Although the title for 'Resident Evil 3' suggests it's a remake, it requires no knowledge of the original, or even the franchise itself, to enjoy it.
From the outset, the experience is terrifying, immersing the player in a first-person perspective with musical suspense akin to a triple-A cinema horror title. Skin crawling strings that recapitulate through the tensest spots further in the adventure build anticipation to jump scares that sometimes never come. Still, this uncertainty leads to pure shock and awe when a zombie does eventually pounce from behind or slump out from a concealed location.
Musical tension building aside, 'Resident Evil 3' is immensely visceral. At certain times in the game, you will be oddly enamoured by the chunks of flesh blown from bodies using particular weapons.
Running on the same engine as its predecessors 'Resident Evil 2' and 'RE7', 'Resident Evil 3' runs smoothly on even the launch Xbox One, with superb graphical fidelity and animation. Not having played the original PS One offering, one could conceive that a gamer of the late ‘90s would have never imagined the game ever looking this good at the time. Nor could they imagine just how detailed it could become.
There’s no skimp on the gore and sinew spewing around the room, provided you haven’t run out of ammo.
Bullets, grenades, and the general arsenal of an outbreak survivor tend to be of plentiful supply in the game, which does tend to distract from the survival aspect of limiting your usage of weapons. However, there are moments when you will curse yourself for using slightly too much when less could have sufficed, forcing the player to return to a previous save. Early in the game, you will be – as expected – incredibly conservative with munitions – but once you gain confidence, the survival horror aspect of 'Resident Evil 3' becomes less apparent.
After a certain point, early in the game, 'Resident Evil 3' becomes much more action-oriented. You care less and less about eliminating enemies with as little expenditure as possible, and more about reaching your next goal, often spraying more bullets than necessary to achieve that objective. This does remove much of the tension that’s so well constructed through the factors mentioned previously.
Where the game plays to this weakness is in the inclusion of The Nemesis. Upon various encounters with this adversary, you will be shocked, and leave battles with much fewer resources than you wish. Subsequently, your time in between boss fights will be spent rebuilding your inventory for the next faceoff. But reducing the game to that level of tedious repetition as a description would be a disservice. The game provides challenges in new enemy types often enough that you will be forever kept on your toes, never knowing when one will arise, or what level of lethality they will bring.
Coupled with the purchase of the game is 'Resident Evil Resistance', an online asymmetrical multiplayer mode not dissimilar to 'Dead Before Daylight'. Where it differs from its inspiration is in the world. Standing accepted principles remain of one player host doing their best to eliminate a team of survivors using an array of traps and other tools. However, being native to the 'Resident Evil' world, the extension does stand out and is enjoyable from the time playing pre-launch.
'Resident' Evil 3 will thrill you. It’s worth the copious amounts of spare time you’ve likely gained in recent weeks and offers a glimmer of hope into our lives in contrast to what a zombie pandemic might look like opposed to the “C word” one we’re currently experiencing.
