Xbox 360
Trapped in Time. Surrounded by Evil. Low on Gas. No wait, that's the tag line for Evil Dead 3. If Resident Evil 3 had a tagline it would probably have been same shit, different day, shinier graphics. Okay, so that's actually a fairly rubbish tagline (there's a reason I don't do PR) but you get the basic idea.
Having survived the bloodbath that was the Mansion of the first game, party girl Jill Valentine hands in her badge and swears to leave Raccoon City forever. But wouldn't you know it, she hangs around just one day too long, and before she can make off for her new life in Mexico the entire city is flooded with the T-Virus.
To make matters worse, it isn't just legions of shuffling morons standing between her and those mojitos - the Nemesis (a walking doom machine who looks like the Toxic Avenger's meaner, less attractive older brother) is also out to get her. The Nemesis is big, he's mean, he can (shock horror) follow Jill from one screen to another, and dammit if he just won't go down.
Now Raccoon city must have been populated almost exclusively by weapons dealers given the inordinate amount of weaponry, ammunition and gunpowder left by the fleeing populace. Handily our plucky heroine must have gained her Gunsmith badge as a Girl Scout and can mix the various gunpowders she finds during the course of the game into bigger and better types including the awesome, if scientifically implausible, acid, flame and freeze rounds!
Whilst attempting to get the hell out of Dodge without becoming the Nemesis' newest plaything, Jill runs into the remnants of a team of mercenaries dropped in by Umbrella in an attempt to tidy things up. This did not, as you might imagine, go well for them. Thus dreamy Carlos Oliveira, walking tank Mikhail Victor and sneaky turncoat Nicholai Ginovaef throw their lot in with Jill.
During the first part of the game Jill, Carlos et al are attempting to get to Raccoon City Clock Tower in order to get airlifted to safety, and in order to do this set about repairing a just-sufficiently-damaged-to-be-fixed-after-some-running-around tram. A couple of run ins with zombie dogs and killer mutant worms and one heroic sacrifice later Carlos and Jill make it to the Clock Tower only to have the Nemesis pop up and spoil everybody's day with a rocket launcher. And just when I was starting to like him... Cue loss of consciousness all round.
48 hours later and things don't look good for our heroes. Jill is down, presumed infected, so Carlos manfully heads off in search of a vaccine, having first promised to shoot her if she goes all Dawn of the Dead on him. Time for a quick character change as Carlos explores the local hospital and finds, wouldn't you know it, instructions for making a vaccine. What are the chances? Freshly minted vaccine in hand, Carlos returns to the clock tower in time to meet the Nemesis again, but manages to get to Jill first to administer it.
After a brief detour to scenic Raccoon City park, our heroes find themselves in an "abandoned" factory that turns out to be a secret Umbrella testing lab. No really. More Nemesis avoiding shenanigans follow, along the opportunity for some sweet sweet turncoat payback. Suddenly however Jill and Carlos find themselves in a race against time, as a missile is launched at the City in a last desperate attempt to stop the spread of the virus.
The final showdown sees our girl facing off against the Nemesis one last time, eventually prevailing by means of an enormous rail cannon to the head. And even then it takes at least three hits to take him down. Dude was one tough mother. Then, just when all hope seems lost, perennial good guy Barry turns up in a helicopter to whisk Jill and Carlos to safety as the government's missile obliterates everything in a 5 mile radius.
Bada-BIG-boom...
As they fly off into the sunset, Barry turns to Jill and says "Are you ready to finish this?". What more could possibly be in store for Jill? Tune in next time to find out.
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More from the Ultimate Resi Guide:
Resident Evil - Team S.T.A.R.S, find a little house on a little hill...
Resident Evil 2 - Unlucky Cop and Foolish Female stroll unwittingly into Raccoon City, town of the undead.
Resident Evil Zero - Taking place before Resi 1 (just incase you were following things so far), we see how S.T.A.R.S team B got to be so dead.
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis - Lady S.T.A.R.S. from game one must escape a city...
Resident Evil: Code Veronica - Foolish Female (from number two), seeks Unlucky Cop (from number one).
Resident Evil 4 - Unlucky Cop goes on holiday to Spain. Hates Foreigners. (Part two here)
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And again, thanks to wordle.net for the word miasma.