Resident Evil 2 (Remake)

Taking place 3 months after Resident Evil 1 where the reports of Umbrella’s illegal experiments into bio-weapons, the surviving STARS members file the report on the deaf ears of their police chief, Brandon Irons. Frustrated, Chris Redfield takes off, Jill Valentine stays behind; she’ll tell her story in Remake 3. The outbreak they feared would happen, did happen as Raccoon City is over run. Claire Redfield comes into town to find her brother who didn’t call or write, but gets a quick intro to survival horror. Leon Scott Kennedy, a rookie officer that was to start his first day, picks her up but get separated relatively early, and their scenarios ensue.

They kept the scenario choice intact, where would first choose between Leon and Claire as the first character, then once complete, would play the other’s story to see what they were up to when the game camera was not on them. They do intersect from time to time, but not enough to warrant a simultaneous 2 player mode. Who you pick affects which other characters you meet, Claire will meetup with Sherry, Leon with Ada for example.

Gameplay wise, they’ve kept the style of enclosed spaces, and on default settings, barely enough ammo to kill everything, so discretion is still the better part of valor. New is that its in the over the shoulder view that was made famous in Resident Evil 4 and can turn the camera freely. Areas now have dynamic lighting so some areas of the police station and sewers will get dark to the point our protagonists get out a flashlight. You do have limited inventory, but can be expanded with pouch upgrades. You can save your progress with typewriters and stash your inventory in the magic item box that goes with you as in the old-style games, though on default you can save infinitely. Harder modes will have you use ink ribbons that limit your saves until you find more, keeping it in tune with its original counterpart.

You’ll solve puzzles, find themed keys, read many, many notes, journals and scraps to get out of Raccoon City, with some new areas to break things up. Sherry Birkin now gets her own section as you find out what happened when the now deranged chief Irons kidnaps her, takes her to the orphanage where you’ll be playing a messed up game of hide-and-seek. Ada Wong now gets her own chapter, where she does her best cat woman impression with gadgetry and acrobatics. Gone is the chemical plant’s final section, now replaced by NEST, an Umbrella research facility right under Racoon City where I guess a big explosion and expanded rumors of the undead are just a ‘minor setback.’ Starting from here on out, the remakes are unifying the narrative so that each game weaves into the next, dropping foreshadowing hints of what’s to come, as well as subtlety telling you to get the next game wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Whoever you pick as your second scenario, Mr X, shows up as while in the first scenario you can take your time more often than not to pace the horror, Mr X has other ideas. That involves your death. Aside from getting achievements to hit him, you’re better off running like its a Sonic game. Otherwise, gunplay is similar to its original though with some interesting additions like an electric stunner that will pause zombies in their tracks. You can craft your own ammo so you can adapt to your situation or preference such as if you prefer to dish out shotgun therapy for example.