Resident Evil 2

The Good
I was looking forward to this game, because I liked the first one. It was cool being in Resident Evil again with a new location to wander around in but it just was too similar to part 1. Capcom didn't decide to revamp any of the areas of part 1 which flawed it. I love the music in this game though, as well as part 1. They do well there. RE2 was a definitely worth a rent or 2 or 3 but I didn't think it was worth a buy.

The Bad
Inventory system still sucked, the player control was still difficult. The view still sometimes left you blind-fighting with a monster out of the view, very frustrating. I thought there was still a lack of ammo. Saving system was identical to RE1, which was not a good thing. The resolution on the PC version was terrible, very grainy and you couldn't adjust it. I thought the PS1 version had much better graphics.

The Bottom Line
Pretty fun, worth renting (back when it was released, probably could find it for 5 bucks now though) Worth owning now days but not back then. Fun for RE fans.

The Good
Picture this- you sit down to watch a movie. A horror movie. The third in an incredible series. It is called "Day of the Dead". You pop it in, press play, and grab a handful of tasty (but a bit too salty) popcorn. The first scene involves some people on the outskirts of a Floridian city with a megaphone calling out to any human survivors. The zombies here this and in a second a rather large army of zombies has clogged the streets trying to get to these tasty humans. You think to yourself "Damn, that is really cool. I hope the movie takes place in the city." Unfortunately it doesn't. Although the movie is still good, you feel let down. This game lets you live that wonderful scene for hours of the most crap-your-pants scary suspense you will ever feel in a game. The controls are the same basic Resident Evil style, simple and easy to use. The game is long and provides amazing CGIs for the player to feast their eyes on. The secret modes are no easy to combine and are a blast to play (one even adds a secret bit to the plot from Umbrella's side of things).

The Bad
Wasn't much. The only thing you can really gripe about this game is the continuity. In order to complete the game and be able to see all the CGIs, you need to beat scenarios 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B. This means you see the game through the eyes of Claire and Leon is two different situations. Good right? In theory right if they dictated which character you start out with and then switch it halfway through the game. Instead you can start with either character. This means you need to beat it with Claire starting and Leon starting in order to beat all four scenarios (when you beat 1A, Claire's starting scenario, you get access to 2B, Leon's alt. scenario and vice versa). This means you will play a journey with Claire starting by the gun shop in 1A and Leon starting by the gun shop in 1B. Being as you need to play all four scenarios to unlock the entire final video, this means that the continuity gets screwed up (well, who was thrown by the gun show in the very beginning?! Leon or Claire!? Make up your mind Capcom!). Other than this, it is really a great game and second in the series only to Resident Evil: Code Veronica. Oh ya, and it is too hard to unlock the secret Tofu mode. That is too great an option to never get to experience.

The Bottom Line
After a car accident in a zombie infested city, two new friends- Claire, the brother of Chris from the first game, and Leon, a cop on him way to his first day at the Raccon City Police Department, are separated. You must fight your way through the claustophobic urban atmosphere to reunite and survive this hellish plague. Maybe along the way you will make some new friends and find out just who is responcible for this mess. But when you do find the responcible party you might just regret it...

The Good
The game has it's own, unique feeling. It is very scary and dark ... especially the B scenario. The gameplay is very good - althought shooting and moving in the same time would be nice.

Video clips are awesome, but the game itself has very blocky and pixelated graphics because the 2d backgrounds are in TV resolutions.

Sound isn't that good, but the music supports the feeling of the game nicely.

The Bad
First of all, the voice acting and other sound fx are horrible - the dialogue was bad in the first place and the voices make it even worse. The sound fx are very lame, pistols say bang and shotgun goes boom, but it doesn't sound real - and the zombie moans get annoying very fast.

The game is also pretty short, althought it has many "secret" features. Also, the game difficulty levels are wreid, "easy" is way too easy, "normal" is too easy and "hard" is near to impossible.

Also, the great feeling of the game is broken by little mistakes - cop officer says "here, take this keycard" and waves his empty hand at you - and you get the keycard. Also, the enviroment is very unrealistic and the puzzles are really annoying. When was the last time you saw a lock that used chess pieces as keys?

The Bottom Line
Basically a simple action adventure game, but it has that SOMETHING that makes it stand out as THE survival horror game. In my opinion it's the best game in it's genre - and a good game anyway. Give it a try.