So what do we think about Capcom's episodic toe-dipping so far?

Just to make things clear, this isn’t a review of Resident Evil: Revelations 2. That’ll come once the game is complete and Capcom release it properly. Because if you weren’t aware Capcom are releasing Revelations 2 in episodic chunks, like Telltale does except insanely. Now Telltale deliberately release their games with a month or so between episodes so they can listen to user feedback and tweak the experience, which is why most of their games get better as they go along and why Jurassic Park is their weakest title (it was released all at once). Capcom are instead putting up Revelations 2 episodes weekly so they have no chance to tweak anything, a fair few people won’t have the chance to finish the previous episode, and it’s finished now so why not just release the whole damn thing?

Anyway, I won’t give away too much of the plot at this early stage but anyone who isn’t a fan of how convoluted the main series plotline has become will be relieved to hear that it stands completely separate from the other games. This is a bit annoying in at least one respect, which is that it doesn’t seem to follow up the events of Resident Evil: Revelations. What’s the point of calling it Revelations 2 then, eh? Still, fresh plotline: Resident Evil 2’s Claire Redfield and Moira, the daughter of Resident Evil 1’s Barry Burton, have joined an anti-terror organisation but find themselves kidnapped and sent to a decaying prison on an island somewhere. A strange woman watches their every move, but they’ll have to fight through the former residents of this place to survive.

Stabbit stabbit stabbit stabbit stabbit

If you know Resident Evil, you’ll know that every game is different. Revelations 2 definitely is, and not just by being episodic and featuring under-used or new characters. While still defiantly in the over-the-shoulder style that’s still in vogue for the third-person survival horror game, there are a number of control differences between Revelations 2 and other RE games. I personally can’t remember ‘Pick Up’ ever being on a different button to ‘Confirm’ but apparently that was like that in RE6, but throwing things is a nightmare if you’re playing on an Xbox pad (LB, aim with Left Stick, A, hope you’ll remember that) and now there’s no Map button. Which considering you spend half the first episode running back and forth around the prison and part of it trying to find your way out of a spooky forest it’s a real pain.

While definitely in the Resident Evil 5 mold of having a permanent co-op partner, Revelations 2 does it both better and worse. The better part is that firstly you can switch characters in single-player at any time, and secondly the characters are very different to play. In character pairs there’s a fighter and a helper. Using the initial pair, Claire has the guns and the killing duties and Moira can use a torch Alan Wake-style and crowbar and can discover hidden items which is very useful (usually it’ll be either ammo or XP, both of which are vital). In the second team of Barry Burton and young girl Natalia, Barry’s armed to the teeth and Natalia’s role is crawling through tight areas, chucking bricks, finding items and pointing creepily, although she is good at stealth too (if there’s any point to that).

It's still creepy, at least

While I haven’t played co-op much using both characters in tandem makes things a lot easier in harder combat encounters, like Moira shining her torch to blind enemies to allow Claire to finish them off safely. In single-player though, and this is the worse part I mentioned, the AI partner seems dumber than ever. It’ll shout at you to run away from monsters and then utterly fail to do so itself. You’ll take control, set it to do an automated task, switch to your other character to fight the monsters and find they’ve stopped doing the task to stare at you. There’s also no way to give the AI any orders other than ‘Wait’ and ‘Come Here’. Still, at least they’re not using your precious ammo anymore… but then you have to get an upgrade before they’ll attack anything at all.

The monsters this time, at least so far, are zombie-substitutes “the Afflicted” who are actually pretty cool. They’re almost Silent Hill-like, especially a more advanced Afflicted that shows up later in episode 1 with several appendages and bits of metal sticking out of it. Even with the main zombie-like ones I’m happy to see they’re of the tougher variety, and even a good headshot doesn’t always suffice. They’re pretty tough to fight, and that’s fine by me… at least until they start eating the AI partner.

Graphically though I’m not that impressed. I get this was supposed to be an “everything under the sun” release right down to the Vita (although not 3DS, in a spit in the face to original Revelaitons players) but it definitely looks like the budget release that it is. I’ve not got too much of a problem with that, and the spooky foggy forest part looked cool, but it’s still a little disappointing there’s not more interactivity at least.

Things are getting too damn Silent Hill for my taste

Of course there’s not just the episodes. To sweeten the deal, Capcom have included Horde-based Raid Mode. It’s really straightforward - pick a character, choose your weapons, kill all the monsters in a small level, upgrade, then repeat. It’s quite entertaining in a mindless way, there’s Daily Challenges to keep you coming back, and they even bring in monsters from other Resident Evil games like the classic Hunters. The downside of course is that there’s currently no online or local co-op play in this mode, which is a bummer.

While the gameplay is generally entertaining I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t prefer to just get all of Revelations 2 at once. It’s also a game that really requires co-op since once again Capcom have failed to create a less than excruciatingly irritating AI companion. Nevertheless the story has me intrigued, the Afflicted make satisfying adversaries, and the Raid Mode is the icing on the cake (even without any multiplayer whatsoever). Personally I’m going to wait until the whole thing’s released to continue the story, but I’ll be happy to do so.

Most Anticipated Feature: It being finished and released properly?