[Review] Resident Evil 2

[BILLS]

Resident Evil 2 whose original title is Biohazard 2 is a Japanese video game belonging to the survival horror genre, developed by the company Capcom, the video game is a new version of the 1998 video game of the same name, the video game was announced by Capcom in the 2015, although its launch was confirmed at the Sony press conference of E3 2018, for the month of January of the year 2019.

The videogame reached the acclaim of the specialized critics for its presentation, gameplay and fidelity to the original, as well as great public acceptance becoming one of the most rapidly sold Capcom video games during its launch.

Game mode

Unlike the original video game, the new version of Resident Evil 2 does not present a gameplay with a view of static backgrounds with three-dimensional models, being that the new game is carried out in a third person perspective with the camera on the shoulder very similar to the Resident Evil 4 camera, the original videogame locations have also been redesigned, partially altering several zones and adding new places, preserving the save system through typewriters, using a similar but more detailed map system. The system of healing by herbs and the original state of health is also maintained, the system of administration of resources in trunks is maintained as well as the majority of objects and resources, adjusted in an inventory system identical to that already seen in Resident Evil 7 .

The new video game uses the game engine of Capcom, the Re Engine (Motor Re) originally used in the video game Resident Evil 7, in addition to this the fighting mechanics were altered to include more elements of melee combat, the behavior of the enemies has been updated, the zombies being able to open doors and pass between different unsafe areas. In addition, with the new game engine, the damage of the enemies becomes cumulative and progressive, being visually affected by the different shots and shots of the player.

The other mechanics of the game remain visually similar to the survival horror style of Resident Evil 7, with dark environments and the soundtrack aimed at terrifying elements, as well as classic elements of the saga, such as puzzle solving. , the shortage of ammunition and the optional confrontations, In addition to this new elements of gameplay have been added, such as the possibility of blocking accesses like windows for the player to protect himself from enemies and the most active dynamic use.

Argument

Like the original video game, the plot takes place on September 29, 1998, two months after the events of the first Resident Evil. The majority of the citizens of the mountainous community of the Midwest of the United States, Raccoon City, were transformed into zombies by the Virus T, a biological weapon developed in secret by the company Umbrella Corporation, for the creation and improvement of bio-organic weapons .

That night, at a gas station on the outskirts of the city, Leon S. Kennedy, a police officer who reports on his first day of service, meets Claire Redfield, a university student who is looking for her brother police officer, Chris Redfield. The gas station is full of zombies and the two narrowly escape in a police car.

Shortly after entering Raccoon City, a truck driver who was bitten by a zombie crashes his truck with the youth's car, leaving them separated by fire and zombies. Leon and Claire agree to meet at the Raccoon Police Department. They both arrive at the station at different times, but they find the place infested by zombies and other monsters. One of them is the T-00, a virtually indestructible humanoid sent by Umbrella to hunt and kill the survivors. The creatures and the various obstacles prevent Leon and Claire from getting together, as they are forced to stay in motion to survive and find a way to escape from Raccoon City.

Despite being quite faithful to the history of the original video game, there are considerable differences with the new version, so that the events of the video game are adjusted in a faithful manner to the material of the subsequent deliveries, in addition to the fact that in the new version the story of the 2 protagonists are completely canonical.

Claire's scenario

While exploring the police station, Claire discovers that Chris left the country before the outbreak of the virus. Claire also finds a girl, named Sherry Birkin, hidden from a monster. After saving Sherry from the monster, Claire promises to reunite her with her mother.
The two are discovered by the corrupt police chief Brian Irons, who kidnaps Sherry and takes her to an orphanage on the other side of town. Umbrella bribed Irons for years in exchange for allowing illegal activities that included the use of orphans as test subjects and the construction of a secret research laboratory in the city. Irons kidnaps Sherry to get a pendant she uses, but realizes that Claire grabbed him. Irons calls Claire and offers to exchange Sherry for the pendant. When Claire goes to the orphanage, Sherry tries to escape alone, but the monster that stalks her appears and fatally wounds Irons. Claire arrives in time to see Irons die for a creature implanted inside him, and finds Sherry in a passageway below the orphanage. Meanwhile, she was chased under the city by both the creature and the T-00,

Claire is awakened by Annette Birkin, Sherry's mother. Annette reveals that the monster that pursues Sherry is William Birkin, her husband and Sherry's father. William and Annette developed the G-Virus for Umbrella in their secret lab under Raccoon City. Umbrella discovered that William intended to sell the G-Virus to the US Army. UU., And sent private commands to confiscate his work. William injected the G-Virus to survive being mortally wounded during the raid and revenge. The mutated William attacked the commandos in the sewers, causing the rupture of vials of the virus and the content to be consumed by rats, which took him to the city. William is now a creature in constant mutation obsessed with infecting Sherry as a method to reproduce.

While Claire was unconscious, Annette locked Sherry in a vault, believing it to be the safest place for her. However, Sherry becomes ill and Claire is forced to rescue her. Annette realizes that William already infected Sherry and Claire takes Sherry to Umbrella's lab, where an antidote for the G-Virus is stored.

Inside the underground facilities, Claire uses the Sherry pendant to unlock a container that contains the antidote. While returning to Sherry, William attacks her again. Annette arrives to help Claire, but Claire sends her to administer the antivirus while she stops William for herself. After defeating William, Claire meets with an injured Annette and who cured Sherry. The installation of Umbrella initiates a protocol of self-destruction, and Claire and Sherry are directed to an evacuation train. On the way, Claire discovers that Leon also found his way to the facility. After launching the train, William reappears on the train platform, forcing Claire to defeat him once more. Inside the moving train, Claire and Sherry join Leon.

Leon's scenario

While exploring the police station, Leon is saved from a dog infected by a woman named Ada Wong. Ada identifies herself as an FBI agent investigating the outbreak and advises Leon not to stand in his way. In the station's detention cells, Leon finds Ben, a reporter imprisoned by Chief Irons for investigating Umbrella's illegal activities. When Ben explains Umbrella's participation in the outbreak, the T-00 breaks into the cell and kills Ben. When trying to escape from the station, Leon is grabbed by the T-00, but is saved again by Ada. Leon convinces Ada to help him with his mission to retrieve a sample of G-Virus to prove the guilt of Umbrella. Ada accepts and takes Leon to the sewers of the city, to Umbrella's underground laboratory.

In the sewers they meet Annette Birkin, who opens fire on Ada. Leon pushes Ada out of the way and becomes unconscious after receiving a bullet by Anette. Ada gives first aid Leon and pursues Annette deeper into the sewers, but is finally taken by surprise and beaten in a vault of waste storage, where a piece of metal impales one of her legs. Leon finally wakes up and rescues Ada from the vault. Using a security bracelet that Ada obtained, the two travel in a cable car to the Umbrella lab.

During the trip, Ada kisses Leon and expresses feelings for each other. Once they arrive, Ada tells Leon that she is too hurt to be of use, and asks her to retrieve a sample of G-Virus on her own. Leon goes to Birkin's lab and gets a sample, but is attacked by William. Annette tries to kill William, but is mortally wounded by him. Leon defeats William and takes care of Annette, who warns that Ada is not an agent of the FBI, but a mercenary who will sell the virus to the highest bidder.

Leon confronts Ada on a bridge when the laboratory's self-destruction protocol starts and she confirms her deception. Leon refuses to hand over the virus sample and Ada is not willing to shoot him for that. While they are distracted, Annette appears and shoots Ada before she dies. Ada falls off the bridge and Leon catches her hand, letting the virus sample fall into the abyss. When Leon loses his grip, Ada tells him to take care before falling too.

While he goes to the laboratory's escape train, Leon discovers that Claire is already there. Leon is ambushed by the T-00 on his way and gets stuck on a mobile lift platform with him. Leon is forced to face the T-00 and survives long enough for a still alive Ada to launch a rocket launcher on the platform while she escapes. Although Leon does not notice Ada, he takes the rocket launcher and uses it to destroy the T-00 forever. Once the elevator arrives, Leon jumps onto the evacuation train already in motion, meeting Claire and Sherry.

Leon, Claire and Sherry discover that William is still alive and has become a massive creature that has climbed the train, threatening to consume them all. Leon and Claire work together to kill William and separate the wagon to which he is subject, leaving his body involved in the massive explosion of the self-destructive laboratory. Claire, Leon and Sherry, who arrive safely on the outskirts of the city, walk along an interstate highway in broad daylight, wondering to what extent the outbreak has spread. Claire offers to take Sherry home with her, and Leon and Claire pledge to prevent a similar disaster from happening elsewhere.

Finals

The meeting of the survivors is interrupted when they discover that William is still alive, now mutated into a gigantic, unrecognizable mass; Depending on the scenario, Leon / Claire fights the monster. Leon and Claire work together to uncouple the train car occupied by William, leaving him to perish in the explosion of the laboratory. Later, Sherry asks if Leon and Claire are in a relationship, which they deny, confessing that they only met last night. After being rudely rejected by a passing motorist, the three survivors move away towards the dawn.

Developing

A new unofficial version of the video game Resident Evil 2 was being developed by the independent development team Invader Games, since the beginning of 2015, in order to be a free distribution title among fans of the original video game, the name of this remake is not official was Resident Evil 2 Reborn, later in August of the same year and after announcing Capcom a new official version, the Resident Evil 2 Reborn delivery was canceled at the request of the Capcom company, partially including the Invader Games team in the creative development of the new version.

On August 12, 2015, Capcom's producer, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, confirmed the information that an adaptation of Resident Evil 2 was in development. The project, directed by Hirabayashi, was produced by Capcom's R & D Division 1 team. The producer had also worked on the high-definition remasters of Resident Evil and Resident Evil Zero. He also said that the project was approved thanks to the support of fans of the series.

In 2017 it was announced that Capcom would not use the voice actors of the original videogame or the audio track, since in the new version there will be many new dialogues both of kinematics and reactions of the character in different situations.

The adaptation of Resident Evil 2 is a new videogame made from scratch and not just a remastering.In the E3 conference of the year 2018, the first advance was shown for the videogame, which would be developed for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One , with a release date for January 25, 2019.

The faces of several character models are based on scans of real people. Leon S. Kennedy is based on the Eduard Badaluta model, Claire Redfield is based on the model Jordan McEwen and Marvin Branagh is based on the musical producer Patrick Levar.

shot demo

On January 11, 2019, the only playable demo was released, known as Demo of 1 shot (1 shot demo) completely free through the Steam platform, allowing to download a playable segment equivalent to a chapter of the main story.

The demo in addition to allowing the use and full access to all the elements of the beginning of the game, has a certain end, and ends after 30 minutes of play, without restarting the counter when the player dies, and does not allow replays of plays.

Launching

Resident Evil 2 was launched for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One platforms and for the Windows system, through the Steam platform around the world, on January 25, 2019.

Subsequently, the game supports improvements to the versions of the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X consoles, which offer a resolution of 4K or 60 frames per second.

Differences with the original version

New graphic engine to allow HD graphics and textures.
Third-person camera on the shoulder, similar to that of Resident Evil 4.
History re-elaborated, with new characters and plots, the stories and their characters have been re-written and introduced entirely new elements.
The standard and canonical dress of the main and most secondary characters has been changed.
The maps have been redesigned to coincide with subsequent deliveries, in addition to the addition of new rooms and the redimensioning of most rooms and halls.
Downloadable content has been designed to expand the game and the main story
Enabled access to new areas not seen in the original video game.
Kinematics redone, both the introductory, and the history of the characters.
Inventory elements and Resident Evil 7 options have been introduced.
Rehearsed voice acting, with new voices and dialogues.
Dubbing has been done in more than 20 different languages.
New game modes have been created for regular games.
New interface for the main menu and the other menus of the game.

Requirements

Minimum requirements
Operating system: Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10.
Processor: Intel Core i5-4460 2.70GHz / AMD FX-6300 or higher.
RAM: 8 GB.
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 or AMD Radeon R7 260x with 2GB of RAM video.
DirectX 11.
30 GB of free hard disk space.

Recommended requirements
Operating system: Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10.
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770 or AMD FX-9590
RAM: 8 GB.
Graphic Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 / AMD Radeon R9 280X or higher.
DirectX 11.
40 GB of free hard disk space.