Resident Evil 2 Review





Developer: Capcom Publisher: Capcom
Release Date: January 21, 1998 Also On: DC, GCN and N64

Capcom had a lot of room for improvement when they developed Resident Evil 2. The original was graphically inept, the controls weren’t solid, and the game wasn’t very scary. To say that Resident Evil 2 was only an improvement is a gigantic understatement, it is a substantial move forward and easily the finest in the series. RE2 gets it all right, whether its excellent story, which constantly kept the player guessing, nearly N64 quality graphics, and clichéd, but explicit, scares.

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The story picks up where the first left off. Claire Redfield, the sister of RE’s Chris Redfield, comes looking for Chris in Raccoon City. Once she arrives, zombies have overrun the place. Leon Kennedy, meanwhile, is heading to his first day of work as a police officer. You meet up, quickly to be separated by an explosion.

The game predominantly takes place outside of Raccoon City, the police station, and an underground complex, known as “The Hive�. Along the way, you will play as some other supporting characters, each playable for a short period of time. There are two discs for the two main characters, each of which branch off into their own story paths.

It is a tradition for the puzzles to be a driving force in Resident Evil games. In Resident Evil 2, they can be described as weird. The neat part is, puzzles won’t be reused all of the time if you play as both characters, which you probably will, if you want to maximize the replay value. Some puzzles are trial-and-error puzzles, but nothing is too difficult.

The control scheme is the same as in all Resident Evil titles; hate them or love them. The characters move like robots, leaving you wishing that they were, um, less robotic. RE2’s largest contribution was an auto-aim system, which helps you lock on to enemies. Conservation of ammo is an essential part of the game; like in all RE games, it is sometimes better strategically to run past zombies than waste your ammo.

Visually speaking, RE2 is a charm for its day. Capcom created bliss for fans of rendered backgrounds. The backgrounds are well detailed, with bloodstains and excellent lighting effects. By today’s standards, the character models aren’t detailed at all, but for the PS One days, they were top-tier.

In the end of the day, you wouldn’t play RE2 for the graphics in today’s world, but a game can’t be judged solely on presentation or on modern-day standards. Of course, for 1998, RE2 was a huge improvement over the original and was a first-class fright-fest. Now that new PS One’s are nearly extinct, RE2 can be picked up for an extremely reasonable price; you have absolutely no excuse for not picking this up.

Graphics: 9
Sound: 9
Gameplay: 9.5
Creativity: 6
Replay Value/Game Length: 7.5
Final: 8.7
Written by Kyle Review Guide

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