Resident Evil Revelations 2

Thanks for joining us again for the weekly round up of the Deals with Gold. Please remember that all prices listed below require an Xbox Live Gold membership.

First …
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Last month, XBLA Fans was streaming Resident Evil Revelations 2 on our Twitch channel when something unexpected happened: the feed abruptly cut to the pause screen pictured above. XBLA Fans’ Michael Cheng hadn’t stopped playing and was still attempting to actively broadcast gameplay, so we knew something external was affecting the stream.

That something was Capcom. The game’s developer-slash-publisher, in an effort to minimize gamers’ exposure to certain scenes that are critical to determining what ending players receive, blocks segments of Revelations 2 from being streamed via the Xbox Twitch app. Capcom kicks all Xbox Twitch streams to the pause screen during the final boss fight, cutscenes, credits and after-credits cutscene. Speaking with XBLA Fans, a representative for the company explained that it wants to “give players a pure and un-spoiled experience,” so it “chose to disable the native capture so that video sharing during those segments was limited.”

This got us thinking: how do other ID@Xbox game developers view Twitch streaming? Are they worried about potential gameplay or story segments being ruined for viewers? We asked a few developers if they had official Twitch policies and whether or not they felt streamers were helping their games to find larger audiences. Official stances on Twitch were a bit mixed, but everyone we talked to agreed that streaming could benefit them. One in particular, however, cautioned against giving streaming codes to anyone and everyone and noted that not all games companies need help from streamers.

Of streams and spoilers

There is perhaps no ID@Xbox developer more well-known for story-driven experiences than Telltale Games. Unfortunately, the studio that popularized episodic game releases declined to comment directly on the issue. Telltale, however, did partner with The Nerdist to stream the entirety of the first Tales from the Borderlands episode a week ahead of its release last November. It also got together with voice actors Troy Baker and Laura Bailey to stream the second episode a few days after its release late last month. It remains to be seen whether or not Telltale will be so eager to stream the season’s surely spoiler-filled final episode in full, but its past actions paint a picture of a studio that does not shy away from streaming spoilers.

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Resident Evil Revelations 2 was developed and published on Xbox One and Xbox 360 by Capcom Entertainment Inc. The last episode was released on March 17, 2015 and the complete season is available for $24.99 on Xbox One. XBLA Fans’ Michael Cheng purchased a copy out of pocket for review purposes.

Alas
We’ve finally reached the end of the crossroads, and it’s been a long journey. You can find reviews of individual episodes at the Resident Evil Revelations 2 hub, which gives finer details on each leg of the campaign. If I were to score to just the campaign, it would be “Try It.” The campaign is somewhat short but fair at its current price tag, and it has a bunch of interesting concepts filled with exciting highs and lows — and a few other concepts that just didn’t work very well. It is not, however, the only gameplay option available.

Resident Evil Revelations 2‘s Raid mode is an arcade-like experience featuring players hunting down hordes of enemies in an arena-like setting while trying to survive and ultimately reach a goal. Players level up from killing enemies, which allows drops of higher level weapons and weapon parts and gives skill points to upgrade perks that increase character durability. It’s similar to a role-playing game in which you play to see your character grow stronger, tackle harder levels, progress forward and hopefully beat the toughest challenges. Raid mode is addicting to play through and features 15 playable characters (two are DLC characters and one is unlockable from an extra episode) and six different weapon types with multiple weapons in each category. I’ve put over 200+ hours into it, which is much more time than I spent on the campaign. Raid is not without its faults, however, as you’ll find out below.

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The journey of a little girl and her teddy bear.. sorta.
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Resident Evil Revelations 2: The Struggle was developed and published on Xbox One and Xbox 360 by Capcom Entertainment Inc. It was released on March 17, 2015 for $4.99. XBLA Fans’ Michael Cheng purchased a copy out of pocket for review purposes.

The Struggle is a side story that bridges the gap between the end of Claire’s campaign and the end of Barry’s campaign and features Moira Burton and a character who was introduced in Episode 3 . As such, for continuity purposes, this episode should not be played until after finishing the main game.

The goal of the extra episodes seems to be to provide an alternative gameplay experience to the original campaign, and The Struggle does not shy away from that. About two minutes into playing The Struggle, I was already dubbing it “Moira Gear Solid 3,” as it contains small animal hunting for rations as well as stealth sections. After a hunting segment, multiple battles take place that function remarkably similar to Revelations 2‘s Raid mode only with the frailty of using a campaign character.

Is this extra episode worth playing?

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Resident Evil Revelations 2: Metamorphosis was developed and published on Xbox One and Xbox 360 by Capcom Entertainment Inc. It was released on March 17, 2015 for $5.99. XBLA Fans’ Michael Cheng purchased a copy out of pocket for review purposes.

Many elements that contributed to the excitement of the first three episodes are missing and players may be left with a strange sense of both satisfaction and disappointment.

Claire’s campaign starts off after the climactic boss fight of Episode 3: Judgment in the middle of the tower nearing the top. Little did I know, the boss fight was the coup de grâce to Claire’s adventures. Claire’s campaign is very short with the top time on Xbox One clocked in at 6 minutes 44 seconds as of time of writing. The one major scene is incredibly anti-climactic with no player interaction at all. It feels like the player went on a great big adventure with Claire for nothing. With brief puzzles thrown in, less than double digit enemy count and players playing most of the episode with a countdown timer, there isn’t much positive about this segment other than at least its short to replay. I can understand not putting in two major bosses in one episode or starting an episode with a major boss fight but one can wonder if the episodes could have been segmented better.

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The XBLA Fans Twitch Stream Team has grown drastically in recent months thanks to the support of our viewers. I’d love to personally encourage each of our readers to check out at least one broadcast this week. We will be updating the site on a weekly basis with a plethora of streams for you to enjoy.

In addition to our scheduled streams below we also sometimes do impromptu streams. The best way to stay informed of those is to follow XBLA Fans on Twitter and follow us on Twitch.

If there is a game you want to see streamed, please contact us.

All times are listed in EST.

Monday 3/30

• 8:30p – 10:30p K4rn4ge – Trials Fusion New DLC!
• Possible Neverwinter Online Early Access stream sometime tonight!

Tuesday 3/31

• 10p – 2p Zero Jehuty – Neverwinter Online
• 2p – 5p Snapple Cap – Neverwinter Online
• 5p – 8p K4rn4ge – Geometry Wars 3 New Update and/or Trials Fusion New DLC!
• 8p – 11p Cain141 – RBI Baseball ’15

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No need for spoiler warnings.
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The XBLA Fans Twitch Stream Team has grown drastically in recent months thanks to the support of our viewers. I’d love to personally encourage each of our readers to check out at least one broadcast this week. We will be updating the site on a weekly basis with a plethora of streams for you to enjoy.

In addition to our scheduled streams below we also sometimes do impromptu streams. The best way to stay informed of those is to follow XBLA Fans on Twitter and follow us on Twitch.

If there is a game you want to see streamed, please contact us.

This week we are doing a special Subscribers Only Giveaway. On 3/22 we will do a random giveaway for our subscribers entering anyone who has subscribed automatically. The winner will get their choice of prize from our vault of giveaway codes. Please consider subscribing to support the stream.  We are close to unlocking two more awesome emotes.

All times are listed in EST.

Monday 3/16

• 11a – 2p SMITE with Zero Jehuty
• 2p – 5p Thomas Was Alone with Cuckoolander
• 7p – 10p Ziggurat with K4rn4ge
• 11p – 12a Ori and the Blind Forest with The Snapple Cap

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Resident Evil Revelations 2: Judgment was developed and published on Xbox One and Xbox 360 by Capcom Entertainment Inc. It was released on March 10, 2015 for $5.99. XBLA Fans’ Michael Cheng purchased a copy out of pocket for review purposes.

Resident Evil Revelations 2 Episode 3: Judgment takes players on a ride that includes more action, more action puzzles, more explosions and more ways to die. Players may notice that one or more of this episode’s sections feel like a tribute to the older games in the series.

Claire’s campaign starts off with Claire finding a message left by a character from Episode 2 to go to a factory nearby. Through a series of wild events, players are taken through a few factories, the sewers and eventually into the interior of the island tower before climaxing at the game’s first major non-optional boss fight. Judgment contains more action puzzles than the first two episodes combined, and on the first playthrough, players can easily die if they don’t think on their feet. It’s nice to finally see a real boss fight this time around. A word of warning to streamers using the Twitch app on Xbox One, though: although you can stream the actual boss fight itself, the scene after that is blocked and will show the Twitch pause screen until you reach the result screen. Very disappointing.

Barry’s campaign continues on from the encounter at the end of Contemplation. After the cut-scene plays out, the player starts off in a drained version of the sewers in Claire’s campaign before heading to a deserted mining facility. This segment tries something different: sending the player on an extended fetch quest involving carrying a cube from one location; dropping it on a conveyor belt to be transferred; and repeating a few times before it eventually reaches its destination. Some players may not like the duration of this fetch quest, myself included. It was tolerable the first time and a major annoyance on every subsequent playthrough.

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