Resident Evil 3: Nemesis Review

Despite Resident Evil 3: Nemesis using the same basic game engine as the first two installments: fixed camera angles, 3D models, and pre-rendered backgrounds, it stood out from not only its previous chapters but most other games as well. There were several reasons why Nemesis outshone other games.

Just like a choose-your-own-adventure book, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis has multiple places where you are given a choice between several options each of which alters the direction of the game. There are various additional features between battles that allow you to construct game enhancements like healing potions and special ammunition from the various things you find laying around. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis also introduces the ability to make a quick 180 degree turn while battling as an evasive maneuver. But the biggest reason is Nemesis himself!

While antagonists in most games are generally predictable in their arrival, Nemesis is truly random and completely implacable. He is the ultimate game boss but you don’t just encounter him at the end; he hunts you down throughout the game, springing on you at any time. To make matters worse, Nemesis is stronger than you and you can at best only neutralize his threat for a time before he has found and attempted to kill you again. It is not until the end you even have a chance to slay the monster and that only after he has mutated into something even worse.

The game plot evolves around former Special Tactics And Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) Agent Jill Valentine from the first “Resident Evil” game as she continues to try and escape Raccoon City and the zombie-transmuted inhabitants that fell prey to a biological weapon. Along the way she meets three operatives from Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (U.B.C.S.), the very organization that created the bioweapon. Depending on the choices made, they can either be friend or foe but you can’t always tell at first. Depending on the outcome you finally work toward, there is an extra mini-game that can be unlocked with various outcomes again based on decisions from the main game.

The first “Resident Evil” games all occurred within buildings. With Resident Evil 3: Nemesis the action can get taken outside which provided a multitude of new variations on combat and evasion as well as being visually more stimulating. The game is more action-oriented than previous installments. As a model for the relentless Nemesis, game producer Shinji Mikami drew inspiration from the T-1000 liquid metal Terminator from “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” He felt that the sense of unrelenting pursuit would engender a feeling of paranoia and dread since after your first encounter with the eponymous villain, you know you are being stalked.

With the expanded sets and intriguing new features it is still a let-down that the voice acting of the characters is so poorly done that it even sounds like they are reading from a script. There is also the fact that no matter how you play it, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is shorter than not only 1 & 2 but most other games of this type as well.