Rollin’ Back the Week’s Best Tips: Resident Evil Revelations

Welcome back to Rollin’ Back the Week’s Best Tips!  Before we call it a weekend for Memorial Day, we thought we’d take a relaxing – okay, maybe not too relaxing – trek about the Queen Zenobia for Capcom’s high-def re-release of Resident Evil: Revelations for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.  This game, which skips the high-octane action of Resident Evil 6 in favor of a moodier, more suspenseful game similar to what earlier games have offered, is ideal for some good weekend scares.

So we’ve got a few tips to help you out as you scavenge throughout the ship, and it never hurts to take them into consideration – especially when you’re going up against tougher boss enemies.  For that matter, these tips also work for the 3DS edition of the game, which recently dropped in price to $19.99.  Not a bad deal if you need to take something on the road…

Without further ado, here’s some advice…

Conserve Your Ammunition Whenever You Can

In Resident Evil: Revelations, you’re going to run into a number of massive enemies within the game, whether it’s large whale-like human blobs that want to eat you or skeletal creatures that are a little harder to hit.  You want to make sure that every shot counts and sometimes that can be tricky considering how hard it is to find ammunition in some places.  If you can, try to use the “stick and move” option with your melee weapon as dangerous as that may sound and save your ammo for the “big boys”, like the tougher bosses or those situations where you absolutely have to empty out a clip bringing someone down.  There’s another tool you can use to your benefit…

Your Scanner is Your Friend

Scanning objects and enemies may not sound like the most thrilling thing to do in a Resident Evil game (compared to smacking a mutant into the middle of next month) but it’s really helpful in two ways.

First, scanning objects will help you find additional ammunition and weapons like the shotgun.  You’ll thank us for first coming across the shotgun, especially when you locate shells for it, so don’t be afraid to look around with it.

Secondly, you can scan enemies to gather their data.  Sometimes you’ll gain an item from scanning a dead one, but you also might want to try quickly scanning live ones.  You’ll stand a greater chance at unlocking a reward, even if you put yourself at risk in doing so.  Thankfully, you should be able to find a med kit with ease if you take too massive a hit.

Look For Weak Spots on Enemies

Some enemies look invulnerable – like those whale blobs we were talking about – but others like to expose their weak spots and open them up more than you might expect.  When they do, it usually comes rolling out of their mouths, and that’s when to shoot.  Not only will it do significantly more damage, but it could also leave them coughing up a needed med kit or another item of value.

There are also enemies that explode if you manage to get near them.  These guys can really take a lot out of you, but the damage works on other foes as well.  Try to get a group close to this thing before you set it off, and then roll away and watch the sparks (and flesh) fly.

Your Map is Your Friend

There are times you’re going to get lost aboard the Zenobia, so you’ll want to make sure your map is accessible.  This works best on the Wii U version, since its right on the GamePad display instead of tucked away on the corner of the screen.  But peering at it helps you find the next place you need to go, like through a doorway or up a stairwell that might have been out of view before.

The Raid Mode

Finally let’s talk a bit about the Raid Mode.  This is a survival-based mode where you’ll have to work in a co-op fashion with another player to fend off waves of enemies.  Communication is key in this mode.  If you both scamper to cover one direction of enemies, you can easily be overwhelmed in another.  Try to watch each other’s backs and keep an eye out for bigger foes.  You can also practice it in single player, but it works far better with a friend in tow.

Resident Evil: Revelations is available now for Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.