The sequel to the great Resident Evil 2 is a great continuation of the survival horror series, this time with you playing as Jill Valentine, and fighting against a persistent superboss who jumps into the story at certain points to give you a pasting.
Or – if you give it a pasting back – you get a reward.
Capcom‘s Resident Evil 2 really elevated the survival horror genre to great heights, way back in 1998 when it was first released.
Mostly because it was more gritty and serious than the first game, but also because it was a much more complex storyline in this one: with two different characters playing the same scenario, but from different perspectives (and provided on two different CD-ROMs). Effectively giving you two games in one. So you play one character on a ‘A’ game, and the other on a ‘B’ game, by loading your save in from having completed one half of the game.
And the actions of one character in the game have an effect on what the second character experiences in their game later.
This – in itself – is a dazzling feature, but there is so much more to Resident Evil 2 than that.
Let’s face it: Resident Evil (one) was never the best game to begin with…
When you make a story-based game, the first thing you start with is a script. And Resident Evil‘s script (mostly notably: its dialogue) has always been laughable.
With such memorable lines as: “Thanks for saving my life! Now, shouldn’t you be elsewhere?” and character mood swings bordering on the insane, you’d be forgiven for writing Resident Evil off with derisory laughter.
But a lot of people think that it’s still a great game.
Sensible Software‘s brilliant Cannon Fodder is possibly their finest hour.
From the hilarious intro song, to the compelling action of the main game – Cannon Fodder is about as much fun as computerised war, with little titchy men and a mouse could possibly be.
Nazca Corporation‘s infamous run-and-gun blaster – Metal Slug – was first released in arcades in 1996, before following as a cartridge on SNK‘s cutting edge home console the Neo Geo AES.
This third iteration of id Software‘s classic Doom, is a dark and violent continuation of the ‘stuck-on-Mars-and-surrounded-by-monsters’ setting, set up by the first two games.
Taito‘s superb Operation Wolf was one of the first arcade games to feature a machine gun with force feedback on the cabinet.
I can’t write about the other Shadowrun games without mentioning the Sega Megadrive/Genesis game, first released by Sega in 1994.
Shadowrun: Dragonfall is a 2014 indie release from Harebrained Schemes, set in the Shadowrun universe.
The developers tried to continue the success of the Shadowrun console games of the early ’90s, and in many respects succeeded.
Half-Life 2 was first released by Valve Corporation in 2004. It was such a giant leap forward for games in general – not just first-person shooters – that its reverberations are still being felt today.
Half-Life (one) is a brilliant game, but Half-Life 2 completely blows it out of the water.
The King of Grabs 