Talking about My Revelations

With Revelations 2 is almost upon us now, I thought it would be a good time to reflect back on the first Revelations game and what made it so great. I first played Revelations shortly after getting a Nintendo 3DS so the experience is a little less than a year ago and still pretty fresh in my mind. I find Revelations' acclaim a little unwarranted, I mean sure it was miles better than Resident Evil 6 but let's not make it sound like the second coming of Resident Evil 4. I do want to point out what made Revelations better than most recent RE entries

1. No More Umbrella
Let's face it, the original storyline that spans across the first 3 RE games is now a convoluted mess thanks to the many different writers who pitched in over the years. It's hard to make an sense of the Umbrella legacy anymore or tie up the loose ends which Capcom so clumsily attempted to in RE5. Thankfully, Revelations told a new story much like RE4 did without much ties to the original storyline aside from the iconic characters appearing. No silly homages to the series like what happened in RE5 Gold or RE6, it was a servicable story with nice twists and a brand new villain.

Remember the feeling when you first got the Colt Python?

2. Simple Guns
The RE games has always placed a strong emphasis on the guns used but in the early games, you are able to figure out which weapon works best against which enemies because the weapons were slowly introduced into the game as you play. That way you formed a strong bond with the weapons because you become very familiar with the ones you are using before you get a new toy. In RE6, I actually lost track of which ammunition goes to which weapon when I was clearing the character inventory. Too much awesome weaponry was clearly not a good thing and Revelations wisely scaled back on the number of weapons deployed. It doesn't introduced the weapons into the game as masterfully as the old games but at least, it was manageable and fun.

Aside from this, there are some aspects which makes RE Revelations not so great like the annoying new side characters and episodic chapters. In the end given the dire strait predicament of the series right now, the first Revelations certainly did more right than wrong but it still pales in comparisons to the early RE games under Mikami's supervision.

So Much To Play So Little Time in 2014

The year is almost finished and I thought I would reflect back on the games I have played and completed over the last twelve months. So going through my trophy log and saved games, I have compiled a list of the following games that I started and finished within the last year.

1. Valkyria Chronicles 3 (PSP)
2. Max Payne 3 (PS3)
3. Deadly Premonition (PS3)
4. Resident Evil Revelations (3DS)
5. The Spirit Camera (3DS)
6. Yakuza 5 (PS3)
7. Lollipop Chainsaw (PS3)

None of these games were particularly new or expensive but rest assured, I have not gone cheap on games as I finally got a new Nintendo hardware this year. Cross generation games are still prevalent for now so it remains to be seen when the PS4 will happen, probably not next year unless a nice Yakuza Zero PS4 custom edition emerges.

Hello Stranger, What Are You Buying?

The Resident Evil games have been pretty predictable these days when it comes to unlockable features after completing the game -  it's the usual offering of Mercenaries mini-game and bonus costumes. These are some of the series mainstays since the beginning and the theory of why fix something that isn't broken is a logical reasoning why Capcom never bother to come up with something different for each new game.

Jill wonders where The Mercenaries have gone on Revelations?

So naturally I was very intrigued when I unlocked the Raid mode upon completing Resident Evil Revelations as this was the first bonus mini-game that isn't the Mercenaries since RE : Code Veronica. All I knew prior to playing the game is that the story mode doesn't feature co-op but Raid mode does though you still have the option of playing the game solo if you like. 

After playing Raid mode for a bit, I quickly discovered it's nothing more than the same story mode with the cutscene removed and co-op mode tacked on. As the main game is designed for portable play, each chapter were made to be very brief so these chapters are now individual missions that you can play separately on Raid mode. The objective of each mission remains largely the same but now there are no cutscenes or loading time to interupt the game-play, thereby allowing co-op play. It's almost as if the main game was meant to have co-op play as there are always a NPC character in each stage but yet it was strangely omitted.

So in the end, it turns out Raid mode wasn't a brand new mini-game as I would expect and the Mercenaries isn't featured in this game probably because Capcom expects you to buy the standalone Mercenaries 3D game also  released on the Nintendo 3DS. Nicely played Capcom, you always know what your fans want (or don't want) and give it to them. At a price, of course.

You wanna play Mercenaries on the 3DS? Be prepared to pony up the cash