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Resident Evil: Revelations

by Zachary Miller - January 21, 2012, 6:54 am EST
Total comments: 16

I'M ON A BOAT.

If you played RE: The Mercenaries 3D, you’ve already played a demo for RE: Revelations, but that demo was about five minutes long and not especially interesting. Today, though, everybody with a 3DS gets the opportunity to download an impressive demo that’s obviously taken straight from the full game. The fact that a demo for a retail product exists on a Nintendo platform at all is incredible, though that excitement is tempered by the fact that you can only play it 30 times. To be fair, you could play it once a day until the game releases and still have 10 plays left over.

This is the E3 2011 demo—Jill wakes up in a mysterious bed in what appears to be a fancy bedroom. Cat suit unzipped and gun in hand, Jill (Ms. Valentine if you’re nasty) gets up and ready to figure out where she is and what’s going on.

This demo is worlds beyond what the Mercs demo offered. Jill wakes up, as I said, in a bedroom. The door out is locked, and Jill has to hack the lock to open the door, using a screwdriver and a touchscreen mini-game. The mini-game was shockingly good—place four power nodes on four yellow ports. The caveat is you cannot jump nodes over each other. I can only assume these puzzles become more complicated later in the game.

On her way back from finding the screwdriver in the bedroom’s adjoining bathroom, Jill has her first encounter with one of Revelation’s new monsters: the Ooze. It looks more like a Silent Hill beastie than a Resident Evil zombie-type creature. It moves awkwardly toward Jill and will whack her with one of its stumpy, fleshy arms if it gets close enough. Luckily, that’s where the gunplay comes in: hold down the R button and press Y to pull off a few rounds. Holding the L button allows Jill to strafe (I’m reminded of the situation in Metroid Prime), but I never found it necessary. For the curious, you can toggle between first and third-person mode for shooting things. I actually like first-person more. This was a surprise given the set up in RE4 and RE5—games I loved.

After getting out of the bedroom, Jill finds ammo, an herb, and a shotgun. After moving through some abandoned rooms and hallways, Jill gets into a foggy dining room, and things take a turn for the interesting. The room is purposefully set up to evoke the foyer in the original RE’s Arklay Mansion, complete with a central door bearing a mysterious crest. Luckily, it’s unlocked from the get-go this time, and Jill can find an “Item Scanner” inside. It’s Revelation’s version of the Scan Visor—it will find hidden items and give information on certain things. I noticed that scanning monster corpses fills a percentage bar. One can only imagine that concept art or a monster profile is unlocked when that bar fills up all the way after several corpse scans.You can find a few previously hidden items with the scanner, which is neat.

A few more rooms in, and Jill is faced with her first multi-monster battle: two standard Ooze creatures and a new guy. The new fellow looks like a bloated Ooze and blows itself up with just a few bullets, so stand back. The ability to strafe is great in these confined areas with multiple enemies to topple. In the very next room, Jill comes across the demo’s final monster type. It’s another version of the Ooze, featuring saw-like arms, and it acts very much like the Garrador enemies from RE4, even down to the attack animations. This guy is basically the demo’s “boss,” but if you’ve been saving the two grenades you’ve acquired, he goes down pretty fast. In the next room, you meet your partner, Parker, and follow him without interruption to the ship’s bridge, where a cutscene—featuring one of the game’s new antagonists—ends the demo.

The demo is excellent and shows off the best new features of the game—touchscreen puzzles, improved gunplay, the inventive Item Scanner, and Jill’s strategically unzipped cat suit (so sue me). The demo may seem lengthy, but in fact it’s quite short once you play through it two or three times and you know what you’re doing. Still, it’s a great taste of a delicious game; February 7th can’t come soon enough.

Talkback

KDR_11kJanuary 21, 2012

I'm not too sure about the combat, those Zoidbergs wave around so much that headshots are nearly impossible while body shots don't seem very damaging, I often resorted to repeatedly stabbing the enemies with my knife.

I think you get more scan percentage if you scan an enemy while it's still alive, maybe that upgrades your character in some way when it hits 100%.

Took me several tries to survive to the end of the demo since it has no checkpoints...

NintendoFanboyJanuary 21, 2012

I played thru it 3 times my first day, well 2.5  as i died the first time.
I find i like the motion/tilt aiming best. as i was disappointed my stylus wouldnt
be used to aim. I often got hit cause i hit the wrong button to fire, herb anyone?
but by the 3rd play thru i had the controls mostly down. only 29 more demo plays to go.

IGamesJanuary 21, 2012

At least now I know I can't stand the RE series. Five minutes of this and I was just disgusted by the gameplay. I do like the concept of the games though. That's something I can respect for the most part :cool;

ejamerJanuary 21, 2012

Rather enjoyed my playthrough of the demo.


Got enough spare weapon parts that it seemed to upgrade my rifle. Got over 100% from scanning live enemies, but couldn't notice any in-game change - presumably it'll be some extra only included with the actual game.


Not sure how much replay value Revelations will contain, or if the story will hold up. It also seems like this game is more action-horror than survival-horror... but as long as it's good action-horror I'm ok with that. Based on the demo I'm confident that it'll be one of the first "must play" games on 3DS.

MorcantJanuary 21, 2012

I was for the most part impressed by the demo. I found the combat to be much more serviceable once I switched to the third person aiming and discovered the strafe. The animation of the "ooze" melting after they died didn't look quite right to me. I agree that the cat suit was amazing indeed.

SeacorJanuary 22, 2012

What a great demo!  It accomplished what it set out to do.  I will be picking this one up.

Dan LaserJanuary 22, 2012

Strafe, you say?? Clearly I need to play the demo again. I didn't realize you could do that. As I was wandering through the corridors i was wishing there was a strafe. I also didn't realize you could scan the enemies when they were alive. The Scan Visor deal is a neat little addition esp for completionists like myself! The spare weapon parts should be fun too

KITT 10KJanuary 22, 2012

Personally, I think Jill's cat suit was zipped up a little too much, (I'd like it to be unzipped even MORE than what it was). All kidding aside, I liked the demo on Mercenaries and was hooked even then. Now I'm hooked more than I already was. I was getting the game anyways and now I KNOW that I'm gonna love the game tmore than I originally thought. I'm also interested in how the circle pad will make the gameplay feel. Well anyway, I can't wait to get it!

CericJanuary 22, 2012

Yeah, Read the the Control schemes there's a strafe and a reload.

On the guns, even when I was getting Head shots or what look to be Head shots I still unloaded about 5 or so bullets into them.  I got to the point where I too would just start stabbing them to death because it seems just as effective.

Besides the Weapons being nigh useless I enjoyed the demo.  I thought it was really pretty but, then it also got me thinking about the Capcom 5 and how Gamecube like the 3DS really is.

Chocobo_RiderJanuary 22, 2012

Played through the demo yesterday and loved it to pieces.

I'm extremely glad games like this are still being made in the RE series.  Everything up to RE4 was great but RE5 took a turn for the worse and RE6 looks like it wants to turn even further =(
And that makes me very sad.

So, again, thank god for RE:Rev! Can't wait for the full game!

oohhboyHong Hang Ho, Staff AlumnusJanuary 22, 2012

Looks like Capcom is back to form after the RE Mercenaries debacle. One very nice addition is the dodge mechanic no one has mentioned so far. If you knife at just the right time, you dodge the attack and come out the other side unharmed. The RE4 stun then kick is back with greater force, but harder to execute since the Zoidbergs move too much and the slide pad isn't quite as good as an actual stick.

Completing normal unlocks Hell mode which show cases one more weapon and is of course much harder with more Zoidbergs, less healing, different placements. Unfortunately it resets along with every setting on quit.

Nades now do damage based on distance, meaning a direct hit will kill the demo's "boss", while a glancing hit will only annoy them.

One minor disappointment is that the laser is now a solid line with no graphical effects, meaning it sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the game which looks amazing.No doubt it was a gameplay decision.

Correction: the dodge move is done when you are not in the "ready" position and moving the stick forward while being right in front of a Zoidberg. It automatically goes into effect when they attack. It's there to avoid getting the player getting stunned locked in the tight corridors of the ship.

WirelessJanuary 22, 2012

Just wanted to clarify something; when I was playing in Hell mode, I managed to get the scanner up to 100%, and that gave me an extra herb. Nothing else, just a herb.

CericJanuary 22, 2012

A herb could be big.
I wish they gave info with scans to look at maybe the full game.

The dodge is another reason why knifing is more effective it seems.  When knifing someone you'll sometime dodge and you can get into a position to use that kick move.  Also if you time it right you can step back from them attacking.

AilingforaleJanuary 23, 2012

I was coming back to say just that.  When I got my scan up to 100% it gave me a free herb.  Since I'm am an FPS on the PC kind of guy, this was extremely helpful since I couldn't dodge or hit worth crap.  I believe I'll be playing this on easy when it comes out (I'm such a wuss lol).

Shad0wkillJanuary 24, 2012

I've had this game preordered for awhile now and I cant put the demo down! Hell mode is going to be rough, I almost make it to the end but I always die! I am courious about the story and cant wait till it comes out.

ShyGuyJanuary 27, 2012

Just tried, the demo, the same enemy (Zoidberg with the big claws) killed me twice. The graphics are gorgeous and the controls work, I like them better than RE5. Looking forward to this game.

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Biohazard: Revelations Box Art

Genre
Developer Capcom

Worldwide Releases

na: Resident Evil: Revelations
Release Feb 07, 2012
PublisherCapcom
RatingMature
jpn: Biohazard: Revelations
Release Jan 26, 2012
PublisherCapcom
eu: Resident Evil: Revelations
Release Jan 27, 2012
PublisherCapcom
aus: Resident Evil: Revelations
Release Feb 02, 2012
PublisherNintendo
RatingMature (15+)
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