Resident Evil 2 (PlayStation)

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Description

Even though Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine were able to destroy the Umbrella corporation's undead monsters in the original Resident Evil, Umbrella's experiments with the T-virus continued unhindered. Claire Redfield, the younger sister of Chris, and Leon Kennedy, a rookie cop on his first day of the job, arrive in the sleepy midwestern town of Raccoon City only to find the city in flaming ruins due to the inhabitants having been transformed into mindless flesh-eating freaks. Although Claire and Leon team up, they are soon separated and trapped inside the city by a car crash. Seeking refuge within the Raccoon City police station, each character must find a way to escape from the nightmare while solving the mystery of what happened to Raccoon City.

Besides the zombie population (which is much more diverse than the original, including teenage girl zombies, maniac cop zombies, and even melting naked zombies), Claire and Leon will also have to deal with a variety of freakish mutants including giant poisonous spiders, walking venus-fly-traps, and speedy wall-crawling Lickers. Each character will also be pursued by one seemingly unstoppable foe: a horrific and constantly evolving man-monster known as the "G-Type" (Leon's Scenario) , or a taciturn but inhumanly powerful Umbrella agent who is nonetheless saddled with the rather quaint name of Mr. X (Claire's Scenario).

Like the previous game in the series, Resident Evil 2 is a 3D action-adventure using three-dimensional polygon characters over two-dimensional pre-rendered backgrounds, with the action viewed through a variety of cinematic fixed camera angles in each room. Just like the original Resident Evil, players can choose to play as one of two possible characters. Each character goes through the same initial scenario, but with differences in the type of weaponry they find and the people they meet along the way. Leon will team up with a mysterious woman calling herself Ada Wong, while Claire will find herself charged with protecting a little girl named Sherry Birkin.

Unlike the original Resident Evil, beating the game for the first time unlocks a second scenario to be played with the character you didn't choose, with new locations, maps, enemies, a longer and more climactic ending. Your actions in the first scenario can also affect the outcome of certain events in the second scenario. Additionally ammo and healing items are more plentiful than in the original game, although you still aren't given enough bullets to kill every enemy you meet.

Screenshots

Promo Images

There are no promo images for this game

Alternate Titles

• "生化危机2" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
• "惡靈古堡2" -- Chinese spelling (traditional)
• "RE 2" -- Common abbreviation
• "Biohazard 2" -- Japanese name
• "バイオハザード 2" -- Japanese spelling

Part of the Following Groups

• BioHazard / Resident Evil series
• BPjS / BPjM indexed games
• Games made into books
• HUDless games
• PlayStation Greatest Hits releases
• PlayStation Platinum Range releases
• Theme: Zombies

User Reviews

Bigger! Longer! Scarier! Uncut!	ETJB (450)
A good classic horror game.	TwoDividedByZero (149)
More and better! One of the best sequels to any game ever.	Zovni (10648)
The sequel that blew the original out of the water...	Gaz Whyte (12)
Improves the formula set in RE1 without losing the flavour.	Sycada (191)	unrated
How dare this abomination carry the name of its father!	kbmb (435)	unrated
The Scariest game in existence...	Ben Fahy (94)	unrated
A less-than-okay game	Kate Jones (480)

Critic Reviews

Just Adventure	Jul 25, 2002	A+	100
GamePro (US)	Apr 21, 2006	5 out of 5	100
Computer and Video Games (CVG)	Apr, 1998		100
GamePro (US)	Mar, 1998	5 out of 5	100
Ultra Game Players	Jan, 1998	96 out of 100	96
IGN	Jan 21, 1998	9.3 out of 10	93
Digital Press - Classic Video Games	Oct 07, 2005	9 out of 10	90
Edge	Feb 24, 1998	9 out of 10	90
Mega Fun	Apr, 1998	89 out of 100	89
Jeuxvideo.com	Oct 02, 2009	17 out of 20	85

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
are the controls as bad as people are saying	8	Foxhack (24413) Dec 30, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Resident Evil 2 appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Book

A book adaptation of this game was published in 1999, the third in Pocket Books' Resident Evil series, written by S.D. Perry and entitled City of the Dead.

Contest

The PlayStation release of this orginally advertised "Win a role in the movie!". That was in 1998, the movie was released in 2002 after a complete re-write. It is unknown if the winner of the contest could or did claim the price.

Development

Resident Evil 2 was almost a very different game. The original version of the game had a similar premise but almost the entire game looked totally different. The police station was very modern looking, other weapons were included and Claire was absent from the game, instead there was a motorcycle riding girl named Elza. This early version, which has become known as Resident Evil 1.5, was apparently about 70% complete but was completely scrapped because it was apparently too similar to the original and wasn't a significant enhancement over it.

Game Boy Advance version

A port of Resident Evil 2 for the Game Boy Advance was in development by Raylight Studios, but never got past the tech demo stage. See the related links section for a link to footage of this demo.

German index

On April 30, 1998, Resident Evil 2 was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.

German version

In the German version, the blood was coloured grey or green. The death sequence was removed.

Nemesis

References

• 'Redrum' is painted on a wall in blood in the police station.
• As Claire Redfield drives the motorcycle on the highway, the sign saying "Welcome to Raccoon City" has the words "Raccoon City" typed in a Gamefan font, the title font used by the cancelled magazine company Gamefan.
• Leon crashes the police car next to the Arukas Tailor. "Arukas" spelled backwards is "Sakura", a character in another Capcom game, Street Fighter Alpha 2.

Resident Evil 0

In a B game, a report can be found in Rebecca's desk that details the events of Resident Evil Zero (2002).

Sales

The US release of Resident Evil 2 in 1998 broke industry records by selling more than 380,000 units in its debut weekend and grossing more than $19 million dollars. According to publisher Capcom, Resident Evil 2 has sold 4.96 million copies worldwide since its initial release (as of June 30, 2016).

Awards

• Game Informer
  • August 2001 (Issue #100) - #34 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll
• Retro Gamer
  • September 2004 (Issue #8) – #97 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)

Information also contributed by AxelStone, MegaMegaMan, PCGamer78, Pseudo_Intellectual, Sycada, woods01 and Xoleras

Related Web Sites

• Cheat diddly cheat cheat! (Walk through for Resident Evil 2.)
• Resident Evil 2: GBA (Footage of the Game Boy Advance port's tech demo.)
• Resident Evil Fan (With tons of videos, artwork, interviews and a Resident Evil encyclopedia, this fansite contains everything that the passionate fan could ask for.)
• Wikipedia: Resident Evil 2 (Information about Resident Evil 2 at Wikipedia)