Pros: Still a great game to play, Scary. One of the best RE games.
Cons: No enhancements at all, Outdated.
The bottom line: Still an awesome game, grab a copy of the N64 version as it's the best of the lot.
After announcing several years ago that the Resident Evil franchise was moving to the GameCube, it was misconstrued that all the older games were going to be getting a make over. As we all now know, it was only the first game in the series that was getting a visual upgrade, with RE2, 3 and Code Veronica being brought to the Gamecube as simple ports. Unfortunately, getting my hands on the final product makes me wish Capcom had put a little bit more time and effort into the games, as they play exactly like they did on the Playstation and N64.

Resident Evil 2 set the style of the RE games never focusing on the same set of characters for too long. Where as the first game featured S.T.A.R.S members Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, RE2’s protagonists are new R.P.D recruit Leon Kennedy and one Claire Redfield (searching for her brother, Chris from RE1). The main man Leon packs a shotgun and a serious attitude. Thanks to the Zombie scum…his girlfriend is dead, but more importantly, he missed out on his donuts. Now he doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, he just wants to send as many of those scumbags back to hell as he can! Lets not underestimate Claire though, She may have smaller biceps than Leon but her crossbow makes a very effective weapon and it looks really cool when you see the zombies walking around with arrows sticking out of their heads.

Taking place around six weeks after the events of the first game, Resident Evil 2 is set in Raccoon City, a reasonably sized town (Raccoon ‘Town’ must have been taken already) that had – until recently – one of the lowest human-to-zombie ratios in the world, My how things change.

If you start with Leon, things start off with a quick drive to the donut store, then back to the police station before the Smurfs start, but on the way Leon gets a bit suspicious when he finds the local postman eating his girlfriends brain from her severed head. The rookie cop concludes that an investigation is appropriate at this time, and your adventure continues. If you choose Claire, you begin your adventure on the other side of town. Both Leon and Claire meet and after getting to know one another (ahem…) they go their separate ways and look for survivors.

For those who haven’t played the game, The gameplay of the Resident Evil series focuses around finding objects, solving puzzles and of course, blowing large chunks of zombie flesh all over the joint with some seriously heavy weaponry. The puzzles aren’t as cool as those found in Zelda, but they are fitting nonetheless. For example, you may have to fit a number of crystals into wall slots or face statues in certain directions to open a wall to a hidden area. Although corny, the puzzles suit the B-grade horror feel of the game well. Along the way you’ll meet up with half eaten characters that will offer you clues before they kick the bucket and turn into zombies themselves.

As with the first game, choosing different characters to play with would take you on a different path with different events occurring. New to this game though was the ability to play through the each others characters path with the opposing character, which adds to the replay value.

Although it is an old game, it still manages to catch you off guard with some pretty spooky sequences. You may be quietly wondering through corridors for a length of time without hearing a pin drop, then, suddenly, some mother-fudging undead creature with a half rotted face (that bares a striking resemblance to Damo’s last girlfriend) will come crashing through a wall or ceiling after a piece of your a**. The game also manages to blend in enough action amongst all this creeping about. At times you’ll have a bunch of zombies lumbering towards you as you shoot volleys of shotgun shells in their general direction. Sometimes you’ll blow off the poor sods legs but they’ll still manage to crawl along the floor with their arms. Persistent little blighters they are. If one does manage to crawl up to you, your character can then crush their heads with their boot. Regardless of how humane we are, there is definitely something satisfying about seeing a zombie’s head spray across the wall.

Where this game loses a lot of points is in originality, and I’m not just talking about the 20 variations that appeared on the PlayStation. We’ve also had the game on the N64, a console half as powerful as the GameCube, and this is where a lack of any upgrade in the visual department really hurts the game. Badly compressed FMV aside, it’s my opinion that the Angel Studio’s N64 port of the game is in many ways superior to this version; you got analogue control and better textures for starters. This version is supposedly supporting some type of high-res graphics, but if that’s true all it’s doing is making it easier for me to see the awfully outdated textures.

In the end, RE2 is still a very fun/scary game to play and it is one of the best games in the series. But this is not the best port of the game; the N64 version is still the best port. I recommend hunting down the N64 version or even the original PlayStation version if you want to get into the series. But if you’ve played either of those versions, there’s very little reason to buy this.

Later Skaters