"Unbelievably, scary, addicting, and fun"

When I first heard Resident Evil 2 was being ported over to the 64, I tossed it aside because the N64 has never been able to successfully store FMV, voices, and so on because of its limited storage compacity. Then I heard the rave reviews, and the news that Angel Studios had developed a micro-coding bit that enabled EVERYTHING and MORE to be crammed in. I bought the game three days later. I was not disappointed.

N64 fans need not worry about not being able to follow the RE complex storyline, because RE2 pretty much stands by itself, plus it has some cool EX files that give you a glimpse at future and past RE events. The story is that you are either Leon S. Kennedy, a rookie cop, or Claire Redfield, a college girl trying to find her brother, and you wind up in the middle of the zombie-infested raccoon city by accident. From there, its pretty much a story about survival and escape, with conspiracies and a few twists thrown in here and there.

Graphically, the game is amazing. Everything has been ported over successfully, save for the FMV, which is blurry sometimes, but exceptional nonetheless. I couldn't find anything wrong with the main game engine, and the characters are polygon-loaded and move very realistically.

There isn't much music in the game, but sound effects are aplenty, and they provide a lot of the atmosphere. Zombies can be heard moaning, glass shatters unexpectedly, and the few music samples warn of you of the impending showdowns between you and the games bosses. All of this has been coded into surround-sound, making it truly immersive. Oh and the voice-acting is bad, but oh well.

The original controls (3rd-person) are very frustrating, but the N64's new 1st-person controls aree excellent, giving you more -control- over the game. there not much to memorize, all of your actions have been neatly placed on one button, save for the aim, which is the top R trigger ala GoldenEye. RE's trademark has been the fact that it uses fixed camera angles to help create the sensensation of living a movie-and it works quite well, save for certain areas where shots can be frustrating to pull off.

So what else is there? Hunk, Tofu, and the secret weapons are all included, and there is now a new randomizer option (mixes up the items you collect for fresh gameplay), as well as violence and blood color options. If you finish the game as one character, go back as the other character and face new challenges and a new storyline. You can also reverse the order, making for 4 different main adventures. But that does not even begin to sum up the fun of RE2. Capcom has cleverly added many heart-stopping moments to the game, where zombies (or worse) smash into the room from nowhere and start attacking. While the game is pretty short, the fact that you need to play it over and over to unlock the secrets adds to the replay value. This is a true winner of a game. If you don't own the PSX version, by all means buy this soon, because only a limited number of copies have been made. We can only imagine what RE: Zero will hold...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/14/00, Updated 05/14/00