Well, it seems we are all still here. People are beginning to embrace The Dark and the shops even have their Halloween stuff out… kind of ruining the mood it’s right next to an often larger Christmas display but the backlash against that is still progressing. So we have seen tales of Gothic horror, of vampires and werewolves, mayhap it’s time to see what the future will hold.

Ok first up sorry I forgot to do my man coming out behind the curtain act last time, I’m sorry. Sgathaich: Castlevania Bloodlines

Earlier this year the remake of Resident Evil 2 came out. Long awaited for since the remake of the first game, it came out to a resounding applause as it and 7 were being hailed as a return to form after the missteps of 5 and the atrocity of 6. But the original game had a sister title, one so tied into it that now us nerds are foretelling another game about to get a remake, one primed for it in fact. Resident Evil 3 NEMESIS!

First coming out in 1999 on the Playstation before being ported to other consoles, including the ill-fated Dreamcast. Nemesis is set both before and after Resident Evil 2 and actually does more of what people think 2 would do than what 2 actually did. You see people think of 2 and think of a whole city overrun by zombies, then you play it and its all mostly set around one location then going deeper into an evil lab, much like 1 did. Resident Evil 3 however, features a lot more of going through the streets of Raccoon City, in fact you go to the police station at one point, but then after a short while you get all you can there and leave going back out onto the streets.

The game stars Jill Valentine from the original game, who resigned after no one believed them and lack of action against Umbrella (in 2 it was revealed the police chief was in on it all) but gets caught up in the zombie outbreak. It plays much like the classic Resident Evils, a survival horror with limited space and ammunition as you sometimes have to decide that fighting isn’t the best result and instead have to run to conserve supplies. This becomes very important when dealing with the title character NEMESIS. This guy is what the MR X style tyrant from 2 would ultimately evolve game play wise (so those of you playing the remake of 2 expect even more of that kind of enemy).

First encounter when you go to the police station you are given the choice of run or fight. Most people choose run since he’s kind of impossible to beat at this stage, being the equivalent to fighting the final boss early on. He appears repeatedly through the game, sometimes giving you the option of safely running away or doing something that will temporarily knock him down. You see you are rewarded if you do down him on hard mode, even if it’s just temporarily for a cut scene (he gets up if you do this and thus you need to run away later). You get special super items if you manage to take him down, some of these require knocking down twice to merge the items, easier said than done as he also has a rocket launcher, he will fire at you with.

As eluded to up there, another feature is combining items. Doing this can make you more ammo, combine healing items into stronger ones to take up less space or other things such as combining the parts you got for downing Nemesis.

Completing the game gives several rewards. That’s right all those things like different outfits, bonus games extra files and such that because of corporate greed is now thrown is as micro transactions and dlc is all here in the base game as a reward for you, encouraging you to play more and improve. The mercenaries mode lets you play as different characters and by playing it you can unlock items like the infinite rocket launcher, suddenly all those hordes of zombies are nothing as you can just stand and fire a missile launcher and never run out of ammo (feels really good) but as said you need to unlock these so it’s a nice reward for completion of the game.

Resident Evil 3 is a very important title in the series history and was the last on the Playstation before the move to the GameCube era generation (aka Game Cube, PS2 and XBox) which would see the releases of Code Veronica, the remake of Res 1, Resident Evil Zero before finally pushing the game into a more action way with Res 4. With this being the last main game before they turned Jill into a plot device in 5 it’s good to see her at her best and without some of the infamously bad dialog from her first game. So come try this out before the inevitable Res 3 remake (won’t be too long, given how much it and 2 share in resources)

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