Some cool 1.5 exclusive screenshots ;)

[News Bot]

Personally, I didn't like the RE3 engine.. combat went backwards, you could no longer decimate zombies like you could in RE2 with the upgraded shotgun. Felt so restrictive. The multiple choice system was rather meh, I don't recall it being universally praised or criticized. Same with the ammo system. Both elements that wern't really used again IIRC?

The RE3 opening was bizarre like some sort of demo, you're just blasted out of a building or something, cue weird zombie sound effects. And wtf was with that? Did someone record themselves when they wake up in the morning? It was a pathetic whimper. It really put me off being absorbed in the game. Contrast that to CV's epic attack on an Umbrella lab followed by imprisonment on an unknown island where, I guess unfortunately, you are let out to explore the hell it has become..

Plus the backstory with the Ashford family and the T-Veronica virus really piqued my curiosity about what was possible in the RE series. RE3 had Nemesis..a one-line wonder. It closed the Raccoon City chapter well enough but as a result had very little scope and really led nowhere even with its prologues (which I guess remain mostly unfinished plotlines to this day? I don't know), it's an unambitious title, this is why they wanted to call it RE 1.9 or 1.8 or whatever. Technically RECV should be RE3.. CV left me waiting for the next game, RE3 did not. Nicholai was awesome though!

I really don't see how the combat went backwards. It's vastly more versatile than the other old-style games. Substantially more fun as a result, while still not being an overpowered demigod (BH4). In BH1 and BH2 the best you could do was run around an enemy and shoot, or stand far away... and shoot. BH3 allows you to get up close and start dodging around an enemy if you're particularly skilled, for example. It's generally just a lot more fluid compared to the rigidness of the previous two games.

BH3 begins in the middle of the action (what's that Latin term?). Jill is just chucked out of a building due to backdraft from an explosion. It helped mix up the formula from the two previous games which had slower openings. BH3 just throws you into the fray and says good luck. It fit with the theme of the game and stopped it from being formulaic. In fact, BH3 is the only game in the series that doesn't really follow a traditional scenario path.

The Ashford family weren't really new. The use of aristocrats was used already with the Spencer, Beardsley (who even have a genetically engineered daughter...) and Henry families. t-Veronica was also when the series started getting really goofy with biology after being quite impressive and well-thought. By contrast, Nemesis and its backstory were far more interesting and relevant, and it was always intended to be a one-time thing (never intended to be sold). The use of a genetically engineered parasite made the world feel more varied than just "stick random shit in that virus and see what happens."

BH3 actually had several names, but none of them were official. The development team gave it several nicknames during development, in particular Gaiden, 1.5 and 1.9. The name was tentative for a long time because mid-1998 led to a change in direction for the series thanks to the PlayStation 2.

[J0shuaKane]

RE3 turned me away from the series for a while. did not feel like the first 2 at all. felt boring, like just going through the motions. and was not scary at all. i beat it for the first time in japanese with no help.

code veronica finally had a good knife, in-your-face monsters that do not fuck around, and left me with a feeling i was scared to enter the next room.

it always seemed to me that cv was the real part 3 and they just made re3 for some other reason. i read it was to finish out their sony contract.

makes me really happy cv and 1.5 have the same knife animation, hopefully it will be just as useful.

[News Bot]

it always seemed to me that cv was the real part 3 and they just made re3 for some other reason. i read it was to finish out their sony contract.

CODE:Veronica was always CODE:Veronica.

CAPCOM wanted to release a third game on the PS1 before the end of its lifespan, and initially planned BH3 featuring HUNK on a cruise ship. Another team was also planning a fourth smaller side-story game. But when they heard of the PS2, they realized that not working on a PS2 title immediately would set them back on that system. So they assigned the BH3 team to the PS2, renamed it BH4, and promoted the side-story as BH3.

Thus, BH3 became BH4, and the side-story became BH3.

[Scream]

I find RE3 miles ahead of CV. CV is heavily censored, wasn't that good looking (god that mist...), too long, not enough replayability, the main antagonists sucked (a transsexual and a matrixed wesker, wtf really), its gameplay was dated, its bonus mode sucked, and it introduced the whole "family" drama in the series.

I really hate that game. RE3 with its efficient gameplay and mercenaries mode offers a much better experience in terms of gameplay and pure fun.

So because the main antagonists had some issues they sucked? Great logic. I wouldn't want to play the kind of cookie cutter games you enjoy

SIDE-NOTE: BH3's opening was originally meant to have Jill holding a gun to her head and contemplating suicide, rather than the "stare at gun" photo in the final version.

If that's true then my respect for it goes up a little - but they really need to CG intro that shit, Jill with gun to her head and then next thing blown out the building. Would be much better than how it is now.

Combat backwards in some respects, sure - when I can't blow away enemies in the style I'm used to, it affects the combat for me in my choice of weapons and so on. I'm still on the fence about the tactical maneuvers so perhaps I'm a little old school in that respect, but it did feel fluid and natural particularly when doing Mercenaries for the nth time. But really I can't decide if I like a game based on this alone..

Like Joshua said, when you've played through the first two in order, and then RE3 was released, it felt like a major downer to me for some reason (perhaps it was the optimistic ending to RE2 ). I'm not sure what order you guys played it in, but I would be interested to know. I know others who played RE3 first enjoyed it the most, even after trying RE2. I played through the whole series in order they were released..

I'm only comparing as they're close together in the development chain.. they're both two good games. I think 3 does well in closing the initial trilogy and CV in beginning a new one (but was not to be I guess!). I don't "hate" any of the big four classic REs.

[Rick Hunter]

So because the main antagonists had some issues they sucked? Great logic.

Exactly! If you enjoy battling transsexuals who laugh maniacally like girls for most of the game and whose dialogue lines suck in a game which is supposed to be a survival horror, then good for you, but I don't enjoy that!

I expect charismatic enemies, not some cliché retards. Between Steve the Di Caprio clone and that guy, this game should have won the award of bad taste 2000 edition.

[biohazard_star]

I thought RE3 would've been much more enjoyable if the input timing for the dodge system wasn't so strict. Something along the lines of Revelation where you could actually feel confident in being able to pull off a successful dodge would've been nice. The way it is set up makes people fear using it since the chances of actually being able to dodge with it is pretty low, and eventually they just forget about it altogether because of that.

[Ohmycod]

Interestingly enough re 3 was the first one I played and I loved it. At the time I had no idea about the previous games but soon came to.

Now many years later I actually consider re 3 better than 2, simply because it doesn't seem so linear, it doesn't seem rushed, and the layout of the game areas seem more consistant.

Re 2 is just too linear, feels a bit rushed, and even a bit dull compared to re 3. Now having seen some of the development process with 1.5 and indeed being able to eventually play it, I think that re 2 was a real let down. Don't get me wrong I like re 2, and the zapping system is great, but 3 is the better of the two. It's a shame that capcom never finished the bh2 trial version, it would of made a better re 2 retail game.

Re 3 was a fitting end to the trilogy, and probably what I consider to be the last really good re game.

[Scream]

Exactly! If you enjoy battling transsexuals who laugh maniacally like girls for most of the game and whose dialogue lines suck in a game which is supposed to be a survival horror, then good for you, but I don't enjoy that!

I expect charismatic enemies, not some cliché retards. Between Steve the Di Caprio clone and that guy, this game should have won the award of bad taste 2000 edition.

I don't know, I didn't even realise he was a transsexual? I thought that whole part was just inspired by Norman Bates in Psycho.. Some sort of identity disorder..

Steve Di Caprio is much better than those pretty boys in RE6 at least lol.

[J0shuaKane]

Exactly! If you enjoy battling transsexuals who laugh maniacally like girls for most of the game and whose dialogue lines suck in a game which is supposed to be a survival horror, then good for you, but I don't enjoy that!

I expect charismatic enemies, not some cliché retards. Between Steve the Di Caprio clone and that guy, this game should have won the award of bad taste 2000 edition.

he wasn't transsexual, he was protecting his sister.

and if you hate alfred so much, you should enjoy battling him. you hating him, by definition, makes him a good villain. you only like shooting at people you like?

it does seem like really shallow reasoning, especially since we are talking about resident evil, a series fueled by horrible dialogue and bad taste.

[Rick Hunter]

I don't know, I didn't even realise he was a transsexual? I thought that whole part was just inspired by Norman Bates in Psycho.. Some sort of identity disorder..

Well, he's dressing like his sister and speaks/laughs like a girl... charisma minus 9000 :-(

Steve Di Caprio is much better than those pretty boys in RE6 at least lol.

Actually I didn't have any problem with RE6 characters. But Di Caprio in CV was just too much. And the voice acting, dialogues, behavior... Everything is bad.

and if you hate alexander so much, you should enjoy battling him. you hating him, by definition, makes him a good villain. you only like shooting at people you like?

You mean Alfred? We don't really battle him. From my point of view, a good villain should be someone you can identify to in some way, someone you can respect. Such as Wesker, Hunk, Birkin... if the guy has no substance, only poorly written dialogues and zero charisma, I will find battling him more upsetting than interesting.

it does seem like really shallow reasoning, especially since we are talking about resident evil, a series fueled by horrible dialogue and bad taste.

It had horrible dialogues mostly in RE1, and Rebirth fixed that. I also don't know what bad taste you're talking about. But after BH2 and 3, in terms of writing and acting CV was clearly inferior. Each time a character says something it's dumb, AND the dub is atrocious.

I can understand why some people like CV, but I found it crappy since day 1. For me it was the beginning of the end.

[Grem]

CV blew my mind at the time, and it was one of my favourite RE experience. Maybe CV is kinda silly, but it was nonetheless intriguing and entertaining. Great soundtrack and cool cutscenes.

Nowadays, I view things a little differently. CV look so dated now, and the dialogues sound so cheesy. Strangely, it's the opposite for RE3. I remember being rather unimpressed by this game when it came out and I thought it lacked substance, but now this game is growing on me. It's the most dynamic old-school RE and it's so easy to playthrough. I certainly prefer RE3 over RE2, and I begin to think I'd even rather play RE3 over the other old RE's.

Same with RE6, I hated the game when it came out and just liked Leon's story a bit. Now, I think Chris' campaign is clearly my favourite and the more I'm playing it, the more I'm enjoying it.

[J0shuaKane]

@ rick hunter: yeah, alfred, i fixed that after i realized what i said. and right on, we just have very different opinions on villains.

@news bot: thanks for explaining the relationship between titles clearly, usually its written out like some kind of riddle.

[Guest]

It especially held true to the original release of RE1 with the high level of challenge

and that, if you didn't conserve ammo and health, you'd be screwed for certain parts as far as advancing in the game goes. I loved that and I have no idea why, it really made every bullet and herb mean something.

[Guest]

If RE3 weren't short game, i would definitely consider it the best RE in the series !

[Rick Hunter]

@ rick hunter: yeah, alfred, i fixed that after i realized what i said. and right on, we just have very different opinions on villains.

Yep, you're into Kafka kind of villains, and I much prefer Sephiroth kind of villains.