Resident Evil 2 Platinum is the computer release of Resident Evil 2, Playstation. The storyline is still the same as the original Resident Evil 2, where you play either Leon Kennedy, a not-quite-a-rookie first day on the job police officer, or as Claire Redfield, a gutsy girl looking for her missing brother, Chris (from Resident Evil 1).

Leon cruises the streets towards the police station at night when he stops after seeing a crow ridden corpse on the ground. He then gets chased by zombies, and stumbles towards a dead end. There he meets Claire, and they make their get-away in another police car. After crashing into a lamp post, a zombie truck driver ram into them and they jumped out on different sides.

Enter the world of survival horror...

I've been a fan of RE2 since it first came out on the PSX. I've prided myself on being the first generation of RE2 (without the dual-shock / rookie mode). RE2 has been one of my favourite games, and I've been looking forward to see how Capcom did on the computer.

Well, turned out I'm not disappointed. The gameplay still hasn't changed, and the graphics are as great as ever (with the correct graphics accelerator, that is) The movies are in .bin files, and are just as good quality as their PSX counterparts. Just watch the licker stare at you, flicking it's tongue with blood and saliva dripping from the ceiling... Brrr... The sound effects is spooky, you can hear the glass crunch under your feet as you walk on them.

RE2 has a lot of crash-through-the-windows and jump-out-of-your-seats times, where monsters just jump at you out of the blue... Unlike Silent Hill, there is no annoying radio static to warn you...

There are four main scenerios, and two hidden / special ones. You can choose to play Leon A and Claire B (where you play Leon first and Claire second) or Claire A and Leon B (vice-versa). The two hidden scenarios are the Hunk scenario (where you play a soldier whose mission is to get the G-Virus from the sewers to the rooftop) and the Tofu scenario (same as Hunk, only tofu is a big lump of...well...tofu, and he/it is only armed with a knife)

The halls are spooky, and the half the doors are locked. You have a handgun, limited bullets and a lot of zombies in front of you. There are puzzles to be solved (the puzzles are not so difficult) and people to be saved. Unravel the mystery of the S.T.A.R.S* disappearance. The police station might seem a bit unreal because of it's complex design, but hey, what real in Resident Evil 2?

The PC version has a bit of goodies that the Playstation did not have. In the Leon cd, there are Rough Sketches of the characters as well as the buildings (for all you budding wannabe artists / RE lover out there) In the Claire cd, there are beautiful Illustrations (these look like manga!**) and turning 3D models of the characters. Any RE fan would just sit there and go "Wow!" at the sight.

RE2 has a different type of walking control, where forward is always up. Therefore, lots of other RPGs or RE2 similars often compare the controls to the one in RE2. It takes a while to master the waking/ running, but the learning curve is short (if you really try hard) and the game is a joy to play through.


* S.T.A.R.S. : Special Tactical And Rescue Squad (Raccoon City's pride)

** manga : Japanase comics, usually in book form.



Verdict! A-!

Positives:
Gameplay: A
Graphics: B (depending on your computer and graphic card/accelerator)
Sound: A
+ Good specials!
+ Finally, I can skip all those annoying/spooky door openings!

Negatives:
- Controls can be frustrationg to newcomers
- If your graphic card cannot support RE2, well....
- The game is a little on the slow side if you don't have a fast computer


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