Resident Evil 3 Remake

The Review

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The Resident Evil 3 remake is finally here and ya girl accidentally on purpose pulled an all-nighter to do a first play through. How fortunate for all you fine gamer girls and guys out there that my questionable choices now allow me to give you the low-down on the latest goings on of Raccoon City.

Real quick, for those not familiar with the RE series, the games follow a group of cops and special agents who become embroiled in a decades long battle with the Umbrella Corporation whose sole purpose seems to be creating crazy ass bioweapons through numerous viruses as a way to take over the world.

Over the last 24 years the franchise has spawned over 25 installments, some canon, some remakes, and a few that people like to pretend never existed. It was also the source material for the truly terrible Resident Evil movies that practically had the whole series written out for them but instead went rogue creating clones or some shit and making up new, unnecessary, characters that I never really cared about. But I digress.

In Resident Evil 3, we follow my beautiful sassy babe, Jill Valentine, one of the few surviving members of the S.T.A.R.S team, as she navigates her way through Raccoon City during a city wide virus outbreak….almost too close to home, huh? But while we’re chilling at home playing video games, Jill finds herself on the run from Nemesis, a bioweapon created by Umbrella to take out all remaining S.T.A.R.S members as a cover up for that pesky mansion situation in the Arklay Mountains. 

Full disclosure, I never played the original RE 3 myself, but! I have watched others play it in walkthroughs on Youtube so I’m vaguely familiar.

First things first, much like the Resident Evil 2 remake last year, this game is gorgeous. Jill and her U.B.C.S counterpart, Carlos Oliveira, couldn’t look more real with their dirt covered skin and greasy hair. The carnage and chaos on the streets of Raccoon City could just as easily be happening in my own town with everything seeming so life-like I could almost feel the heat from the fires. 

Jill herself not only gets a costume upgrade, cause who the fuck can fight so many monsters in a tube top and mini skirt…the skin exposure to bites is maddening, but also gets to showcase how mentally fucked up she got after surviving the Spencer mansion incident from RE 1. The first few minutes of the game are brought to you by nightmares and PTSD which I think was a cool, realistic touch in the aftermath of her traumatic event. 

Now for the nitty gritty. Nemesis is an asshole but the real problem of this game is all the fucking zombies. They. Are. Everywhere. “Duh, Jodi. It’s a zombie game.” Yeah yeah, fair, but without the ability to use defensive weapons like knives or grenades the way you could in the RE2 remake, it’s almost a sure thing that you’re about to get into a bitey gang bang that can take you from slightly hurt to dead within seconds. The newly added dodge mechanism is cool but touchy and there’s a definite learning curve to being able to properly dodge a hoard. 

Nemesis himself comes in small but intense doses, a change up from the original where he’d follow you for ages and could show up at any time. Personally, my heart and anxiety levels can’t take being chased constantly around a game so I appreciate the shorter bursts of terror. But heads up, stockpile that ammo kids, cause the boss fights are no joke….I’m also a notorious panic-er during big fights so maybe that’s just me. 

Because of the shared timelines between RE 2 and RE 3 you get to return to similar territory like the RPD where some lingering questions get answered like, how’d that cop get stuck on a pipe in the ceiling or how’d my boy Marvin get into the predicament he does (which is actually kind of sad cause I love Marvin.) Even Brad Vickers, the douchebag pilot who leaves Jill and the rest of the S.T.A.R.S Alpha team to fend for themselves at the Spencer Mansion, gets a moment of redemption. I’m always a fan of a callback or an explanation so it was really fun to see certain RE 2 moments get fleshed out in this game. 

While this remake does seem to stray somewhat from the original, less puzzles certain bosses no longer a threat, I personally didn’t much care, probably because I have no real ties to the original the way other players might. I felt that this remake did a great job of creating a tense atmosphere where you were never sure what was about to try to kill you next. The run-time came in at just under 6 hours when we played, which I’ve seen a lot of other reviews complain about but even for being a shorter game, to me it didn’t feel that way. Probably cause we died. A lot. Like way more than in RE 2, so be prepared for that.

My overall score for the Resident Evil 3 remake is an 8/10. 

It was fun, it was sometimes frustrating, and it scared the fuck out of me more than once. If you’re a Resident Evil fan, it’s a no brainer to pick this game up for your collection. If you’ve never played the series before or only a game here or there, I think it’s a fast paced introduction to the universe. To paraphrase my girl Jill, you want S.T.A.R.S? This’ll give you S.T.A.R.S.

Have you picked up your copy of RE 3 yet? Did you love the original? Which Resident Evil game is your favorite? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments below!