Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis came to GameCube as a port of the installment that takes place concurrently with and just before the events of the second Resident Evil. Jill Valentine tries to escape a collapsing Raccoon City while being relentlessly hunted by the titular bio-organic weapon Nemesis, whose unexpected attacks from the streets and buildings give the game a noticeably more urgent pace than its predecessors. Nemesis is also able to gradually evolve and change form, so the player never knows in what shape they'll encounter him again.

Compared to Resident Evil 2, the third installment is more action-oriented - the player has access to a dodge maneuver that allows them to skillfully evade some enemy attacks, and the game occasionally offers brief situations with a choice of reaction that change the course of the following scenes and sometimes the fate of supporting characters. The weapon system is expanded with the ability to combine ammunition from different types of gunpowder, leading to experimentation with ammo tailored to specific threats, from ordinary zombies to mutated monsters. The settings of the city, a gun shop, a clock tower, and an underground vehicle depot offer more varied backdrops than the enclosed police station of the second game, although the overall playtime is shorter.

The GameCube version preserves the original atmosphere and dark soundtrack, which intensifies every time Nemesis appears with his iconic catchphrase. Reviewers at the time rated the game as a tenser but shorter experience compared to the previous installment, with the unpredictability of the pursuer being among the most frequently mentioned strengths. Nemesis became one of the most recognizable threats in the history of the series, and the game is still valued today for its dense atmosphere of doom and the constant pressure it exerts on the player, even more than two decades later, when other games hadn't yet managed to make a pursuer of this type so unpredictable. The short playtime is also offset by alternate endings and a bonus mode that motivates players to go through the game multiple times and look for faster routes through the city.

Why play it: Thanks to the unpredictable pursuer Nemesis and the dense atmosphere of doom, this remains a tense, if shorter, experience, offset by alternate endings and a bonus mode.