E3 2011: Resident Evil Revelations

Capcom is showing some confidence in the 3DS with Resident Evil Revelations. This is a brand new, original Resident Evil game, not a remake. The game takes place between Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5. We follow Jill Valentine with her new partner, Parker Luciani, looking for a missing Chris Redfield. His last known location was aboard a cruise ship. Of course, being a Resident Evil game, it happens to be a super creepy, abandoned cruise ship. The pair encounter a new breed of frightening creatures.

The gameplay style is that of Resident Evil 4 and 5, not the earlier games in the series. That's fine by me as that's what I prefer. If you've played either of those games, you'll feel right at home. As the controls are basically the same. You can walk or run around in third person. In order to fire your weapon, you have to take aim by planting you feet in place. You can now aim freely, but you can't move. I liked the way it worked in the RE4 and 5, and I'm comfortable with it here too. However, I did miss the context sensitive attack moves that you can perform when you position yourself the correct way near an enemy. There were special defense move prompts once a monster has grabbed a hold of you, but obviously, you don't want it to come to that. I don't know whether the special attack moves are missing from the game, or whether I simply did not know how to position myself to activate the prompts. These types of context sensitive and environmental attacks were some of my favorite aspects of the combat in RE4 and 5.

When you're not fighting, you explore the ship and solve a variety of puzzles. In classic Resident Evil fashion, you must examine different areas to pick up items needed to solve puzzles. The E3 demo wasn't very long, but it did feature a puzzle mini-game that utilized the touch screen. Expect the game to include several such puzzles. You will also be able to collect items that will allow you to later upgrade your weapons. Earning and selecting weapon enhancements was another feature I really enjoyed from RE4, so I'm glad it's back.

Other than the small touch screen puzzle I encountered, the gameplay did not really show me anything we haven't seen before. However, I should stress that the demo was short. The cruise ship setting has a lot of potential. For example, Capcom explained that some areas of the ship are flooded, and feature new, underwater enemies.

I think Resident Evil Revelations features the best graphics I've seen on the 3DS so far. It's pretty impressive. The screenshots give you an idea, but the game looks better in motion, and it looks pretty cool in 3D. I couldn't hear the sound very well in Nintendo's booth, but I could tell that there was some effort put into it.

If the demo is any indication, then it seems like Capcom is putting just as much effort into this iteration of the franchise as they did for RE4 or 5. It looks pretty good so far. Resident Evil fans are definitely going to want to keep an eye on this.