Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

October 04, 2002

Reviewed by: Rock_On

Plot|Story:
Now in this game, you take control of the overly hot STARS member from the first RE, Jill Valentine(a bad-a$$ chick you do not want to upset). She’s just resigned after the events that happened at the mansion, and she’s trying to get out of Raccoon City until she realizes that the city has been overrun by zombies and of course because she’s going outside where someone might see her, she dresses in night attire(black mini-skirt and a low cut shirt to show off her bust, and of course the hooker boots to round out the outfit), and just so happenly brings along her automatic assault rifle with her. The story in this game takes place 2 hours BEFORE the evens in RE 2 for the first half of the game, and then the last half of the game coincides with the events taking place in RE2 with Leon and Claire. The way the story takes place in this game, is rather cool, and you get deja vu while exploring a few of the areas.

Gameplay|Control:
RE3: Nemesis is my favorite game in the whole RE series, and a lot of the reasons why I love it, are the reasons most the other people don’t like. First of all, there’s this new guy in town, and he’s hungry for S.T.A.R.S., and no I don’t mean the new cop Leon. This new guy is called Nemesis, which was created with one and only one reason for being created...to track down the members of S.T.A.R.S. and kill them. I’d have to say that the first thing that received my love for the game, was the FMV where you first encountered Nemesis, and seeing Brad Vickers get mutilated(you knew his death was coming after chickening out in the first RE).

Anyway, aside from the regular butt-ugly zombies and mutilated zombie dogs, this Nemesis creature will drop in on you at certain places in the game, and when this happens the screen will turn black and white and you’ll have the option of choosing to fight the damned creature, or escaping it one way or another. Now if you choose to fight him(which I did every time), this aint no lazy a$$ freak we’re talking about, it’ll run after you and charge you, forcing you to fight. Of course, if you get into the fight and you decide you’ve made the wrong choice, sometimes you can find someway to escape(such as going inside a building). When you fight the Nemesis, you don’t really kill him every time, instead...you’ll just weaken him and when it comes that time in the game to kill him, then you can kill him.

Well Like I’ve said before, the RE games have a mixture of action and puzzle elements, although one of em’ usually cancels out the other. Well, you still do a few puzzles and the constant item placement and backtracking(this is beginning to be a trend with the RE games), but RE3: Nemesis focuses on the action aspect a whole lot more than the item tracking and puzzle aspects. To me, this is definitely the main reason this has become my favorite RE game to date. So, since we’ve established the fact that this game is a lot more action orientated than usual, how about we get into that fighting stuff.

But first of all, on to the inventory. Jill automatically has ten items slots, therefore allowing you to keep and carry more items. When you lose health of course, you can find green herbs to use, and for a stronger effect you can combine two or three to refill your health(then, there’s blue that cures poison and red that doesn’t do anything but doubles or triples the effect of a green or blue herb when combined with them). There are a few new items to RE3: Nemesis, including the gun powder and mixer, and a health pack that holds up to three first aid sprays. Finally, all those first-aids won’t take up a slot each in your inventory, good job Capcom. Ok the next new feature is the ability to mix gun powder to make ammo. Running out of ammo is no longer a problem as you’ll find two types of gun powder, A and B(mix them together to get Powder C)...combine them different ways to create different kinds of ammo.

Speaking of ammo, how bout’ them weapons eh? Right from the get-go, you’re greeted with a uber-cool assault rifle with two extra ammo clips, handgun with a sh*t load of extra ammo, a magnum with extra bullets, and of course the trademark hunting knife. You’ll find(and make) even more ammo as you progress, and also more weapons...so there’s lots of fighting in the game. The shotgun and assault rifle are by far my favorite weapons, as they’re the most powerful of the bunch...the original handgun being the weakest, sounding more like a pellet gun than a real weapon. Once again, my favorite past time is shooting through numerous zombies with the shotgun, and also waiting till’ a zombie gets super close and then aiming up and pulling the trigger to pump some lead in his soon to be missing noggin’.

And of course, the in-famous RE control scheme is back, and is just as hectic as ever. Long time RE players should be able to jump right in, but for those who are new to the series, the controls take a bit of getting use to. You press left or right on the D-Pad to turn in those directions, and you push UP on the D-Pad to move in whatever direction you’re facing. Confusing usually, but is easy to get accustomed to. Then there’s the dynamic camera angles, which don’t switch until your character goes off the screen, then the camera will switch to the next scene where your character’s at. New to the RE arsenal is the 180 quick turn which is useful for getting out of tight situations, and now there’s a dodge maneuver. When you’re shooting at something, and it grabs at you...with the push of a button, Jill will dodge out of the way by a quick side-step. This feature comes in handy lots of times, especially when you’re trying to pump led into the Nemesis’ weird a$$ body.

Graphics:
Capcom updated the game a lot, and one of the biggest updates is the big difference in graphics even with it releasing only a year after RE 2. Capcom did a good job with the graphics, and since you’re mostly outside in the city rather than being confined in a building with boring backgrounds that all look the same, there was a lot of detail put into rendering the backgrounds of the city like buildings, and lots and lots of destruction from the city being overrun by the zombies, but also when you do go into a building such as diners, they’ve got a ton more vibrant colors. The backgrounds are nice and dark like they should, but there’s also lots of colors when need be.

The story moves along by the way of triggered cut-scenes or FMVs. Cut-scenes are used most often and usually explains a little of what to do next by character interaction using the blocky in-game graphics. Yes this game is truly Block City as far as characters go, but for the time these graphics were marvelous. Anyway, there are many cut-scenes triggered by certain events, but there are also certain parts where FMV(Full-Motion Video) is used. FMVs are a lot smoother than the graphics you'll see in cut-scenes, and usually they have a lot of action like the intro. It was so cool seeing all the zombies overtake the police and wreck havoc on Raccoon City.

Sound:
Aside from the freakish game play and cool graphics, the sound is by far the coolest. The music really sets the mood in this game, whether it be the eerie music that sends a chill down your back, or the dead quietness that most likely leads to something attacking you eventually. It’s a wonder what company’s can do to a game with it’s music, and instead of taking the cake, Capcom takes the whole damn bakery, giving you the experience you want just through the eerie music.

Then there’s the sound effects which create the suspense effect, such as dripping blood or water, footsteps, growling, and other little effects that I can’t explain; but no matter what it is, they’re all good. The voice acting has been improved upon a little, but Jill just doesn’t sound (or look) like she did in REmake. However, I do like Carlos’ accent(not that way stupid), just cause he sounds like a bad-a$$.

Rocky’s Corner:
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is my favorite game in the Resident Evil series because it had the amount of action that I like with a cooler weapon added to the inventory. You have an unlimited amount of saves, so feel free to play the game and save as many times as you like. This game can be found at most video game stores for between 10 and 20 dollars, and it’s worth a purchase.