Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"All it's cracked up to be"

Returning to the franchise a 3rd time, Capcom yet again faced pressure to deliver an outstanding game. By exploring the next steps of the original's Jill Valentine and upping the action factor, they created a fun game that maintains the sense of dread and horror though it's been wrapped around a more run-'n'-gun core.

Having just resigned from STARS, Jill Valentine has but one goal--to escape Raccoon City and its hordes of virus-created zombies. With the city even further deteriorated and resembling a town under siege, she has to navigate streets and buildings in hopes of finding an escape route. She has two main obstacles: shady Umbrella mercenaries and the titular Nemesis, a gigantic, scarily speedy mutant whose fixation on STARS manifests itself in a single-minded purpose of killing you, and wields a rocket launcher to that end. New series additions include finding gunpowders (allowing you to create ammunitions to suit your gameplay style and eventually created enhanced bullets if you make the same types enough times) and new moves like an evade/counter maneuver and a quick reverse, both facilitating the new emphasis on action. By game's end you'll find out further truths behind the Umbrella T-Virus incident and barely escape as a new outside threat approaches.

On the plus side, the foreboding atmosphere that's been created keeps the sense of fright intact even though there's more action. Being to an area you visited in RE:2, but seeing more doors now barricaded, gives a palpable sense of danger, almost letting you feel the panic of the people who erected the barricades. The shocks have smartly been increased, and in true horror movie fashion some are innocuous red herrings to throw you off your game. The addition of branching paths, via two on-screen prompts on how to deal with an imminent threat, lets you feel more in control, and the choice you make might impact where you enter the next area, allowing for replays to not be the same.

Unfortunately, inventory management still drags the game down a bit, and even though you'll soon acquire an extra two slots, it still feels like not enough, and a bit insulting when you can't pick up a key. The end is a tad lackluster, as a few earlier encounters pack more punch and seem to have more danger than what your final boss battle includes. Translation-wise, the series regresses a bit in terms of the amount of 'Engrish' that has slipped in, though depending on your mindset, that might be a positive. Either way, it's only tiny things like "hunger" being incorrectly substituted for "hungry", so it never impairs your ability to know what you need to.

The new gameplay controls give the series a much-needed shot in the arm, though in very close quarters the new evade move often gets implemented when you really just want (or need) to attack. The graphics are a series-best, with new monster models for the familiar, and impressive work done on new creatures. While the overall aural presentation is fantastic with regards to the score and off-in-the-distance ambient sounds, some things like footsteps still sound a bit flat. While the game is a quicker play than its predecessors, what it packs into that time makes up for it, and a host of new unlockables and the branching paths add more replay for the dedicated. While the game is perhaps a bit more suited to series fans only, as opposed to being more open to genre fans, it's still a fantastic game that anyone can enjoy if they don't mind jumping into the middle of a story.