It’s becoming increasingly obvious that remastering games isn’t enough anymore. As publishers plough through the back catalogue of classics, all the way back to consoles like the original PlayStation, it’s clear that games that old look too dated to be remastered – 4K will only get you so far.
And so, it seems that we’ve officially left the era of the remaster and entered the age of the full-blown remake, where games must be entirely rebuilt from scratch to meet modern standards. It’s a trend that I enjoy quite a bit, especially when it gets you games as lovingly crafted as Capcom’s new, fully refreshed Resident Evil 2.
It’s not the first of its kind, coming after other sterling efforts like Shadow Of The Colossus and Spyro Reignited, but it may just be the best remake of its ilk, and offers a truly modern version of a classic, reimagining certain parts of the original to make it sing for a 2019 audience. Better controls, a re-geared camera, new enemy locations and much more make Resident Evil 2 a real labour of love – and fully rewards fans for their patience.
What is most impressive is just how well Resident Evil’s foundations of slow paced, puzzle- centric gameplay have been preserved here. Due to some of the increasingly action-heavy entries in the series (namely, the lacklustre Resident Evil 6), you would be forgiven for going into Resident Evil 2 not quite knowing what you were getting.
You won’t be running around the rainy streets of zombie infested Raccoon City, blasting shotgun shells into the skulls of the undead willy-nilly. This is a patient game, primarily about survival – and that, weirdly, includes knowing when not to shoot zombies just as much as shooting them. Ammo is sparse, and it’s important to preserve it, so it’s often a better choice to simply run around a zombie rather than waste bullets blowing their skull open.
The zombies themselves have been modernised in beautifully gory detail, with all the flailing flesh and exposed sinew you’d expect from an 18-rated zombie game. Zombies tend not to shock these days, but Resident Evil 2 still manages to be pretty unpleasant in its body horror, even if it relies on jump scares a little too heavily. It’s also brilliant just how blase most of the human characters in Resident Evil 2 are about the zombies around them.
Both main characters get separate campaigns that intersect with one another, and this double whammy of storyline doubles the playtime of the game. The scale of the levels ranges from claustrophobic corridors to relatively open, explorable spaces. There’s also a ton of new extras that expands the proposition even further, making for a game that more than earns its price tag.
It’s the setting that really makes Resident Evil 2 so memorable, though. Raccoon City's police department and its surrounding areas are an expanding labyrinth that have you combining everyday objects with key quest items in order to progress. What initially starts as a main atrium, a couple of corridors and some locked doors becomes your own maze; find a battery and an electrical device and you have a makeshift detonator to unlock a new part of the map; find a hand crank and you can suddenly open that pesky door that has halted your progress for so long.
If there’s one issue I have with the game, it’s that the deliciously explosive headshots, which spray brain and skull across the walls and floors, are so hard to achieve. Too many times have I had to waste four or five shells trying to take a zombie down with accurate headshots, only for them to get back up again, head still intact. In a game about maiming the undead, it seems a disappointing imbalance. But I suppose the fact that this is my biggest gripe with a remake of a two decade old game says it all.
Resident Evil 2 will be released on 25 January for PS4, PC and Xbox One
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