Game Review: Resident Evil, Revelations 2
| published March 9, 2015 |
By Isaac Fink
Thursday Review contributor
Resident Evil is one of the best known survival horror game franchises, and one of my personal favorites, so I couldn't pass up an opportunity to try out the newest installment, Resident Evil Revelations 2, which means a review here at TR.
Now before anyone gets scared off by that mouthful of a title, you don't need to play any of the previous games to understand the story, all the Resident Evil games are for the most part self-contained with a few references to each other. The series revolves around a cast of characters that fight “bio-terrorism” all over the world, which in the games means fighting zombies and horrifying monsters that are the results of viral mutations.
Revelations 2 stars Claire Redfield, star of Resident Evil 2 on the original Playstation and Nintendo 64. Claire and her new co-worker, Moira, are kidnapped at a party and brought to an island prison where the only inhabitants are zombies, monsters, and a mysterious woman who taunts them over the intercom while watching them struggle to survive.
The player, (or players, as the game has optional 2 player co-op play) must control Claire and Moira and overcome puzzles, terrifying enemies, and their own fear in order to survive. Revelations 2 is being released in an episodic format, meaning that one section of the game is released every week. Players can either buy each individual episode as it comes out for $5.99 each, or buy the “Complete season” for $24.99 which includes bonus content, or buy the retail disc version on March 17 for $40 which includes all the episodes along with all the downloadable content.
Episode 1 is the only one available thus far, though I've enjoyed my time with it. The actual story mode for the first episode took around 2 hours to complete, and with 3 more episodes on the way, this means the full game will likely have at least 8 hours of play-time for the story mode alone, not counting replays.
The cooperative play in Revelations 2 stands out from its predecessors, in that only one player uses guns and weapons while the other player has to focus on support, such as finding hidden items or stunning enemies with a flashlight. This dynamic makes for fun and interesting experiences throughout the campaign. There are also three different difficulty settings, as well as options to play with invisible enemies or with only a limited amount of time, adding greatly to replayability.
The main source of replayability however, comes from the game's Raid Mode. Raid Mode is an optional mode where the player may choose from a selection of characters from the franchise, each with different skills and abilities that can be leveled up, and then either alone or with a partner, they must fight through stages full of enemies to gain new weapons and experience points for their characters. The mode brings hours of fun and leaves the player with plenty to do. Episode 1 includes 18 different Raid missions, with 3 different difficulty settings, for a total of 54 missions, which should be more than enough to keep players entertained until the next episode comes out.
The game is not without some issues though. The graphics are subpar for the most part and there are some noticeable frame-rate drops during certain sections of the game. There are also a number of network errors that are making it difficult for players to use the DLC. My biggest complaint though is how much the game re-uses assets from Resident Evil 6 and the first Resident Evil Revelations. Objects, textures, and in the case of Raid Mode, entire stages and weapons from previous games are lifted straight from the previous titles into this one.
That said, for the price of entry, the first episode of Resident Evil Revelations 2 packs a lot of content and is worth the cost. Hopefully in later episodes, Capcom will improve on some of the complaints with the game. Until then, I give the first episode a score of 7 out of 10.
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