Resident Evil 2

It is no small feat that when someone says Survival Horror the first thing that pops into your mind is Resident Evil. The game may not have created the genre but it literally defined it. Giving it a name all the while creating one of gaming's most enduring franchises. The original game drew very clear inspiration from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Zombie outbreak with survivors taking refuge in a secluded house (well a much bigger house in RE's case) but much like it's original muse its a bit rough. You can see the budget and camp oozing out of every line of cheesy dialogue. Resident Evil may have just ended there and faded into gaming history.

But in 1998 Capcom released Resident Evil 2, a tale of two people surviving a near apocalyptic scenario. If Resident Evil was Night of the Living Dead then Resident Evil 2 is very much Dawn of the Dead. It expanded the scale and scope and it is where the concepts really hit their stride. And arguably hit their peak. RE1 may have coined Survival Horror but it is RE2 that made Survival Horror a gaming house hold name.

Every aspect of the original is revisited and expanded upon. The much lauded "tank" controls return but this time much more fluid and responsive. Off-putting for some the movement controls allow a skilled player to run circles around the undead. The stop and shoot combat gets a much needed upgrade in the form of a simple auto-aim, no more fiddling to line up a shot and gets rid of awkward situations where an enemy is just off camera. It is these simple systems that allows the game to hold up pretty well compared to it's contemporaries. No complex mechanics simply an aim button and a shoot button.

The visuals hold up remarkably well for a PlayStation game. The use of 3D models on high resolution pre-rendered backgrounds gives the world a very realistic and sharp look that gives the game a graphical edge many 3D games of it's era greatly lack and suffer for in retrospect. The full motion video segments while today nothing to write home about back in 1998 were up there with Final Fantasy in terms of quality. The bad voice over of RE1 gets a cheesier B-Movie makeover in the sequel. Clearly not intentional but it doesn't hold back the story and gives the game an air of camp reminiscent of 80's horror films.

The story of Leon and Claire needs no rehashing after fifteen years. But the fundamentals of a malevolent corporation wrecking havoc on a small city and the struggles of the survivors still play even today. Resident Evil 2 features the most fully realized story in the franchise. Finding the perfect combination of George Romero zombie tropes, corporate conspiracies, and campy B-Movie horror. Long before ganados and majini and ridiculous set pieces RE2 set the perfect tone for a creepy stroll through a sleepy mountain town gone to hell and overrun with the walking dead.

Resident Evil 2's greatest innovation is the zapping system. The game is divided into four scenarios. An "A" scenario and a "B" scenario for each main character. The A scenario establishes the main sequence of events of the plot from that characters perspective. The B scenario running parrallel to the events of the A. Featuring new areas and crossover points the B scenario shows what was happening to one character over here while the other was over there. Essentially giving you two games for the price of one.

The PSN release is the RE2 Dualshock Edition which features a new arcade style scenario called EX Battle which adds to the existing "The 4th Survivor" and "Tofu" scenarios which were existing hidden unlockable modes in the original release. Providing fun an interesting extras after finishing the main game.

After fifteen years Resident Evil 2 still stands as the crown jewel of the Resident Evil franchise. A series that Capcom has lost its way with and continues to try to recapture. And could once again.