Left 4 Dead 2

Left 4 Dead 2

Resident Evil 3 - Short & Versus
Nicky Grimes 28 Jul, 2023 @ 4:56pm
Nicky's Review of Resident Evil 3: Short and Sweet
Pros
- Much shorter than the previous version that had puzzles. This shortened the gameplay experience by an hour without needing to backtrack a lot.
- Enabling the Game Instructor is necessary for one puzzle. Thankfully, you're not left alone to search for internet guides if you have no idea how the puzzles work. Run and gun and let the Instructor tell you where the green gem is.
- All players aren't required to wait until the next section is opened. When a player finds an item necessary to unlock a route, the game will activate this feature for all without needing to wait until everyone's present to open the next route.
- Dimmer lighting is a lot better than most of the custom campaigns that's L4D1-centric in aesthetic terms.
- Great cutscenes from beginning to end.
- Author took the time to place warning signs when navigating through hazardous areas.
- No bugs at all! It's impossible to get stuck in a clipped area thanks to the author's knowledge of when to put and not to put invisible boxes, and have time to let players be flexible in taking different routes to reach the same destination.
- No edge jumpscares. That's already a bonus.
- Lots of healing plants are scattered throughout obvious scenery spots.

Cons/Drawbacks
- This may be a feature presented in Resident Evil 3, I've never played the games. There's obvious signs that warns players that the water will harm them. I wasn't aware that the players would instead be dangling from the edge rather than having some HP taken away from them. Not enough to incap them, but still ebb so they're fully aware not to go near it.
- The finale's a bit cramped in the areas due to the clutter. If the author is going for 1:1 replica of the level, I respect that. I would recommend players stay camping in the rooms on top of higher structures to avoid being swarmed by zombies. I did have to install an addon that made the zombies not slow you down when the helicopter arrived, and during fighting the Tanks.
- Those playing as the Tanks in versus might have difficulty climbing through vents and crawling with clutter to reach the players. To avoid the Tank dying super early, there's another addon that respawns the Tank in another location should it suicide from not being able to hit a player.
- Ammo piles are graciously scattered through the streets, but they seemed sparse in the finale. It'd also help with a holdout to have miniguns, another ammo pack, and a barricade that players can use to defeat hordes.
- Not sure what the point would be with including NSFW of Jill at an early part of the game. For those who'd rather avoid NSFW, the last closet to the right contains a Tier 2 rifle. The other three closets were a miss as the campaign's hordes definitely required at least a Tier 2 weapons and better selections of melee when going through the most narrow areas.
- Melee weapons offered aren't the strongest suit when it comes to being swarmed by hordes. There's one knife and maybe a crowbar. It could be the Director's RNG, but from the two times I've played it, I've ended up with those melee weapons for the first half of the campaign. The second half of the campaign barely had any melees.
- Putting Tank spawns at the most narrow spaces or when turning a corner was a complete turn off when it came to suspense. Tanks shouldn't be spawned when it's at a super narrow place or if it's not enough space for the players to navigate. I noticed this also happened within the Cambalanche campaigns, and I'm hoping that this wouldn't be implemented in a future campaign.

Strategy tips
- This is still a custom campaign in which exploring certain areas may or may not reward players. You'll find ammo refills and Tier 1 weapons (one melee appears every now and then) at the backs of police cars. If you don't go searching through the rooms of the mansion, houses, and various rescue closets - you'll be running out of ammo pretty fast and stuck without a melee.

Again, the author would be going for a 1:1 replica of the game and they've done enough with taking the puzzles out. This doesn't motivate me to try out the actual game but the author did a great job in putting a lot of detail within the city with various callbacks to the game itself. A huge thanks to them for removing the puzzle, and I'm looking forward to playing through this campaign sometime in the near future.
Last edited by Nicky Grimes; 29 Jul, 2023 @ 11:28am