The evil begins.
Resident Evil has been on a roll as of late. First the wonderfully remastered RE-release of the RE-make was brought over to new systems and with critical success. Now a few weeks later, we see the return of the Revelations franchise. This spin off series was an interesting take as each episode presented was broken down in the style of a tv show. Featuring recaps and an ease of jumping right back in the game if players had decided to take a break. Revelations 2 takes this idea and literally turns it into a month long mini-series as folks will have a new episode each week to play. ZTGD got our hands on the entire season of episodes and starting with episode one, have what appears to be a great start.
For veteran fans of the franchise, Revelations 2 sees the return of fan favorites Barry Burton and Claire Redfield. The story starts off in typical Resident Evil fashion with Claire and Moira Burton being taking hostage while at an event and sees them waking up somewhere much worse. Alone and no idea where they have been taken, Claire and Moira must work together for their survival against some rather hideous enemies. Meanwhile someone watches from a security system, taunting them, and explaining their new bracelets they’ve been equipped with. We switch over to Barry who has discovered his daughter has been kidnapped and rushes to the location they are now being held, but how he knows and why, I’ll leave up to the player to discover.
Barry has returned.
MSRP: $4.99 per episode
Platforms: PC, XB1, 360, PS4, PS3
Release of Final Episode: March 17th, 2014
The core gameplay of the original Revelations is here and intact. An over the shoulder viewpoint with a focus on shooting and solving mini puzzles to progress in the level. The game also features a secondary character with the player at all times (local co-op as well) Granted switching to them at any point allows for use of their abilities. That said, don’t expect the other character to be a fighter in the slightest, that’s reserved for Barry and Claire. Who’s the second character that travels with Barry you ask? I’ll let players discover this on their own as having no idea of this person was a surprise and totally unexpected. Players can also earn BP points or find them in the form of hidden gems throughout the campaign, which is used to unlock a rather large skill tree for the characters.
The first episode sees our characters exploring a decrepit prison. While I had some reservations about having Barry explore the same area I just had done with Claire in his segment, it worked. Eventually his segment lead way to a new forest sequence with new enemies that are downright creepy in movement and that took precision shots to kill. This lead to some very exciting, yet intense encounters. The game seems to run extremely well on the Xbox One with only a few noticeable dips at times, granted I did experience some clipping with few of the battles. The soundtrack also stood out as it seems quite creepy at moments setting the mood for the fantastic atmosphere episode 1 has.
Raid mode returns.
The whole experience lasted me around and hour and 48 minutes and of course gave me not only one shocking revelation at the end, but two. Episode 1 does a great job of throwing players into the new mystery, gameplay mechanics, and leaves you wanting more and I eagerly await to talk about it with folks after the release. Once finishing it, you can play Raid mode to keep you busy, but luckily won’t have to wait long for those next episodes. Until then, stay tuned to ZTGD next week for further impressions as we jump straight into episode two, leading up to our inevitable reviews of the entire season on March 17th.
Tune in next week for the Episode 2 review.
Score will be assigned upon final episode review.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
