Resident Evil 2

"After returning from an unexpectedly extended vacation in Raccoon City, Larcen writes his latest review..."

After the success of the original Resident Evil, everyone knew that a sequel was inevitable. The only problem was would it fix the problems of the original game? Come the middle of 1996, Capcom already had screenshots of what would be the next game in the Resident Evil series. However, while they were a little past the halfway mark, they sent it to a group of people for playtesting, and it got a big thumbs down. So they decided to start from scratch again. While us survival horror fans would have to ultimately wait untill 1998 to see the sequel to Resident Evil, it was definitely worth it, as Capcom learned from their mistakes and learned what survival horror was supposed to truly be about!

Graphics: 10/10
A big improvement over the original's. Instead of just being inside a mansion, you actually had to go through Raccoon City in the dead of night while bloodthirsty zombies were hunting you! Little details like monsters catching on fire, characters limping as their health went down and turning their head in the direction of something suspicious all made the game so realistic that it made the original look like child's play! Of course, the game came complete with maximum amounts of blood and gore (it was the first game to my knowledge to actually have a warning screen about it!) and it sure isn't for the squeamish! You can blast zombies' heads off, or cut them in two with a shotgun blast, or take out a machine gun and watch those zombies fall into a pile of their own blood! It ain't pretty, but it's what you'd expect from a game like this!

Sounds: 9/10
Despite a few corny bits here and there, the voices are still a major improvement over the original game's laughable B-Movie type of dialogue. When the characters speak, they speak with emotion and they sound believable. When you fire a weapon, you'll hear a different sound depending on the type of weapon you're using as well as if it's modified or not. The zombies, like in the original, still groan like they've got a major case of indigestion! Other creatures, like the lickers and the plant creatures, have their own unique sound effects that, once you hear them, will have you scared stiff!

Controls: 10/10
Any Resident Evil professional will be glad to know the controls are still the same. One addition that was made to the game (actually it was first implemented in Director's Cut but still) is the ability to 'auto-aim.' This means your character will automatically aim at the nearest enemy within direct sight. By tapping the L1 button you can toggle between other enemies if there's more than one nearby. Very useful when fighting a group of zombies! When you run low on health, your character will start to move slower, making it more realistic and important to conserve health items!

Story: 10/10
Three months after the original Resident Evil, and ever since then, the S.T.A.R.S. have left town after nobody believed them about the original incident. Now, a bigger incident involving a new, advanced virus, has occurred, and this time within the heart of Raccoon City. Just about every person within the city has turned into a flesh eating zombie, if not something worse.

Leon Kennedy, a rookie police officer on his way to his first shift in Raccoon City, encounters a strange mess when he enters the city. At the same time, Claire Redfield, the sister of Chris from the first game, has entered the city in search of her missing brother. She encounters a group of zombies and is barely saved by the coincidental encounter with Leon. After getting into a car accident, they decide to head to the police station, where the story begins.

Replay: 9/10
Aside from the standard mini-games and weapons you unlock by finishing the game (albeit the fact there aren't that many) Resident Evil 2 introduces a new system called 'Zapping.' When you finish the game with one character, you'll get a save file for the other character. Load that data with the other character and you'll be able to see what happened through their eyes, as well as see other parts of the game that you wouldn't have seen with the other character. In addition, you'll get to see the true ending.

Overall: 10/10
I admit, I wasn't a real survival horror fanatic untill the day I finished Resident Evil, and played through the Resident Evil 2 demo so much I felt like preordering it. It was a preorder I didn't regret! While other versions have surfaced here and there, there's still nothing like the original PlayStation game which defined survival horror as we knew it! This is one game you'd be evil not to make a resident of your game collection!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/02, Updated 01/08/02