Review:

Unlike other RPG/Adventure games, Capcom's Resident evil series seems to get better with each new addition. Capcom upgrades each new game with better graphics and game play, which makes spending the 40 or more dollars more reasonable than most other recent RPG style releases as of late, including Squaresoft's Final Fantasy 8. Even though this installment is shorter than the last two, Resident Evil 3 is far and away more challenging.

Here are my feelings about the following areas:

Plot: A generic "Escape from NY" Style plot that has all the main characters trying to escape to zombie infested streets of Raccoon City. This plot works better if you have played Resident Evil 2, because Resident Evil 3 gives you an idea of the outside environment is like, while Resident Evil 2 keeps your characters mainly inside through out the whole game.

Final Grade : B

Dialog: Way Better than Resident Evil 2. The characters dialog doesn't come off too dramatic too often and makes sense on the whole.

Final Grade: B

Graphics: I wouldn't suggest this game for kids under the age of 14 due to the violence levels (You have people being eaten by zombies for christ sake!). The Cinema sequences are rendered even better than Resident Evil 2 (which, in my opinion, only rivals FF7's cinemas). The live action screens and the environments that you run around in are textured better and the monsters you face are more realistic in appearance.

Final Grade: A-

Sound: Same eere sound effects and background music from Res. 2. Very scary in terms of the horrific nature of the game. Try playing this game in the dark with a surround sound system.

Final Grade: A-

Camera Angles: This continues to be the only annoying thing in this series of games. At times, your not sure where you are relative to your adversaries because if your character stands in just the right place, the angle of which you view the game shifts, usually allowing monsters to attack you unexpectedly. Some of these sudden shifts in angles makes it difficult to fight against your main enemy, the 8 foot tall Nemesis, and takes away from the realism because you may not be able to see a few zombies learching their way to you, due to a camera angle shift, while your character would have to be blind to see the army of undead coming ight at her or him.

Final Grade: D+

Loading: Since this is a Sony Playstation game, the time it takes to load information of the game CD is an important factor in the enjoyment of the game. This game takes, at most, 5 seconds to load a new environment and display it on the screen. Thus loading for this game isn't a big deal.

Final Grade: B-

Controls: The controls in this game are not too difficult or complicated to figure out. If you want complicated controls, play Tomb Raider. There are not many difficult skills you must perform, such as jumping. Just move items in the game environment from time to time. There is a new dodge and auto aim features that make this game more manageable, especially in a crowd of enemies, than the previous installments.

Final Grade: A-

Challenge Level: This series of games challenges the player in 2 ways. The first is the physical fighting between player and enemy(s). This are is made slightly more difficult than the last game, but not so much that you get frustrated after dieing the 100th time trying to escape a room. The other aspect to a Resident Evil game is the many puzzles you must find solutions to in order to move on to the next area. This area is more difficult in Resident Evil 3, not necessarily due to each puzzles complexity, rather in the area of finding out which puzzle you must complete first inorder to move on. I had to spend money on a stupid walk through guide the first time I completed this game, unlike the last 2 games in which you were given a better idea of where to go and what to do. In the end, there is a great balance between beating on zombies and solving crazy puzzles, a major drawback to Resident Evil 1.

Final Grade: B

Final word: Resident Evil 3 is a vastly improved product over its predecessors. With this said, this game seems to be a beta version for what we will get in the next installment of Resident Evil (Code Veronica). The experimental aspects of Resident Evil 3, from the 'choose your own path' cinema cutaways to the manufacturing of your own ammo are cool ideas that work more than they take away from the game. Unlike Resident Evil 2,I would wait until Resident Evil 3 drops from 40-50 dollars to the 20-30 Dollar range before buying it or rent the game to see how it works for you. For any Resident Evil Evil fan, this is a great 'prequel' to add to your collection and a great challenge for anyone who tries it for the first time.

Final Grade for Resdient Evil 3: A-