If you are a 90’s kid and I don’t mean you were born close to the end of the 90’s you had the pleasure of possibly owning Resident Evil 2.
One of the best horror games released in my opinion especially at the time Resident Evil 2 is one of the more complex games in the series. What I love about it is that it’s not just a gore fest typical of the horror genre.
It is a game of hardcore strategy, with rich characters leading an intricately woven story about lies and deception in a city driven by insane, power-hungry individuals.
Now one of my favourite things about this game was having 4 scenarios to play through (6 if you count Hunk and Tofu) in which you play through Clare’s scenarios A and B and Leon’s scenarios A and B I had never seen this before and it blew my younger selves mind, fuck it still does even now.
So, I recently dusted off my old faithful play-station 1 and cracked in my copy of Resident evil 2 and I was instantly taken back to when I was a child and playing this game. Yes, I played M-rated games when I was 9, just like I am sure many of you have.
I love the first video cut scene it still feels me with joy especially when I was a 9 year old boy I was amazed at the graphics yes I know that to today standards the graphics would seem dull and rubbish, but back then this was superior to what I had seen before.
The controls to the game are a bit tricky at first and can take a little while to get used to but once you got them down you’re sorted the only draw back to this is from the get go you are thrown strait in the middle of a pack of blood thirsty zombies that want nothing more than to nom your tasty flesh so trying to run past them can be tricky unless you want to waste your bullets on them which is not advised in my opinion as in this game every bullet counts, You will be led into a false sense of security when you have 58 handgun bullets and a first aid spray, and you’ll find yourself 2 minutes later in orange Caution with less than a clip left and dodging zombies left and right.
Something that made this game stand out for me was the puzzles you would have to complete to get further in the game now allot of the time it wasn’t so blatantly obvious what you needed to do so you really had to think.
I remember it took me a good half hour to realise I had to light the fire under the portrait to get one of the gem stone the first time I played which as you can imagine is a bit frustrating but I think that added to they suspense of the game play you could be running along trying to figure out what to do then BAM!!! a Licker jumps through the 2 way mirror and you slightly soil yourself I’m not going to lie when I replayed the game after a rather long time I forgot about that bit and very nearly did need a change of underwear.
I believe this was one of the best games from the 90’s and it still stands the test of time it has been ported to multiple systems such as N64, Pc, GameCube and even the Dreamcast I will play this game probably till the day I die as I love it so much.
Resident Evil 2 is what survival horror should be on all accounts I won’t soon forget my trip into Raccoon City, and I sure as hell wont forget the benchmark survival horror classic that is Resident Evil 2.
Image source: IGN