Who knew running for your life could be so much fun?
Meet Claire Redfield. She's your average girl-next-door, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, while looking for her brother Chris. After arriving in Raccoon City, it is quite obvious that the entire town has turned into a playground for the living dead, thanks to the people at Umbrella, a chemical, manufacturing and all around badass plant in town. After being chased by the first of your many zombie counterparts, you meet rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy. Together, you have a solitary goal: to escape the zombie-infested town.
Before you ever enter the world of Resident Evil, you must first choose which of the two main characters you want to be. Claire and Leon each have a disc, and it makes no difference who you choose to play as first. Playing as each character gives you their specific side of the story, so in order to get the entire effect of RE2, know that you will have to play the game twice. While either character can be chosen in the beginning, it should be noted that certain decisions made throughout the game will affect your experience with the opposite character. Also, the second time around, a new monster let loose by Umbrella will be following your every move, ready to pounce at a second's notice, so stay on your toes!
The story itself progresses in a fairly linear fashion, taking you first on a small romp through the city streets, then into the police station, where you will spend the majority of gameplay. You meet various secondary characters, like Police Chief Irons and the creator of the mutagenic virus himself, William Birkin. Each have unique personalities, and the creepy journals that accompany most of their appearances adds a whole other level to the "WTF" style of the storyline.
While the story might be set in stone, the order in which you complete various rooms in each location is generally up to you, adding a bit of strategy to an otherwise straightforward game. If you are going for the unlockables (another playable character, etc.), you will need to get a great score at the end of your playthrough, and speed is a big factor in getting the highest grade. Being able (for the most part) to choose your route is great for situations such as these, as does my suggestion that I'll make now: memorize the map, or print one out at least. Apart from speed, the usage of certain items, such as health sprays will also drag down your grade.
Puzzles abound in RE2, ranging from simple "move the shelves to match a picture" to instances that require you to backtrack to find new items, and even combine various things in order to complete a task. This backtracking can be a bit tedious on successive journeys through the game, but with more practice, you will have the item hunting, and overall gameplay down to a science.
Helping you tame the undead are various weapons with ranging powers of destruction. Some of them are character specific, but the locations for each character tend to be the same. You are given a knife at the beginning, which gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "you're just asking for it." In other words, it's entirely worthless, and your motto should always be "the bigger the gun, the better." Ammo is found scattered throughout the way, and its location and quantity bring me to another aspect of gameplay - the levels of difficulty.
As in most games of the adventure persuasion, you are given a choice from various difficulty levels. Each rank does have a large effect on the gameplay, if only for the effect on the ammo, or lack thereof. Choose a higher level of difficulty and not only will the enemies become harder, but you will have less ammo to kill them! This adds a great deal of replayability to an already full game: not only can you play as two different characters, but each run-through is different than the last!
As for the more general aspects of the game, the graphical and sound departments, I'll first give a huge reminder to you all that RE2 came out way back in 1997…We're talking a whole "generation" ago people, so there is no way that any aspect of the visuals or audio is going to be able to hold a candle to today's standards. Blood is in blocks, not drops, and as in most RE titles, the voice acting is lacking at best, but there are some pretty impressive CPU cutscenes thrown in at random intervals.
In the end, Resident Evil 2 amounts to one of the best times you can have while being chased by creatures who would love to make you their next meal. Zombies and a whole cast of other... uh, undead things give the game an immediate scare factor, even by today's standards. Sure, it's not one of the longest games in existence (my shortest time is around 2 hours and 17 minutes), but for those three hours or so, you'd have a hard time finding something more enjoyable. Who knew running for your life could be so addictive?
Review part of grrlgamer.com. Full review and screenshots at: http://grrlgamer.com/review.php?g=residentevil2