On the one hand, there's justice in a game this good coming to a bigger audience.
On the other hand...there's a gun, covered in slime.
And on the other hand, this was a handheld game.
A great handheld game, but a handheld game nonetheless.
And what's great on a handheld, isn't always as great on a big screen.
Now, if you don't have a Nintendo 3DS, you missed out on something pretty special in
Resident Evil: Revelations.
It was a return to form, in a lot of ways.
It brought the series back to something a little more Resident Evil and a little less
Rambo.
And now, a year later, this fantastic handheld game...has made its way to home consoles.
Whoa.
Calm down there, Jessica.
The title for sweet asses in Resident Evil is...kind of occupied.
Revelations is a kind of spin-off, that takes place between the fifth game...and the legendary
fourth game.
What made it so great is that...it was like a rebalancing of the series' components.
It still plays like four and five, but it scales back that action movie feel and reestablishes
the atmosphere of the early games.
Case in point, the desolate Queen Zenobia, which is still
one of the series' creepiest settings.
So you're starting with a pretty awesome 3DS game, right?
And the general idea is to take that game, bring it to more powerful hardware, improve
things.
But the funny thing is...even though Revelations has been improved technically, it's doesn't
look nearly as impressive in this new form.
And that's the irony here.
Revelations looked stunning on the less-powerful 3DS, but in HD...it's really underwhelming.
And again, that certainly has a effect on the game's vibe, which is a lot less effective.
I mean, it's still a creepy game and it does manage tension, but...you can always tell
this was a handheld game blown up for a bigger screen.
And to be fair, that's actually understandable.
Even if poor performance is less so.
Fortunately, there's also some good news here.
That's that Revelations at least plays great in HD.
I mean, there's an argument to be made that no Resident Evil game plays great, but...this
one is as good as any other.
And if you liked popping off head shots in Resident Evil 4 and blowing sh*t up and then
re-blowing it up in Resident Evil 5, you should have no problem with Revelations.
And it's still really fun to play.
Know what's weird about reviewing remakes like this?
I mean, I've spent this whole time criticizing the game and comparing it negatively to the
original, but...it's still really good.
Resident Evil 4 is one of my all-time favorite games, and Revelations is the first one since
to even come close to that feeling.
It's a perfect mixture of the action and atmosphere the series has so often struggled to balance.
Even on the PS3, even though it's not as good as the original, this is the best Resident
Evil in years.