Recent reviews by lmao

10/10
"The Resident Evil 4 remake is the series' most relentlessly exciting adventure rebuilt, refined, and realised to the full extent of its enormous potential." - IGN

Let’s get this out of the way: Resident Evil 2 is the best game in Capcom’s long-running survival horror series and possibly the greatest example of the genre ever produced. Released in 1998, two years after the agenda-setting Resident Evil, it introduced the iconic characters Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield and Ada Wong. It had wonderfully horrible monsters (the tongue-lashing Lickers, the hideously mutated William Birkin, the indomitable Mr X), and it boasted a brilliant set-piece location, the Racoon City police department, housed within a scary old art gallery.

Now, 20 years later, Capcom has taken the game by the scruff of its neck, fully updated the visuals and controls, and reshuffled the narrative structure to deliver a contemporary horror experience that plays like our blood-tinted memories of the original. There’s been a zombifying outbreak in Raccoon City and two characters, rookie cop Leon and student Claire, find themselves trapped in the seemingly abandoned police station, trying to work out what has happened while fighting off the greedy and persistent undead. As we encounter reams of mutated scientists and endless documents about synthetic viruses, it becomes clear that local employer Umbrella Corp has been a very naughty pharmaceutical megacorp.

Every location in the game is, in fact, a giant and enthralling escape room, in which fiendish puzzles involving weird gems and gadgets and complex sequences of numbers and rotations reveal keys to the next locked area. The ultimate brainteaser, however, is inventory management. Ammo is strictly rationed, so every encounter is fraught with deadly peril (although a new assisted mode makes things more palatable for newcomers, offering unlimited saves and easier aiming).

Ultimately, the Resident Evil 2 remake is a reminder of how beautifully crafted survival horror games were in their heyday. From a terrifying orphanage to the festering sewers beneath the city, the feel of the action is always perfectly matched with the aesthetics of the setting. The rhythm, gradually building from many minutes of quiet exploration and puzzle-solving to gigantic, pulverising boss battles, is exact and beautiful.