PC_Powerplay-Iss_275_2019

WGAME REVIEW

of his footsteps, but other than blinding
him with a flashbang, evasion is your
only real option. He’s also attracted to
gunfire, which adds further weight to
decisions involving fighting regular
zombies. Do you waste ammunition and
risk alerting the Tyrant?
The way he walks slowly towards
you, unflinching and emotionless, is
genuinely unsettling—especially when
he suddenly appears at the end of a
long corridor. And he’s always lurking
near items you need to progress, which
is brilliantly cruel. But I would have
liked more ways to interact with the
Tyrant, because eventually these run-
ins start to feel rather one-note, and
the fear can mutate into frustration.
Even the ability to throw something to
distract him would have made these
sections a bit more interesting, but as it
stands the concept feels disappointingly
underdeveloped.
Similar to Resident Evil 4, the
difficulty of the game adapts as you
play. How it actually works is obscured,
but whatever’s going on behind the
scenes, the balancing is quite masterful.
For the entire nine hours it took me
to finish my first run as Leon, I felt
constantly on the verge of
catastrophic failure.
The good news is that if you sacrifice
ammo to clear out an area, it’ll stay
clear. More zombies can spill through
open windows, but you can block these
up with wooden boards. This gives you
some breathing room, especially when
you’re being chased by the Tyrant. The
last thing you need is zombies clawing
at you when you’re trying to run to
safety. Counter-weapons can also tip
the balance. If you have a grenade or
a combat knife in your inventory and
something grabs you while you’re low
on health, you’ll avoid death: Stabbing
them with the blade or shoving a
grenade in their mouth. So the game
isn’t completely relentless in its
attempts to sabotage you, but for every
inch it gives you, it takes one right back.
It’s never really that scary, though.
Unnerving, tense, and sometimes
overwhelmingly stressful, sure,
but there’s nothing particularly
psychological about it. But that was
always Resident Evil’s thing: Zombie
dogs crashing through windows rat
than the psychosexual mind-beasts
Silent Hill. Still, Resident Evil 7 had
some effectively eerie moments, an
would have liked some of that to m
its way into this remake. If you can
deal with the stress, there is an ‘as
difficulty option that adds generou
auto-aim and makes a small amoun
of health regenerate automatically.

But, honestly, the game just isn’t very

exciting when your item box is heaving

with an abundance of spare shotgun

shells and green herbs.

SECOND WIND

When you finish your first playthrough,

you’ve really only seen half of what the

game has to offer. The second run uses

the same locations and has many of the

same story beats, but the puzzles are

different, enemy types and locations

are mixed up, and you take a different

route through each of the game’s three

major locations. What I love about this

so-called ‘B’ scenario is how the game

uses your knowledge of the setting

against you. Walking into the RPD

main hall as Claire, a protected haven

for Leon, and seeing zombies in there

was a fun subversion. It’s just a shame

the intensity of the Tyrant is amped up

to such a preposterous degree. He’s

constantly looming over your shoulder,

which I ultimately found a bit annoying.

As a longtime fan of the original

Resident Evil 2, I enjoyed the remake’s

many self-aware attempts to clarify

some of the more abstract stuff in the

game—such as why a sewer system

is powered by plugs shaped like chess

pieces, or why a police station would

theme its keys and locks around

playing card suits. There are other cute

references to the old games to find,

but they’re pretty subtle and don’t

feel forced. This could have easily been

a game targeted squarely at fans, but

if this was your first Resident Evil you

would get your head around everything

in minutes—another example of how

refreshingly simple the remake is. The

story is really no more complicated than:

Zombies everywhere, get to safety.

Some of the voice acting and writing

are pretty bad, and not ‘fun bad’ like in

the old PlayStation games: Just regular

bad. The second act, which takes place in

a dingy sewer, is a little slow. And I was

glad when the section where you play

as Ada Wong, solving hacking puzzles

while the Tyrant stalks you, was over.

But otherwise, this is pretty much the

ultimate refinement of the classic Resi

formula—but with the added joy of RE4’s

dynamic over-the-shoulder combat. The

result is a game that is among the best in

the series, and a thrilling survival horror

experience in its own right. It’s not as

surprising as RE7, but as an evolution,

and a celebration, of classic Resident Evil,

you couldn’t ask for much more.

ANDY KELLY

VERDICT:

A tense, challenging

and beautiful remake of

a classic, with enough

new ideas to make it feel

excitingly new. 9

ABOVE: The two

playable characters,

Claire and Leon.

Raccoon City is not

tourist friendly.

Exploding heads like this

are, oddly, rare.

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