GAME REVIEW WO
ne of the most remarkable things
about this Resident Evil 2 remake
is that it makes zombies — the slow,
shambling, groaning kind — exciting
again. The undead in this game are
incredible, horrible things: shuffling
lumps of bloody meat who batter
down doors, tumble through broken
windows, and lunge hungrily from the
shadows. They’re physical, clumsy, and
an absolute joy to kill — if you have the
ammo to spare.
Shoot a leg off and they keep coming,
dragging themselves along the floor,
reaching at you with pale, clawing
hands. Turn a corner, and as the beam
of your flashlight catches their glassy
white eyes they screech and trudge
towards you, arms outstretched, jaws
slung with glistening blood. They don’t
sprint or explode or sprout thrashing
parasites like they do in newer Resident
Evil games: They just moan and lurch
and grab, and there’s something
enjoyably back-to-basics about that: a
feeling that echoes through every dark,
claustrophobic hallway of this
confident remake.
After the subversive Resident
Evil 7, with its grimy Southern Gothic
aesthetic and intimate first-person
horror, Resident Evil 2 is a return to
a more familiar style of game. It’s a
remake, but it’s never a slave to the
source material, adding or cleverly
remixing enough elements to make it
feel brand new. You can still play as
two characters — Leon S. Kennedy
and Claire Redfield — and a few fan
favorite bosses and locations have been
recreated. But even moments of fan
service are given some kind of twist or
fresh angle, which is, honestly, not what
I expected from this remake at all.
The grand, imposing Raccoon
City Police Department was always
a great setting, but the shift to three
dimensions makes it magnificent.
While the original game relied on fixed
camera angles and the distant moan
of unseen zombies to build fear, the
remake uses light, shadow and layout
to get under your skin. Some parts of
the station have been plunged into
darkness, forcing you to pick through
the gloom with a flashlight. The
building itself is a labyrinth of blind
corners, shadowy recesses and warren-WHY
SHOULD
I CARE?+ You don’t believe
there are enough
zombie games.
+ You love
repetition.
+ You love
repetition.Resident Evil 2
A remake of the PlayStation classic, is a masterclass in making an old game feel fresh again.
DEVELOPERCAPCOM• PUBLISHERIN-HOUSE
http://www.residentevil2.comis only half the battle. The zombies, as
much fun as they are to fight, can take a
hell of a beating. Their health seems to be
randomized, meaning that you can empty
ten bullets into one and it’ll keep crawling
after you, while another will be put down
permanently by just a few shots. This
makes them unpredictable and tenacious,
as zombies should be. But it also teaches
you a hard lesson that every bullet in this
remake is precious.HUNTED DOWN
Then there’s the Tyrant, a hulking
great mutant in a trench coat for whom
gunfire is little more than a minor
inconvenience. At certain points in the
game this merciless, invincible killing
machine will hunt you around the station
with grim persistence. You can track his
movements by listening to the heavy thudlike corridors, creating a constant
feeling of apprehension.
The station is essentially a giant box
of puzzles, and an absence of objective
markers or other such hand-holding
means you have to draft a mental map
of the building as you make your way
through it. At first most of the building
is locked up tight, or obstacles such
as the burning wreck of a crashed
helicopter block the way forward. But
as you explore you find items that let
you delve deeper, and slowly but surely
the maze of halls, offices, atriums and
stairwells starts to feel familiar. I also
like how dead zombies stay put, even
after reloading a save, as I’d often use
their corpses as a kind of macabre
breadcrumb trail.
But navigating the station and
deciphering its riddles and puzzlesThe zombies
have come a
long way since 1998.JANUARY 21, 1998
Theprerendered640x480backgroundsoftheoriginalgamearen’thideous,
buttheoriginalRPDmainhalllacksalittleatmosphere.JANUARY 25, 2019
Thenewversion,ontheotherhand,benefitsfrommodernlighting(and
being3D,ofcourse),andismuchscarierasaresult.FLASHBACK THE POLICE STATION, THEN AND NOW