HomeReviewsResident Evil 3: Nemesis
Resident Evil 3 reviewThe brute of all evil
The brute of all evil
Release:3 AprilOn:WindowsFrom:SteamPrice:£50/€60/$60
Honestly, I’m gladResident Evil 3is a short game, because it was really, really, stressful to play. After six hours of it, I was thoroughly jangled, and just wanted a break from things trying to messily dismantle me. Which, to be fair, means it did exactly what I wanted it to do. Before my nerves tattered and I evolved into a Strategy Dad, you see, I used to love a bit of survival horror. So I knew what boxes RE3 needed to tick - and it left great bloody claw marks through all of them.
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The shooting feels good. Zombies’ heads burst pleasantly, like wet Maltesers crushed in a stapler, and with the possible exception of the assault rifle with its rattly lightness, every weapon feels appropriately kicky and weighty. I can’t aim for piss and have the reaction time of a gorilla on its deathbed, so I played with aim assist on, and I still found the game pretty challenging. You might be a lot better, but I’d be surprised if you found it a breeze.
The level design is excellent. Play areas are modestly open, enough for exploration and backtracking at least, and every little corner has some kind of purpose. It’s pretty navigable, too - I’m terrible for getting lost in games, ending up haunting bits of street like a shit ghost who can’t climb over minor barriers, but this barely happened to me in RE3, largely because of the pragmatic map feature (which also marks the location of uncollected loot, if you need to go back for things).
And I really can’t overstate how great everything in this game looks. It’s masterfully lit, the textures are some of the best I’ve ever seen, and protagonist Jill Valentine looks almost real at times. But it’s the details that really do it for me - especially in the first half of the game, every location is phenomenally rich in just…stuff. I spent ages just marvelling at weird in-universe film posters and adverts, to the extent where I’ve written a whole separate post on my favourites. There was a moment in downtown Raccoon City, in fact, where I was bizarrely reminded ofTales From Off-Peak City- because though RE3 is basically the polar opposite of that game in every way, that was the last time I got so into exploring a setting. And it all served a purpose, as I often found items, and even secrets, just because I was poking around and admiring things.
Fearwise, RE3 is pitched just right. There are some jump scares, sure. But this isn’t a game designed for exhaustingly energetic YouTube men to shriek at. Most of the horror, as is good and right, comes from a sense of dread, and the sense of constantly being under threat. The stunning use of environmental sound, together with its best mate, superb lighting design, means you never, ever feel safe. RE3 flexes this from the very opening of the game, where it uses a simple trip to the bathroom to show you that it’s got you exactly where it wants you. There’s a darkened shower that I wascertainwas hiding a brutus of some kind, and even though it wasn’t, Schrödinger’s zombie was enough to well and truly rattle my ronalds.
This is an action-heavy number, with a lower-than-average skulking quotient for a survival horror game, but the sense of dread carries through to the combat sections just fine. Because even though the camera behaves impeccably, and the controls are loyal beasts, it’snever quite enough. Even the basic zombies lurch around the place like crane flies round a streetlight (I hate those fuckers), and while Jill can run, it’s not the casual Usainian sprint of most action game heroes: it’s the run of a real, genuinely knackered human, and there’s a real sense of inertia to it. Dragging her away from pursuers is like walking a pissed lead skeleton home from the pub, and the dodge control really earns its keep.
The spiders are absolutely dreadful, and they’re just one of an impressive variety of enemy types for a reasonably short game. Even the zombies are a fine staple, with enough variety to them that they never get tiring, and there’s never long to wait before something new and vile is thrown at you.
The star of the show though, without a doubt, is Nemesis. Nemesis is the very archetype of the Relentless Brute, and looks like what would happen if Davy Jones from Pirates of the Carribean spent all his money on protein shakes, and then only had a fiver left to make an outfit for a night out at a BDSM club. But alas, Nemesis is neither safe, sane nor consensual: he would almost certainly be thrown out of said club, after being found endgame shitfaced, strangling a teenager outside the loos in his bin bag trenchcoat.
Nemesis is a bioweapon, who wakes up each day with one item on his to-do list: “absolutely beast Jill Valentine”. Jill was some sort of supercop, who’s trying to take down the evil Umbrella corporation, and… oh, to hell with all that. He’s the truck fromDuel. The Terminator fromThe Terminator. The T-rex fromJurassic Park. A big bastard who won’t give up, or stop to explain himself. He’s teased in the opening FMV sequence, and I assumed he was going to be a late-game boss monster of some kind. But then, right near the start of the game, about the time I was expecting a tutorial sequence, he smashed through a wall in a moment of pure “guess what, now this is happening”, and began the bruting. The tutorial was his fists.
I do kind of want to flag the whole “violence against women” aspect of Nemesis, and of the game in general, as it’s hard to deny it’s a theme, or that it’s presented with at least a little relish. I realise it’s completely unreasonable to single out RE3 for this when, y’know,gestures at the entire history of the horror genre. And in fairness, you play as trigger-happy mercenary Carlos for a good portion of the game, so you get to see loads of lingering close ups of aman’sneck getting devoured like a late night burger, too.
I actually liked the interactions between Carlos and Jill, and they worked well to dispel some of the general miasma of yikes mentioned above. Carlos (who is also sexy, though I can’t work out whether that’s because of or despite his ridiculous hair) is a prick. He wants to play the white knight, and Jill’s just not having any of it. Her dialogue never really strays into cringey Strong Female Protagonist territory while fending it off - she’s just a total professional, who’s too busy trying to deal with her situation to pay any heed to that sort of guff. She never feels like half the victim her death animations make her seem.
Despite being a long time survival horror fan, theResident Evilseries is one of my big gaming blind spots - I haven’t gotten round to playing last year’sRE2 remakeyet, so I went into this game with no expectations at all. WatchingMatthew’s excellent video review, it seems that from a series fan’s perspective, there’s moderately more to delight than to disappoint in RE3, even if it maybe falls a little short of the RE2 remake. But I can only speak as someone who’s played this game in isolation.
You can, of course, enjoy Matthew’s video review right here:
Watch on YouTube
Watch on YouTube
