Resident Evil: Revelations (PlayStation 4) Review

Whilst mighty impressive in its portable format, the origins of Resident Evil: Revelations are pretty evident across the latest HD release, with murky textures, low detailed characters, and some dodgy controls. For the most part, this looks really sharp, and it runs super smooth, so there is no doubt it is the most playable and visually appealing version of the game available. The lacking detail here and there doesn't really detract from the overall atmosphere of being set predominantly on a ghost ship, which is a solid setting for a horror game.

The aiming controls are rather off, though, as small nudges of the control stick don't move the crosshair at all, and when it does move, it can be a little finicky in its accuracy. This can be a problem when going for headshots or specific parts of an enemy. Enemies are generally bulky enough that it's not always a problem, and there aren't any annoying and fast-moving little sods that would eat up half a dozen bullets just trying to hit one, so this doesn't always pose a threat, but there are times it plays havoc, such as when putting down wolves that like to move around a lot.

"Wolves on a ghost ship?" you say? The snowy mountains, actually. Resident Evil: Revelations doesn't just take place on the Queen Zenobia with Jill Valentine and partner Parker Luciani investigating the seemingly abandoned vessel. The story is split up into various episodes, which are again condensed into further parts, taking players through a range of playable characters in various locations across different points in time. This is really where Revelations lets itself down more than any other area.

Rather than being focused on a single setting with a driven narrative, the jumps back and forth between events in the past that lead up to current events, and switching between various characters, don't really do much apart from throw things off course and lessen the interest and impact of things happening in the present. The episodic format was likely done with the 3DS in mind, letting players push through a section of the game in 10- to 30-minute bursts, then carrying on later. The recaps at the end of each episode further imply that.

Unfortunately, this combined with the timeline jumps just pulls you out of the game. There may be a case for keeping the Chris and Jessica sections in the mountains, but the playable flashbacks and controllable parts with two minor side characters that last about 10 minutes a time could have been done away with. More people may have appreciated a playable Rachel section instead (new players will understand once they see her in-game).

This stop-start nature isn't ideal for maintaining a consistent level of engagement, but when it comes down to it, Revelations is still a decent third-person shooter that starts well in terms of setting a strong survival horror tone on the ship, but drops off into a typical modern Resident Evil action game. There are still core concepts in place, like backtracking and some puzzle elements, but the latter is very light and requires little brainpower, and often is more a case of going to a place to find a key of sorts and coming back to use it. The smaller and cramped location possibly limits how expansive the developers could have gone in terms of trekking and mapping the areas for points of interest to come back to later, which is again a factor of this being a handheld title at heart, so Revelations on home console needs to be approached differently.

There's about a six- to nine-hour campaign here (depending on difficulty and skill level), and it's even worth a blast through again to search out the 30 hidden collectables and to carry over previous weapons into a New Game+, but the big appeal post-story will be Raid Mode. This can be played with one or two players, and lets them tackle each episode, modified slightly for this mode's purposes, in what is essentially a score attack. Aim to reach the end of the stage whilst taking out as many enemies as possible in the fastest time, collecting bonus points along the way.

Even in single-player, Raid is the sort of feature that demands coming back for more, much in the same way The Mercenaries did in previous Resident Evil instalments, but with two-player co-op thrown in for good measure, and a host of unlockable characters, this could genuinely be the main reason to pick up Revelations more than the story itself.