• Game: Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D
• Platform: 3DS
• Publisher: Capcom
• Developer: Capcom
• ESRB: M
• Genre: Third-Person Shooter, Survival Horror
• Players: 1-2



• What's Hot: Remarkable visuals, Pick up and play design, High production value



• What's Not: No narrative, jerky distanced animations, one hit kills

Review by: Justin Amirkhani

When people lament the rise of casual gaming it isn’t the concept they usually take issue with. In an increasingly busy world almost everyone can appreciate more accessible distractions during brief periods of mid-day downtime. It’s the production quality; nobody wants to play a game with cheap art and stifled design regardless of how convenient it is. Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D is a new sort of casual game that takes all the high production value, quality game design, and stunning visuals of a console game and stuffs it into a bite-sized mobile experience.

As an almost line for line re-release of the Mercenaries mode from Resident Evil 5 we’re crossing familiar territory. What is new however is its presentation of the existing content as a mobile-specific experience. In all the best ways Capcom has shrunk an otherwise ancillary part of their core game and created one of the best Nintendo 3DS games thus far.

Being an exclusively arcade design, Mercenaries 3D lacks any form of narrative. It seems that zombies have finally beaten Nazis as the villain of choice; we no longer even need justification for wanting their death. In any other type of game this would be inexcusable but the lack of story never hinders the enjoyment.

Instead of a cohesive plot we get a level select screen, the ultimate in do-it-yourself challenge structure. As a form of dynamic difficulty adjustment there’s no match for letting the player dictate their experience. The stages remain context-free but having the ability to control the difficulty and duration of your play is a necessity for all modern handheld titles; there’s no hunting for checkpoints or struggling to finish a boss, you’re given complete agency over your gameplay.

On the zombie-killing floor the game feels very much like its console counterpart, a remarkable feat for a platform that has so far only been able to show us watered-down ports. The game more than adequately captures the tried-and-true slow and sometimes unwieldy Resident Evil control scheme which is responsible for all of the series’ most tense moments. While not an immediately obvious way of translating the panic and struggle of a zombie attack, it remains one of the best examples of evoking a mindset through control design.

Like any good action game, much of the game’s depth comes from a balancing of risk and reward. When the goal is a high score, prolonging your session by finding time extenders can go a long way. However, players also have to outlast the clock because if they die before the timer hits they earn nothing; meanwhile, a quick-kill combo system reminiscent of The Club or Wet keeps momentum a priority. It’s a subtle design that adapts the classic Resident Evil conservation mentality to a more action-oriented experience.