Resident Evil 2, for those of you who somehow don't know, is the second game in the series. Originally released in January of 1998 for the PlayStation, RE2 came with two CD's and six quests to complete. The game revolves around two main characters, Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield. Leon is a rookie cop with the Raccoon City Police Department who arrived for his first day on the job to find a city overrun by zombies and other nasty flesh-eating creatures. Claire Redfield is the sister of Chris Redfield, who was a member of Raccoon City's S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics And Rescue Squad) unit and a survivor of the first Resident Evil. Claire comes to Raccoon City to find her brother only to get caught up in the chaos.

Resident Evil 2 for the PSX looked great for its time, and it still does. It told the story of Leon and Claire and their battle against the Umbrella Corporation through great FMV scenes, detailed (if corny) voice acting and in-game cut scenes. When Resident Evil 2 for Nintendo 64 was announced, many thought that the FMV would be cut out and replaced with still pictures and the voice acting replaced with written dialog. To the delight of every N64 owner, RE2 contains all of the FMV and all of the voices present in the PSX version. Angel Studios managed to compress, rebuild, and otherwise cram every single aspect of RE2 into a cartridge format.

Their work doesn't go unnoticed. The graphics are some of the best available for the Nintendo 64. Every character and monster is immaculately detailed (with the help of the N64 Expansion Pak). Even without the Expansion Pak, the characters are still smooth and detailed. The pre-rendered backgrounds have been converted as well, although they suffer from a slightly dulled appearance in some areas. With the characters and monsters being so high resolution, they stick out a little compared to the backgrounds. However, this is a problem with the Resident Evil series itself (before it went to polygonal backgrounds) and doesn't affect the truly beautiful look of the game. The FMV in the game is slightly blotched and grainy. Despite this, every FMV scene still looks good and melds perfectly with the rest of the game.

The game itself runs smoothly, with no loading time. Except of course for the opening of doors between rooms, which seems to have become the norm for the Resident Evil series regardless of the power of the hardware that it's on. Some very slight slowdown can occur when multiple zombies or monsters are present, but it's barely noticeable and won't affect your zombie-killing spree.

The voice acting and sound effects are loud and clear. Some slight distortion occurs during lengthy periods of voice-overs, but ultimately sounds just like the CD-quality sound of the PSX version. The music lends just the right amount of fear and gloom to your trek through the streets and alleys of the doomed city. If you're lucky enough to have a nice stereo system, you can enjoy all of the sound and music in Resident Evil 2 in Dolby Surround.

Not content with simply porting RE2 from the PlayStation, Angel Studios included a few N64 exclusive features. One of them is a House-Of-The-Dead-style option that allows you to change the color of the blood from red to green to blue. A Violence Setting is included as well for those concerned with RE2's level of graphic violence. Other exclusives are a setting that randomly places items around the game each time you play, and additional documents in the game that broaden the storyline slightly.