I pretty much missed the boat on the first three Resident Evil games when they originally released. I have been able to play thru the first RE with the Resident Evil Remake for the Gamecube, and I've also played thru Resident Evil 4. I've enjoyed what I've played of the series so far, so I figured that Resident Evil 2 would be the perfect place for me to begin this weekly article on games that I've missed.

The initial release in the United States was on January 21st, 1998, and a week later the game released in Japan as Biohazard 2. The major difference between the two titles had to do with the difficulty, with the US version being quite a bit more difficult than the Japanese one. There were also subtle differences between the two, like a toned down "game over" screen for the Japan release compared to the US version that saw zombies devouring your body as the screen ran red with blood. There were also changes with enemy and item placement as well, which led to the difference in difficulty between the two versions.

Resident Evil 2's development cycle was plagued with delays as well, most notably when the game was nearly completed and then scrapped, due to the development team being unhappy with the progress the title had made. A lot of fans refer to this nearly finished version as Resident Evil 1.5, and there's quite a few screenshots of what could have been floating around on the net. After the switch, the producer of the title, Shinji Mikami (Viewtiful Joe, RE4, Devil May Cry) left to develop Dino Crisis, and Hideki Kamiya stepped in.

Under the new leadership, a few changes were made. The female protagonist, once named Elza Walker, was changed to Claire Redfield, sister of the main male character from the first title. Certain aspects of the character remained the same, but the change allowed RE 2 to be more cohesive in its connection to the previous title. Upon release, the title did incredibly well in both Japan and the US, selling well over a million copies stateside. Obviously it was well received, and the series has had quite the following over the years, but how does it hold up now?

The RE series has always been dubbed survival horror. There are plenty of other games in the genre, like Silent Hill, Clock Tower, Fatal Frame and a few others that I'm most likely forgetting. And while there's always in emphasis on gore and horror, there's also a lot of time spent building suspense, and Resident Evil games do tend to excel at that. Maybe I'm a bit jaded now that I'm in my mid 20's, but it's a rare occasion for a movie, much less a game, to cause me to jump in my seat or feel anxious or squeamish. While Resident Evil 2 might have been a bit scary to younger gamers upon its release (including myself at the time, if I had played it) it doesn't really drive home the experience now when compared to titles like Condemned on the 360. A lot of this has to do with graphical limitations, I'll give you that, but there are a few areas where the game could easily cause you to jump a bit and just fails to do so.

The first appearance of the "Licker", for instance, could have been one hell of a surprise. If the game didn't switch to a CGI instance and instead introduced the creature as something that fell on you from above, it would have elicited a much more surprised reaction from myself when it happened. Also, I would have liked to seen a bit more of the ankle grabbing gags that you see occur in movies so often when you encounter a dead body laying about. There are at least two places where I would come across a corpse, and decided to lightly skirt my way around the body thinking that it might jump up and attack me, only to find out that I was completely wasting my time and could have ran right across it without worry. I would have loved to see more scare tactics in the game, even if they were of the cheap variety, as a way to spice up a bit of the more mundane sections of the game.

Also, the difficulty of this game is all over the place for me. I actually found the beginning section to be more difficult than later sections of the game. When you're still on the streets, before you make it to the police station, there are quite a few zombies about, and you're seriously lacking on the ammo. However, as the game progresses, things just seemed to get easier and easier. I never felt that I would run out of ammo, and as you find the better weapons (Hello Shotgun), things just ease up even more. The boss encounters are fun, (I particularly liked the giant alligator bit, even if it was a bit too short), but they're also too few and far between. Actually, I was surprised how late in the game you encounter your first real boss, and was disappointed to find out that the game was nearly over when I did.

How about those voice actors? Yeah, they're pretty bad, but I can't really remember a game at that time that actually had good voice acting either. Not to say that I'd let it slide if I were giving the game some kind of rating, because after the first few sentences you really wish there was some type of subtitle/no volume setting to turn on (maybe there was, I should have looked). The sound effects in RE 2, however, were pretty good. You've got the difference in environments, from the way your feet sound when hitting the pavement, or gravel, compared to stomping around the insides of the police station. Also, the zombie moans are quite effective, both in creating tension when you can't see them on screen, and in giving you a general idea of their direction.

The look of the game actually holds up a lot better than you might think. Granted, the textures are muddy, the characters are blocky, and effects don't really dazzle the eye any more, but for the style of game they all still fit. The pre-rendered stuff still looks pretty good, and both the exterior and interior designs are all incredibly fitting. All of these things have been outclassed time and again by now, but for a game that released over 8 years ago, and is now nearly two generations behind us when it comes hardware, its not that hard on the eye at all.

All together, I did have fun playing through Resident Evil 2 for the first time. There's some replay value to be had when it comes to going thru both Claire and Leon's scenarios (for the record, I did Leon's) but I honestly don't see myself going back for Claire's story. When I finished the game, I found I had more fun just blasting zombies and checking out the environment than I did learning the stories of Leon, Claire, Ada, Wesker and the other bit characters that showed up. I feel like I got enough of the information from my run thru with Leon to make playing again as Claire a bit too redundant for my tastes. However, for anyone that hasn't played before, it is worth checking out, even if you're coming off of playing Resident Evil 4 (which is still the superior title in the series for me).