RE Revelations HD

User Rating: 8 | Resident Evil: Revelations X360

Revelations received a lot of praise when it came out on 3DS and I had only heard good things about it from friends, but I absolutely refused to buy a 3DS just to play one game. I knew that, if the game was good like people said, Capcom would eventually make a port to a console. They did and it's undoubtedly the better choice than spending 170 on a handheld I'd never use. Revelations blends the atmosphere and the gameplay of the true Resident Evil games with the action of Resident Evil 4, 5, and 6, making for an interesting fusion that could potentially hold the answers to revitalizing the franchise.

The majority of the game takes place on the cruise ship, filled entirely with tight corridors and otherwise cramped spaces that give you little room to maneuver. Combined with that, the architecture and environment design is similar to the older, Spencer type craziness. At one point in the game you start a chapter and are transported, thematically, back to Resident Evil 1.

Afterwards, you start to notice that the ship looks far closer to a Spencer mansion than a cruise ship. Here's an interjection: I've been on an expensive cruise of the Mediterranean before. No cruise ship I've ever been on would look this homely. They're ships, they don't have master bedrooms everywhere. Authenticity aside, the ship looks great, just like I'd expect an abandoned bloody cruise ship to look. Many people say that the graphics look terrible but you also have to realize it's a 3DS port which was scaled up for HD - for the source material, it looks pretty damned good. People like to say it looks worse than 5 or 6, and at that I laugh because 5 looked like crap,and 6 looked even worse than 5.

Revelations brings horror back to the franchise, or at least tries. You have mini-bosses that can easily insta-kill you, and as the game progresses, so does the difficulty of the enemies. Although, sometimes, the game just throws more enemies at you instead of making you learn new ones.

The storyline is about as plausible and consistent as you can expect from a Resident Evil game, but, thankfully there is no mention of Umbrella whatsoever - only in references and mostly just through the fact that the virus is a T virus variation - which brings up the only true issue with the game. There are no zombies. Sure, there are bio-weapons, but no shambling undead. Just sludgey mud-men, barnacle monsters if you will. And maybe some tentacle monsters.

If this is how the games are going to develop, there may honestly be hope for the leaked Resident Evil 7. Only if this team works on it and cut's the action bullshit.

My favorite part might be raid mode, exclusive to the re-release. Basically, Raid Mode is Diablo 3, but fun. You get to play chapters of the game in co-op, kill enemies and get loots, with each character or costume having their own unique bonuses that make it entertaining, and you level up - rinse, repeat. Eventually you get completely ridiculous guns and it's just fun.

Revelations is easily the best Resident Evil game since Code Veronica, considering that RE4 isn't a Resident Evil game, but if you insist, it's the best thing since RE4.