Other notable releases include Giant Squid’s Sword of the Sea, launching on the same day worldwide for PS5 and PC. Subscribers can also check out Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End and the Secret Key, Coral Island, Earth Defense Force 6, Harold Halibut, Indika and Unicorn Overlord. It’s a solid line-up, especially for role-playing game fans.

However, that’s not all for Premium/Deluxe subscribers, as they can also play Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, two legendary PS One classics, on PS4 and PS5. Both titles support quick save, custom filters, rewind and up-rendering for a smoother experience.

Twisted Metal 3 and 4, the former launched in 1998 and the latter in 1999 for PlayStation One, debut on July 15th. Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, both critically acclaimed survival titles, will debut later this Summer.

Of course, you need the right tier to play Classic titles, which is PlayStation Plus Premium/Deluxe. It costs $17.99 monthly and $49.99 quarterly; the yearly membership currently retails for $107.19, a 33 percent discount until June 6th.

Subscribers can avail all the benefits of previous tiers, including free monthly games, the PlayStation Plus Extra catalogue, Ubisoft+ Classics, Share Play, and much more. Stay tuned for more announcements on other Classics coming to the service in the coming months.

Still Wakes the Deep

A shoo-in for scariest game of 2024 so far, Still Wakes the Deep duties you as electrician Caz aboard a bleak, ocean-rusting North Sea oil rig before an accident occurs and situations go awry. It’s best not to know too much before stepping aboard, but safe to say The Chinese Room have delivered an atmospheric horror for the ages, replete in equal measure dread and mystery.

]]> 601622 https://gamingbolt.com/original-resident-evil-3-is-releasing-for-gog-on-september-25 Mon, 23 Sep 2024 13:34:51 +0000 https://gamingbolt.com/?p=599541 Capcom continues to release new Resident Evil games at an impressive pace, but the company isn’t completely ignoring the series’ earlier instalments either. The original Resident Evil trilogy had been notoriously inaccessible on modern devices until not too long ago, though earlier this year, the series’ original instalment came to GOG, followed shortly afterward by the original Resident Evil 2. 

Now, the original Resident Evil 3 is set to follow suit as well. Taking to Twitter, GOG announced that Resident Evil 3: Nemesis will be re-releasing on September 25 for the platform, with wishlisting available now. On GOG, you can expect the survival horror title’s re-release to new rendering options, full support for modern controllers, and other quality-of-life and polish-related improvements. 

That means that the original Resident Evil trilogy will finally be available to modern audiences before the end of the week, something that series fans have been hoping to see for a while. Whether Capcom plans on similar re-releases of other retro titles down the road remains to be seen.

Akuma – Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo

Did you think that M. Bison from Street Fighter 2, one of the toughest bosses in any game ever up till that point, was a wuss? Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo’s Akuma is the fight for you. Accessible only by reaching the last stage quickly without any continues in Arcade Mode, Akuma will appear and waylay Bison, then replace him as the final boss. In terms of abilities, he possesses the Zankuu Hadoken (which fires two Hadoken in mid-air), a teleport for quickly closing the distance, and very quick combos that take off chunks of health. Hilariously enough, his playable version isn’t as powerful but was still considered broken enough to warrant banning from tournaments.

The First Zombie – Resident Evil (1998)

For many fans, it all started here. Even with its hilariously bad voice-acting and cheesy characters, the encounter with the very first zombie was perfect. Jill/Chris enters and sees a perp hunched over a corpse as chewing sounds can be heard. As it notices their presence, a decapitated, half-chewed head falls to the ground and it slowly turns around. It may not be the sharpest cutscene by today’s standards but the look in its eyes would herald the horror to come for decades.

The First Zombie Encounter- Resident Evil 1

This is where it all started. Alpha Team takes refuge in a mysterious mansion after a pack of ravenous dogs kills one of their members. From there, the player controls either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine. Upon exploring the mansion, they see it – a zombie, munching on a body and slowly rising to face them, its mangled face apparent. As far as moments go, this would define the horror franchise for years to come.

In this feature, as we count down the days to RE3 remake’s launch, we’ll be ranking every single monster that was featured in the original game from worst to best. Without further ado, let’s get started.

#11. CROWS

Crows were by far, without question, the least threatening enemy in all of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, to the extent that, if you haven’t played the game in a while, you’d be forgiven for forgetting it even had them. At the best of times, they were barely even a threat, and hardly worth wasting any time (or bullets) on, while at the worst of times, they served as little more than set dressing.

ALTERNATE ENDINGS

Resident Evil has never been a stranger to multiple possible endings, especially in its earlier days, and Resident Evil 3 had them as well. The remake, however, is dropping that, with Capcom have confirmed that the game will tell a single, cohesive story. While the larger story beats – such as the destruction of Raccoon City, or Jill and Carlos’ escape from the city – will, of course, remain the same, the finer details – such as how the escape the city, or whether or not Nikolai lives – will now only play out one single way.

But with 2 fantastic classics under its belt, the Resident Evil series would need to do what those other games also had to do with its third game and think well outside the box to deliver something that would deserve to stand with the others. While Capcom certainly didn’t reinvent the wheel with RE3, they certainly were able to churn out yet another classic horror game under the Resident Evil name by continuing the story of the first game and not side-stepping it like the second game did. With the help of Resident Evil veteran Shinji Mikami, as well as the other wizards over at Capcom who had survival horror down to a science by this time, the team pulled out yet another classic with the game launching it to similar heights as RE 1 and 2, and RE 3 would even see ports to future hardware like the Dreamcast and GameCube, which was rare for games that were originally developed for the PlayStation. In turn, Despite being somewhat overshadowed by the original and its excellent sequel, Resident Evil 3 would go down in history as one of the better games of the series.

Resident Evil 3 was particularly noteworthy to fans of the series for a multitude of reasons, but one of the most prominent is its story. Unlike Resident Evil 2, which at the time didn’t feel very tightly attached to the original, Resident Evil 3 continued the story of Jill Valentine as she continued her escape from the horrors that befell her and her comrades in the Mansion of the first game. While the setting and gameplay feels more like the second game in most ways, Resident Evil 3’s story structure and character happenings more closely resemble the style of the original with Jill coming across several STARS members, uncovering more of Umbrella’s secrets, and having a dramatic showdown with a Tyrant at the end. For this smart combination of the strengths of both previous games, one could argue that Resident Evil 3 is the superior entry of the original trilogy at least on paper.

Resident Evil 3’s gameplay also consisted of some revolutionary decisions for the series. While Resident Evil 2 took some baby steps towards more action-oriented gameplay, the third game of the series took more of a leap in that direction with way more zombies in most areas as well as explosive objects in the environment that could be shot to damage several enemies at once. To accommodate the influx of enemies, the player also had access to more ammo, but the proportions of enemies to available firepower was still balanced in a way that made every shot continue to count, so the management of resources was still a key element of the gameplay while giving the player access to more action. Cleverly drawing from some of Resident Evil 2’s best elements, the constant threat of a Tyrant encounter would also be an always-present danger in RE 3.

On top of that, Resident Evil 3’s control was a little tighter and faster than the previous two games and even included a dodge manoeuvre that could get you through some sticky situations if you had the skills to master it’s short window of effectiveness. This calculated additional emphasis on action would plant the seeds for future games like RE 4 to use well and RE 6 to arguably use not so well. While some of the additional speed and the increase of large combat sequences did clash somewhat with the tank controls and fixed camera angles of the time, those seeds would eventually blossom for the series and the genre as a whole in ways that can still be seen today with The Evil Within games and others like them. So while having these ideas contained in the limited capsule of the PS1 sort of felt like playing Mozart with a kazoo, there’s no doubt that RE 3’s revolutionary mix of combat and horror elements would be infinitely important and influential for the future of the genre.

One thing that matters to the Resident Evil series almost as much as the story and gameplay is the overall atmosphere, and Resident Evil 3 nails its atmosphere and presentation just as well if not better than its predecessors. The pre-rendered backgrounds would have more detail than ever, with many of them featuring animations like realistic fire and some real-time shading for the character models to walk through. Also, speaking of the character models, the sheer amount of enemies on screen all running well most of the time was an impressive feat for the time, as most action games on the PS1 would only put you in situations with no more than 3 or 4 enemies at a time for fear of massive frame-rate dips, Resident Evil 3 was able to cram 7 or 8 zombies on screen at any given time, sometimes more. This brought a different sort of urgency to the player than the original game did, but it was a convincing tension nonetheless and furthered RE 3’s unique atmosphere that much more effectively. As you might expect, this was made all the more effective on the later Dreamcast, PC, and GameCube versions.

Resident Evil certainly has its classics, and if you were to ask a Resident Evil fan to choose a favorite, odds are, they would either choose the first or the second due to one of those likely being their first experience with the series and nostalgia being one hell of a drug. With those love goggles removed however, it’s clear to see that Resident Evil 3 is unfairly overshadowed and left out of conversations about Resident Evil’s most important entries. RE 3 took the superior characters and story of the first game, the superior gameplay elements of the second game, tweaked them both, and added in a few ideas of its own to form arguably the best iteration in the series up to that point. It’s not only a third game that stands alongside its predecessors, but it exceeds them on multiple fronts while also performing some necessary experiments that would ultimately provide priceless guidance for future games like Code Veronica and Resident Evil 4 to benefit from several more years down the road. It is unquestionably one of the best games in the series, an extremely important entry for the survival horror genre, and without a doubt, one hell of a game.