Y2K Game: Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 2

I remember watching a friend of mine play this game at his house on the Playstation back in the 90s. I was maybe nine or ten years old. I can't remember how far he got into the game, but I definitely remember that first encounter with the licker. Then there was those game over screens: your character's body getting eaten alive by the zombies while the words "You Died" splatter onto the screen in blood. It gave me the creeps, Haha!

I would later complete the remake of the first Resident Evil on the Gamecube at another friend's house. It was a great experience. Even though I haven't played Resident Evil since then, I do have respect for the franchise for just those little moments.

I recently completed Resident Evil 2 on the Sega Dreamcast and I honestly believe it holds up surprisingly well. There was a part of me that was fearful of this game showing its age. The only thing that truly aged was the graphics and, on the Dreamcast, they don't look so bad. You could probably make a case that this is the best way to play RE2. Although, they removed the gruesome game over screens and replaced them with a black screen. Lame.

The one thing that RE2 nails down perfectly is the atmosphere. It absolutely captures the cinematic horror movie vibe perfectly. The zombies lumber towards you as they groan in agony. Victims pay the ultimate price for letting their guard down. Mutated creatures stalk the halls and undergrounds. Even when the room is empty, there's a feeling that a monster could come out of nowhere and hit you with a jump-scare. Now, you're scrambling for your life; running away from a terrifying enemy you know you don't stand a chance against. I think the only atmosphere in gaming I've encountered that's better than this is Super Metroid. It's easy to get lost in.

I already discussed the atmosphere driven by the art style, the characters, the location, and the creatures. What compounds the horror movie feeling is the incredible sound design that lives rent-free in your head. I especially love some of the piano themes in RE2, but the general creepy atmospheric horror music that plays as your exploring the Raccoon City Police Station is exquisitely haunting. Even the little things like footsteps or squishy gross noises add a lot of sonic texture. The only sounds that aged poorly is the voice acting. The first Resident Evil is notorious for having laughably bad voice acting. The sequel is better, but it's still often cringe inducing. It's pretty clear they just grabbed anybody that was available at the time of development to do the voices. Other than that, the sounds of RE2 are comfortably creepy.

The soundscapes and the atmosphere makes exploring the police station a haunting delight. This is a survival game, but it's also an exploration and puzzle game. In order to progress, you must obtain items in order to unlock different parts of the map and often have to backtrack in order to complete a puzzle or open a new doorway. It's almost as if the building itself is a puzzle you must unlock and navigate through. In a way, this reminds me of Super Metroid. Instead of getting powerups to open up new locations to explore, you need keys, medallions, or plastic explosives in order to blow a hole in a wall you encountered in a separate wing of the station. Not only is there a trail of items that must be used to unlock sections of the station, there's also a trail of files and documents that reveal a conspiracy between the chief of police and the Umbrella corporation in order to produce a monstrous bioweapon. Both of these trails only enhance the already thick atmosphere.

As I started playing this game, I was afraid that the tank controls and fixed camera angles would aggravate me. I expected to complain about how cumbersome they are and "I can't see a thing!" exclamations. Throughout my playthrough, I made no such complaints. I was shocked at how well those two aspects aged. Resident Evil is barely even about action. It is about survival, exploration, and horror. It is those very tank controls and fixed cameras that go a long way to enhance those three attributes; I am convinced that it wouldn't work without them. It's hard to explain why, but I believe it's because the developers where aiming towards a cinematic feel. Sometimes, a horror film works because characters are horrified by what's off screen as well as their clumsy struggles to break free and escape with a few scars.

I haven't played any of the remakes past the one on the Gamecube, but that remake is still very much in the spirit of the original. It seems to me that these remakes attempt to modernize the classic Resident Evil games to the point that they are completely different games. That's just my guess. Perhaps I'll play them someday. In the meantime, I am definitely going to play the classics first. I had an absolute blast with RE2, I am sure I'll have fun with RE3 and Code: Veronica.