E3 2018: Hands on with Resident Evil 2

For years now, people have been shouting that they wanted Resident Evil 2 to be remade, like Resident Evil was on the Gamecube, same gameplay, but all new visuals. A few years back, we heard that a pitch was being made for that, but now we know, it was for far more than just a reskin.

It is important to set the scene, Capcom had constructed a large façade of the Police Station from Racoon City, as part of their E3 booth, people who wanted to play the game, were given a torch and then directed through a door. Walking through the door, lead you to a corridor, a very dark and creepy corridor and as light started to leak in from a door at the end of it, a zombie would jump out and start to chase you down. It was quite a cool experience, although, a very bland one, a single zombie that was super easy to spot and did nothing buy follow, it was a bit of a letdown, thankfully though, once through that door, it was time to play the game.

It is important to note that this is not a remastering, this is a full-blown remake, while the basic layout of locations will be the same, some of the characters like Leon are here, the rest is all new. I made the comment to the Capcom PR lady that I would be able to fly through the demo, as I had lost count of the number of times that I played the original game, she told me, it would not work out that way for me and it proved right. After walking around the lobby of the Police Station, I noticed a security monitor, interacting with it, showed another officer, running away from a zombie, while calling for help and claiming he had a solution, sadly he ran off camera, leaving me to go and hunt him down.

Heading towards the room he was in, it was eerie, that is the best way to describe it, there were no working lights, so out came the torch, but whenever you moved the torch, all you could see was blood everywhere. Eventually, after doing some exploring, I discovered the door, the officer banging on the other side of it and getting it to open a little, was enough to have the office begin to crawl through and I say begin as he was caught on the other side and began to scream as if he was being eaten alive, turns out to be pretty close to what happened. When Leon was finally able to pull the man through, he left his legs behind, they had been ripped from his body, leaving his stomach and other assorted internal organs out for all to see.

Getting back to the main room proved to be a task, as the previously empty hallway was now filled with an assortment of enemies, but get back I did, only to discover that in order to attempt to get out, via the officers plan, I needed to keep exploring. What I got was a combination of fighting and exploration, but the game did not let me become a one-man army, the knife that I was able to get, had a single use on it, before it was removed from my inventory, though I don’t know if that was due to my having to use it whilst being attacked from behind or something else, eventually I managed to make it to a long corridor, that in the original game is where you first encounter the Licker.

Bur proving that things are different hear, there was no Licker, all I saw was a zombie through a window at the end of the corridor, being the cool and collected person that I am, I decided to shoot it. While I missed him through the glass, I did hit the glass, which caused it to break, allowing him the chance to crawl inside, something I have been told is possible to avoid, so my action caused me to have to fight another zombie, something I had not expected. Soon after, I discovered a room full of desks, one of which was for Leon and in the Captains office nearby, a clue to a puzzle was found, the puzzle was opening Leon’s own desk, the clue pointed back to the other desks.

Sadly, I managed to solve the puzzle, but then got kicked from the game, as the 20-minute timer had ended, which ended my play time. I was impressed with the game, I went in, expecting a remastering of the original game, new visuals and that’s it. What I got was a whole new experience and while familiar, still felt new and exciting and I can’t wait for the chance to get more hands on time with it.