Resident Evil 6's October release date is now only a month and a half away, so we're ramping up our project to replay all of the company's older efforts in storyline order. We first looked back at Resident Evil Zero in April, and in May we replayed the original 1996 adventure via its 2002 GameCube remake. Last month, we returned to Raccoon City by revisiting Resident Evil 2. Now it's time for Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.
As the first and only numbered Resident Evil sequel to have a subtitle attached to its name, everyone knew going into this third PlayStation adventure that something about "Nemesis" was going to be critically important to the game. Capcom made it even more obvious by placing the hulking, nightmare-inducing beast front and center on the game's packaging – the Nemesis was your enemy. Your singular foe. The villain so overwhelming that the entire duration of this latest RE title would be spent trying to take him down – or, more likely, just running away in abject terror.
It was a defining design decision that Capcom made, and it worked beautifully. Whereas the terror in the first two Resident Evil games was mostly centered on the hundreds of zombies lurking around every corner of the Mansion and the Raccoon City streets, Resident Evil 3 totally refocused its fright factor by building up this one, relentless, nearly omnipresent creature. The Nemesis was the most powerful zombie ever – he just couldn't be killed. And even worse than that immortality was the fact that he broke so many rules.
Survival horror games are meant to be scary, of course, and players know to prepare for shocks and surprises going in – but there's still a kind of comfort to be had in the knowledge of how most of these enemies are going to behave. The Nemesis, though, took even those small comforts away. He could run just as fast as your character, which broke the rule of zombies being slow and giving you time to react. He could assault you from afar with a rocket launcher, which broke the rule of zombies only being able to hurt you in close quarters. Worst of all, he could follow you through doors. That broken rule was the hardest of all to handle. We never knew how much we relied on the simple technical boundaries of loading screens protecting us from attacks until that first time we leapt through a nearby door, tried to catch our breath, and then saw the Nemesis come charging straight through to continue his hunt for "STAAAAAAARRRRRSSSSS!"
Run-ins with the iconically scary Nemesis happened continuously throughout Resident Evil 3, as just when you thought you left him behind he'd pop up again at the most inconvenient time, in the most inconvenient place, to once again try to eat your brain. Capcom took the opportunity of these unique encounters to do something new with gameplay. You wouldn't just walk into a room and find the Nemesis sitting around waiting to battle you again – instead, you almost always got a choice of how to react to his appearances.
Called the "Live Selection" system, the game would briefly freeze and flash in black and white at these critical moments, then give you a quick on-screen choice between two alternative actions. Would you rather stand and fight, or turn and run? Would you like to go left, or go right? Memories of old Choose Your Own Adventure books and even the classic Dragon's Lair arcade game might have occurred to some players, except none of us really had the time to sit and think – because if you didn't pick an option within just a few seconds, the game would decide that your indecisiveness must be punished. Usually by Jill getting seriously hurt, or even instantly killed.
The RE series has never again used this specific type of reaction mechanic, but from a certain perspective, it could be seen as a precursor to the fast-button-input Quick Time Events that began to appear later on in Resident Evil 4.
Another way Resident Evil 3 paved the way for its subsequent sequels was with its introduction of a new minigame called "The Mercenaries - Operation: Mad Jackal." Fans of the franchise will recognize the name, as a shortened version – just "The Mercenaries" – was used for minigames in both Resident Evil 4 and 5. It even got spun-off into its own standalone retail release with last year's Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D for Nintendo's 3DS.
Those later versions and their focus on taking down tons of zombies to rack up high scores have little in common with RE3's original version, though, as Operation: Mad Jackal was more of a time attack game. You'd pick to play as one of three commando characters from the game's main storyline – Carlos, Mikhail or Nicholai – and try to make it from one starting point to an end goal in another part of Raccoon City in just two minutes. Running straight there was impossible, though – you'd always run out of time. So along the way you'd have to take down zombies and assist uninfected survivors to score time bonuses, extending the countdown and giving you enough extra seconds to make it to the finish line.
As the third and final Resident Evil title for the original PlayStation, RE3 represented the pinnacle of the series' design on its originating platform. Its foundations were firmly the same as RE1 and 2 – the same tank-like control scheme, pre-rendered backgrounds and all the rest of the series' hallmarks were found here once again. But lots of little tweaks and upgrades made the cut for this final PSone outing.
You could activate a new dodge maneuver to avoid zombie attacks, using proper timing to sidestep their hungry lunges and save yourself the trouble of having to use up quite so many Green Herbs. You could walk up and down staircases without needing to press an action button to do so – an improvement that greatly benefited the game's overall flow. And, crucially, you could now execute fast, 180-degree turns on the spot. Capcom had actually first introduced that little move in the RE-esque Dino Crisis, but it proved to be truly invaluable with the Nemesis hot on your heels through Raccoon City.
Oh, and then there was the gunpowder. For some reason, Resident Evil 3 went nuts for gunpowder. You didn't really upgrade your weapons much in this one – instead you'd find all sorts of gunpowder containers all over the city and you'd mix them together to create better and better ammunition. It was another unique addition to the series, but also another one that hasn't ever been used again.
That's the thing about Resident Evil 3: Nemesis – it's arguably the most unique and individual of all the numbered RE games. We've tried to pin down the potential impact of each installment on the new RE6 with each of these articles, but with Nemesis it's a question mark. So many of its elements seem destined to stay locked into just this one game – the focus on a singular foe, the "Live Selection" choices, the gunpowder mixing. If anything, the thing that will probably carry forward into 6 will be the ridiculously impractical costumes for our playable heroes – have you seen the tube top and mini-skirt they stuck Jill in for this game?
If you want to go back and experience Nemesis for yourself before RE6 arrives, you've got just about the same array of options as you did for RE2. There's the original PlayStation release from 1999. Then there's a series of ports to PC, to the Dreamcast and to the GameCube – though the Cube version didn't exactly find many fans thanks to its inflated pricetag back in 2003. PlayStation Network's also got it up for download, for all you PS3 and PSP owners out there. But we'll end by reitirating the same sentiment from last time – Capcom, we'd love a modern remake of this adventure at some point. Surely you're not too scared to bring back the Nemesis, right?
Lucas M. Thomas still plays Resident Evil games with the lights on. You're not going to change his mind about that. Join him on his IGN blog and Twitter.
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