Resident Evil: Revelations (3DS) Review

Derelict ships give me the creeps. Part of this unease comes from seeing these hulking monstrosities sitting in the middle of nowhere, getting pitched around by violent waves. The rest is obvious. What happened to the crew?

Hollywood has the resources necessary to make a scary boat movie, but continuously drops the ball by infesting theaters with horror cheese; the awful Ghost Ship springs to mind.

Enter Capcom with Resident Evil: Revelations, a 3DS title that practically screams "I'm on a boat", minus T-Pain, of course.

Much of the adventure, which occurs between Resident Evil 4 (the village) and Resident Evil 5 (this is Africa), takes place aboard the intimidating Queen Zenobia, a seemingly abandoned ocean liner rusting away in the Atlantic.

Split into chapters, with cornball "Recently, on Resident Evil: Revelations" recaps, the game mostly stars hero Jill Valentine as she wanders through this monster filled death trap that also bears a striking resemblance to the mansion from the original Resident Evil, the bedrooms, library and dining hall merging beautifully with the crew's quarters, bridge and casino; you even get to play the slots.

It's a wonderful environment, easily one of the best we've seen in the franchise, though like Hollywood's abominations, cornball antics somewhat lesson the appeal, starting with flashbacks with a floating city with a silly name (Terragrigia) no one will care about, along with some land missions in a snowy environment. On the positive side, Resident Evil alum Chris Redfield is playable. Conversely, some of the new characters get on my nerves (the dialogue is horrendously bad), and with each of these chapters, I desperately plowed through them all to return to Zenobia, where the entire game should have taken place.

To that end, Revelations appears caught between different play styles. Part of the game wants to follow the more traditional and desired survival horror route, with enemies bursting through grates, unnerving diary entries of humans turned monsters and maggot-filled corpses sprawled on tables. That stuff's great, despite the fact that it goes hand in hand with lots of backtracking through the ship to insert newly discovered keys and medallions into locks.

At the same time, Capcom peppered the experience with more action-heavy sequences involving machine guns and copious amounts of ammo lying around. You must also get used to having a partner (mostly newcomers Parker Luciani and Jessica Sherawat) following Jill or Chris around like obsessed fans. Not only does the companionship kill the scares, but these computer-controlled characters also do an excellent job standing around. Killing monsters? Not so much. At one point, we lost Parker entirely while battling an especially nasty boss. At least they can't die, and therefore require zero micromanagement like Sheva Alomar in RE5. Capcom was also wise to nix co-op from the single player.

The game's creatures, what should be the real stars, feel like a wasted opportunity. The more common types, the Ooze, come in only a handful of variations and fail to thrill as much as the crimson head zombies from the superb Resident Evil remake (GameCube, Wii). Eventually, it becomes "oh, you guys again."

The same holds true with the Hunters, the lizard like critters that also appeared in the first title, except now, they turn invisible.

Thankfully, the bosses are the real highlight, including a gibberish-muttering blob and mutated woman that uses the air ducts to move around. They lack intelligence, but more than make up for that with jump out of your seat moments.

Of course, whether or not you're scared heavily depends on how many Resident Evil games you've played. As a longtime veteran, I was able to anticipate just about everything before it happened, but that'll be different for everyone.

Yes, there's plenty to nitpick, especially how the game stutters terribly during elevator rides. This criticism, though, comes from love, simply because there's a lot Capcom got right.

The narrative, warts and all, managed to hold my interest, with the BSAA tracking down a shadowy terrorist organization called Veltro.

I was also a big fan of Genesis, a bio scanner that works similarly to bounty hunter Samus Aran's in Metroid Prime. It's a bit silly (more sci-fi, really), but the ability to search environments for different items (be it ammo or green herb) provides a cool element to the game. I just wish Capcom did more with scanning monsters. Instead of revealing more info, reaching 100 percent produces a green herb you may not be able to carry, since the game caps you at five.

The controls, meanwhile, are quite good. I've yet to play using Nintendo's Circle Pad Pro, but the default set-up works, particularly going from third person exploring to first person shooting. Dodging, however, seems useless, as it rarely worked when I needed it most.

Outside of the single player campaign, there's Raid, a mini-game that replaces Mercenaries; probably for the best, since you can buy the standalone Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. Here, you plow through levels pulled from the main quest, killing progressively difficult monsters and earning points to unlock better weapons and equipment. What makes it special is the inclusion of local and online co-op with a friend. Regardless of how you connect, the game runs smoothly throughout.

Visually, Revelations is the most graphically intense 3DS game available. Capcom earns kudos for pushing Nintendo's system to new heights, with a variety of detailed locations (be on the lookout for a grand hall), the ship that gently rolls with the waves, near Xbox 360 quality characters and numerous special effects during computer generated (and also impressive) cut scenes. Characters mouths don't move when they talk in game, but that's a very small complaint.

As for the glasses free 3D, things don't pop out as much as you get sucked in, which works just as well. To that end, the game is easy on the eyes, and I was able to play most of it with the 3D slider jacked all the way up.

On the audio side, Capcom plays some cool tricks within the ship, but most of the background noise doesn't amount to much. You'll hear monsters scuttling around. Turn a corner, though, and nothing happens. It's a bit of a letdown.

Granted, there are few portable Resident Evil games to choose from, but Revelations is by far the best, and it's perhaps even better than some of the console entries. Capcom stumbled, but still managed to offer a thoroughly enjoyable romp filled with intense monster blasting fun, along with dump trucks full of gore and some unexpected plot twists along the way. A must for all 3DS owners, and just one of many reasons to purchase the machine.

Review copy provided by Capcom.