Resident Evil 2 review by Tyson
Overall
Buy
Resident Evil 2 is one of those sequels that takes everything that made the previous game great and improves on it. Nearly everything in Resident Evil 2 is crafted so much better then what was in the first game.
Gameplay
I felt that Resident Evil 2 had a pretty well made story. In this game the zombie virus, from the mansion in the first game, has gotten into Raccoon City. Now with the entire city infected it is up to our playable characters Claire Redfield and Leon S. Kennedy to escape Raccoon City alive. What I found really neat about the story was that each character has an A and B scenario. The A scenario is the generally regarded as the main story while B is the side scenario. I liked how the B scenario would bring in a new dangerous enemy and also a few choices you made in scenario A can affect scenario B. Like in the previous game you will get to play as some side characters briefly.
The core gameplay elements are still the same as they were in Resident Evil. You will explore through environments like a police station, a sewer system, and other places like a secret laboratory facility. You still get to use weapons like handguns, shotguns, and some new weapons like a submachine gun to dispatch the various zombies and monsters throughout the game. I liked how they were able to increase how many enemies are on the screen at one time now. There are times where you have easily 5 or more zombies on the screen at the same time. Not to mention that they put these zombies in much smaller spaces now. This definitely increases the games difficulty. Even more powerful enemies, such as the Lickers, are introduced earlier in the games story now.
You still have to deal with limited inventory spaces and thankfully you still get use to item boxes placed throughout the game. The games puzzles are still designed in that weird but fun way. You will need to collect many different keys to unlock doors or collect and combine various items to access new areas or get other items. Sadly I was a bit disappointed that you no longer fully inspect items in the inventory screen now. Items now are just sprite based objects instead of being fully 3D models like last time.
Control
The control still uses the design from the first game. Your character still moves in a vehicle like fashion and you still need to use multiple buttons to fire your weapon. If you had problems with the controls from Resident Evil then you still wont like them here. Though if you are like me and didn’t have problems with these kind of controls then you will be able to jump into the game right away.
Graphics
This was another area with a big improvement from the previous game. The character models and game environments look so much better now. I loved how many enemies they put on the screen now. I do wish that the items in the inventory screen were 3D objects that you could rotate and view at different angles like in the previous game. Viewing items as just 2D sprites is a bit boring. I do wish that they did another live actor intro video like last time but the 3D animated cinematics are still impressive and well made.
Sound
The audio in the game is just as good if not better then the previous game. I liked the voice work used in the game. Sure it still had that cheesy dialog but it adds a charm to the game. Background music is well done as well. I loved the sound effects used for items or the enemies. Hearing that Licker nail scraping sound is just freaky.