Reviews
Resident
I’ve got no problem with Resident Evil Revelations 2 (or Revelations 2, for ease), apart from that girl who points at everything like she’s just seen E.T. for the first time… and the fact that Barry has slightly better voice acting (Jill sandwich for life), but Revelations 2 seems to me an opportunity sadly wasted.
Let’s face it; Resident Evil is HOT right now. With Resident Evil HD edition officially achieving the title of the fastest selling Capcom game ever to grace the PlayStation Network, now is a great time to celebrate all that original Biohazard horror and bring back old favorites like Barry Burton, right? Well, yes and no.
Strategically, the recent releases were a golden idea; first, you’re hit with Resident Evil HD, an admittedly terrifying experience regardless of its age that just the other day, had three grown men cowering to the plinky-plonky music of typewriter-laden safe rooms (I was among these ‘men’). Then there’s Revelations 2, which brings you back to modern day ease and a more comfortable (and less atmospheric) experience. Though, when I first heard that Revelations 2 was an episodic game experience, I was excited, nay ready, for something fresh and new.
When reading first impressions and user reviews, I was a tad disappointed at the lack of tropes that I’ve tended to associate episodic gaming with. The traits of the excellent Telltale games appear to be absent in Revelations 2, and while these traits are not a necessity in episodic games, I feel that implementing some of them could have presented new opportunities. It got me thinking ‘if any game could benefit from moral choices that led to multiple endings, resident evil is it.’ Imagine if the bowel-stopping horror was combined with split-second choices that resulted in putting either yourself or your buddy character at serious risk?
Resident Evil one went a good way to inspiring this thought train. Between the gasps of uncontrollable horror, I was able to identify the kind of actions that led to the game’s multiple endings. Revelations 2 was a fantastic opportunity to bring multiple routes back to Resident Evil. That’s not to say that the thought of making hard decisions on top of the general horror game stress doesn’t terrify me, but that’s the point, right?
Just imagine seeing ‘this action will have consequences’ after every seemingly innocuous decision, or having the game tell you that Natalia (the buddy character that menacingly points at things) will ‘remember this’ whenever you do something morally suspect. Features like this would also allow you to influence the buddy characters in the game, like the way Corvo’s actions can change Emily’s view of the world in Dishonoured.
Just a thought; what do you think? Comment below.
