Resident Evil 2

By: J.D. Cook

Still one of my favorite games after fourteen years; this was the first game I played where my choices had some impact. Essentially Resident Evil 2 contained four stories; Leon A, Leon B, and Claire A, Claire B. I had to beat the game four times to see all the endings. This was something I absolutely loved! On top of that if you chose certain weapons as Leon they would not be there for Claire or vice versa. It was really cool to see how both stories interacted with each other. The plot was fairly complex for the era but it boiled down to a rookie cop named Leon, the sister for the first games protagonist Claire Redfield, and Sherry Birkin trying to escape Raccoon City which had become over run with zombies and monsters due to a G-Virus outbreak.

Sherry’s fate post Resident Evil 2 was a mystery that haunted my continuity dreams; thankfully Resident Evil 6 is going to finally explain what the hell happened to her! RIGHT!? The horror became a bit more visceral as the Lickers made their first appearance in the series eating people’s heads and such. Then there was the constantly mutating enemy William Birkin who was searching for his daughter for very creepy reasons that I’m not even going to mention. Add in a Tyrant that dogs you the entire game depending on which scenario you chose and you’ve got a recipe for bad guy greatness. The puzzles were all entertaining, and the random readings were actually chilling as they detailed the Cops last ditch efforts to stave off death by zombies. This was the first great Resident Evil of the series and the best game on the PlayStation in my humble opinion.

10 out of 10 Bigblue Leaps!

Read Reviews of Other Games in the Resident Evil Series here
Resident Evil: Directors Cut
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

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Nutshell Reviews is a collection of very short reviews of the most significant movies, books, music, and video games, from both the present day and days gone passed.