side characters are especially lame, especially during the cheesy dialogs. The female main baddie, called the “overseer” who speaks to our team is also starting to sound like a broken record, repeating the same kind cheesy lines over and over.

The novelty of leading four characters also wore off since we have the same characters in the second episode as well. Yeah, I know, it’s a bit different compared to the Telltale games, but after having so much colourful characters in Game of Thrones in only two episodes, Claire, Barry, Moira and Natalia starts to become a bit boring – especially since there weren’t that interesting the first time around. Moira feels again like Ellie from the Last of Us and Natalia is like any “strange little girl” taken from one of the Silent Hill games.

Third time the charm?

It’s not that Contemplation is especially bad, but it’s still a bit worse in almost every aspect than the first episode and the series general shortcomings (some gameplay elements, graphics, story) are more apparent this time around. It’s a bit of a shame, since the whole series had a very good start with Penal Colony and its oppressing and haunting prison milieu. Third time the charm? Let’s hope so…

-BadSector-

Editor: Capcom

Developer: Capcom

Genres: action, adventure, survivor horror

Publication: 4 Mars 2015