Let's Play Resident Evil 2 badly

[Old Manus]

Hello folks,

A recent slightly-more-erotic-than-it-should-be dream involving Leon "Your right hand comes off?" Kennedy prompted me to decide to dust off the old PS1 emulator and replay my favourite Resident Evil game of the group that I admit actually happened (read: every one until RE5). It's a funny old game, so I thought I would make it a bit more interesting by documenting it in a form that some guy on SomethingAwful did a lot better many years ago. I will probably end up achieving the same thing I do when I play most games these days, which is get about a third of the way through it then lose interest. With that in mind, here we go:




Let's do this. We're playing as Claire, partly because it is apparently the canon version of the story (not that Capcom decided to care come roughly the time of RE:CV), and partly because I don't think I've actually played this scenario as her.




Pshaw, for 1998, maybe. This trout doesn't even touch the sides anymore. The police hand it out to kids at schools as part of their 'get off the streets' campaigns.

We start off with a standard slideshow-voiceover intro detailing the events of the first game, and how they essentially have no bearing on anything that happens henceforward, apart from the whole zombies part. Remember this guy?



That trout gave me the fright of my life back in 1997, no joke. Made me stay away from this game until at least a decade later.

So yeah let's just skip the lengthy intro that I'm sure looked pretty impressive at the time but is now just laughably bad, and have the cliffnotes - Claire is in town to look for her brother Chris (of RE1 fame), and bumps into rookie cop Leon (first day on the force! What are the chances?) while escaping from the recent zombie infestation. They get separated, and...



...the DFS sale has finally ended!?



Nope, just zombies. Welcome to the game. The objective at the moment is not to get the hell out of town, but to the safety of the police station!




Claire's pea-shooter carries slightly fewer bullets than Leon's, and I swear is actually less powerful, but my memory may have faded. She also comes equipped with a gigantic pocket knife (she's obviously just come back from a trip to Swansea), and a lockpick, which will soon be saving us the ballache of going around looking for tiny keys, which we would have to do if we were playing as Raccoon City's finest.

A quick dash around the corner, ducking from some zombies leads us to the local gun shop.



Woah, there! Can you not tell I'm not a zombie by the fact that I just used a door!?




"Nipple bleeding affects thousands of men nationwide."




Kendo the gunsmith makes his introductions and assures as that we'll be safe here, handily locking the door which for some reason he didn't lock earlier as he barricaded himself in from the hoards of the undead.




Well, it is a zombie apocalypse. I'm sure we can raid the local gun shop for ammunition.




But suddenly! Zombies crash in through the window and attack Kendo in a savage free-for-all that I totally forgot to screenshot! Let's get the hell out of here!




Actually, let's stay behind for a moment. Kendo doesn't look like he needs that crossbow anymore...





Yoink. If we were playing as Leon, we would get the shotgun here, which is arguably far more useful, but who cares, it's a god damn crossbow!




Okay, let's continue to the police station. As streets do not exist in Raccoon City, one can only get from one place to another via a complicated system of alleyways.




Unfortunately, a few of the local pondlife want Claire to engage in some 'full contact b-ball' on the court first. Sorry, but we have places to be.




The alleyway ahead is blocked by Kendo's ridiculously precise parking. Fun fact: on the demo version, this van isn't here, and you can just carry on and bypass the next few screens (don't let anyone tell you I don't teach you pointless trivia). As it is, we must take a short detour.

A few corners and a game of tag with a few zombies later, and we reach the police station!





Or at least what a police station would look like if the blueprints were drawn up by the phantom of the opera. Seriously, what the hell? Now I know where Raccoon City Council's road budget went.


All the rooms bar one are locked. The one that isn't leads us to the first living person we'll meet on our adventure. Meet Marvin, the friendliest cop ever.



He tells us that Chris has already left town. Then tries to get us to save the other survivors in the other rooms. What do I look like, Leon Kennedy? No thanks pal, we're getting out of her-



...fine.




He kicks us out and locks the door behind us, all while sitting down




Continuing on, then. First up, we'll take the door on the left side of the main foyer. And we find our first magic box! Time to do the first thing every RE player does when they find their first magic box:



Get rid of the god damn knife. Continuing our unguided tour of the police station opera house...



A headless body!



I twist off my head all the time AMIRITE? shut up

Unfortunately we don't have much time to feel sorry for the guy as we're about to meet our first of the monsters that was relentlessly hyped before release of the game! Meet Jimmy Savile!:



"THIS IS MY FINAL FORM"




Nah, this guy is a pansy. Huge letdown. We can just run past him for now.




Ducking down the next corridor, we find the first of many rooms inside the police station that inexplicably contain full sets of medieval suits of armour.




And also the first of many bizarre paintings of nude women. In a police station. This surely can't be part of some ridiculous key-fetch quest, right? Unfortunately, yes it is. Whoever was in charge of security for this building came up with the novel idea of hiding an item integral to the operation of the police station behind a painting in an obscure hallway. And we can't just move the painting out of the way, no. We need to set it on fire . If we were playing as Leon, we could use his lighter, but it looks like we're going to have to find another way.




After dispatching another group of the undead in the next hallway, Claire decides that now is as good a time as any to stop and roll up.





(SPOILER)BLAZE IT




Our first legitimate save room.




The magic box is here, so we're going to offload the crossbow for the moment, as I just spent all the ammo taking care of Raccoon City's finest outside the room.




The RPD Red Light District was hit hard by the recession.




Moving onwards, it's time for our first pointless puzzle. We need to get the big red jewel out of the statue's hand. Obviously, if Claire just reaches up there and grabs it, the terrorists win. So instead, every officer that wants to gain access to the part of the station it unlocks has to shift the adjacent busts around (then presumably move them back when finished).





We'll leave our prize there for now, and just continue on as if nothing happened.




The STARS office!? In this dingy hallway? What is this trout?




Where the magic happens.




"You just hold R1 and tap X! Snipers hate me!"




Filthy MRAs! mad.gif Oh, sorry.




Searching Wesker's desk 50 (fifty) times yields a mysterious 'Film'. Yes, I actually did this.

...aaand find out what it contains in the next episode! Or use google.

[Sephex]

Still my favorite RE game. Everyone has to say something like this, but this seriously brings back some fond memories. Loving the commentary, as well!

[Ayen]

Go to the police station, he said.

It will be a lot safer, he said.

[Sephex]

Go to the police station, he said.

It will be a lot safer, he said.

Right when Leon meets up with Claire in the STARS office, he says, "It's good to see you're still among the living." As he says that, the dude points right at her boobs. I always found that amusing.

[Quindiana Jones]

You don't hear "ballache" enough in LPs. Good show, old bean.

[Psychotic]

I love Kendo. He has the same lines for Claire as Leon but they added recordings of him softly saying things like "Darling", "Honey" and "Sweetheart" on the end. "WHO ARE YOU WHAT DO YOU WANT......darling" "I'LL SHOOT YOU IF YOU COME ANY CLOSER THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING.... sweetheart".

[Sephex]

I love Kendo. He has the same lines for Claire as Leon but they added recordings of him softly saying things like "Darling", "Honey" and "Sweetheart" on the end. "WHO ARE YOU WHAT DO YOU WANT......darling" "I'LL SHOOT YOU IF YOU COME ANY CLOSER THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING.... sweetheart".

He also adds, "But don't you worry, girly. I'll keep you safe!" At the end of his "I wasn't paying attention to the city until I noticed that there were a few zombies around" speech.

He really wanted to see Claire's red field.

[Shauna]

I love this game. And yes, Claire's story is considered the "harder" of the two campaigns, so it's probably not entirely your imagination that she is worse off than Leon!

[Old Manus]

Alright, I hope you've all invested in some of your finest lotion in our short break, as we're about to continue the nightmare immediately by getting that film developed back in the red light district.





Hnnnnnnngggggg

Well now I've cleaned myself up, let's get on with things. Back in the STARS office, we find our last weapon for Claire stuffed in a wardrobe:



The grenade launcher is slow, inaccurate, has trout range, and requires fannying about with three different types of ammo. Luckily, it's pretty powerful.

We found a unicorn medallion on Chris' desk, which means a quick strut back to the main hall to put it back in its place.





The statue spits out the "Spade Key". One assumes this belongs to Marvin as part of some kind of racist bullying campaign.


Let's take this key to the locked door where we met the first licker.



Turns out to be just a bland room full of files. Why would you hide the key to such a redundant room inside a giant statue that required a special medallion to open?





I wonder what that is?




This being Resident Evil, raising one's arms above 90 degrees is a physical impossibility. It's time to lumber about with a small stepladder first!






Answers on a postcard as to why Claire would think to pick this up, ever. Ho hum. Moving swiftly on...



A safe!




Well, trout.




Okay, I'm lost. My my memory isn't what it's used to be.


[SCENE MISSING]




Okay, we're back on track. After 15 minutes of padding about trying remember where to go next, back near the STARS office we run into this touching scene of a young survivor trying to make the best of their situation with her father. Claire's interruption obviously made them jump, explaining her screams and prompt escape.




Claire smokes him. Stranger Danger is real. Men shouldn't be around children.


In the next hallway we run into an old friend!



Leon hands us a radio and tells Claire to basically piss off. He must have twigged that she was about to spend the next few hours trying to save that young girl, and sensibly wanted no part of it. I hear he has his own saucy young asian lady to chase.




Oh, God...




Let's think about this for a moment. Firstly, when was the last time you saw a police station with a fully stocked library? Secondly, they built switch-operated moving bookcases? Thirdly, what?

Whatever. A brief bit of feng shui later and the walls open to reveal this square trinket:



It'll come in handy later.




We're on the first floor of the main foyer. I don't recall seeing these zombies up here earlier though...


Across the hall is another save room, with a note from the police chief's secretary. Time for some character development!





Typical plebian non-art graduate. She just doesn't understand what real art is. In fact, it's not for people like her to understand. Where is this Police Chief? I feel like standing with him in front of a Damien Hirst piece and stroking my chin sagely. His office is just around the corner.



Oh.

Looks like we need to put the fire out.



Say, is that a water tank conveniently placed above the wrecked helicopter? A job for the crank, maybe?

Of course not. We need a different useless piece of junk for this particular job.




A hop, skip and jump around the corner leads us to a substation, with some goodies inside!



Do we really need two bowguns? You're damn right we need two bowguns!



And the useless piece of kit, too. A double header.




Let's carry on, then. We'll start by going through this door which looks totally safe and definitely not a trap in any way.





JESUSsmurfINGCHRIST

Underwear successfully soiled, we prairie-dog it back to the burning helicopter. At least now Claire smells not that much different to the undead.





That's it? Christ, we're going to be here forever.




A few hours later, now we need to get past that broken door to get into Chief Irons' office. A crowbar job? The crank!?

Nope, we need C4 and a detonator. First, let's go next door and get rid of that red jewel we picked up earlier but I didn't mention.



Domestic abuse is real.



With that off our chest (and onto another) we can pick up the Diamond Key that's in here and spend the next half hour aimlessly using it on every locked door in the building until we stumble upon the right one. For speed's sake, this is the right one:





Inside, we're immediately jumped by about five zombies that I had to kill before I could screenshot. Honest. Inside is another film that we can develop:



Tizer's making a comeback, people!



And the suspiciously nougat-looking C4! Now to find the detonator.




Hmm. Eerie sounding music. Have we been here before?



It's almost as if they were having a party...



Holy trout we're here! Where's Marvin?



He's still alive! Maybe we can ask him to give us that detonator-shaped object on the table.



"The detonator? But that's a family heirloom!"





Claire won't take no for an answer, unfortunately, and blows his head off. We'll take the detonator.


Let's blow some trout up! Next time, at least.

[Sephex]

This is so great! My memories running alongside your commentary! IT'S PERFECT!!!

[Psychotic]

Isn't it really depressing and heartbreaking and also slightly creepy if you read the note about why there's that party stuff? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong. I remember it being "Leon we're so happy to have you here, we've been waiting for you for a long time. We made a special party just so you feel loved - you'll have lots of happy memories here Leon!" or something like that.

[Ayen]

The citizens of Raccoon City must be really bored to have so many overly complicated, yet extremely simplistic puzzles all over the freaking place.

[Sephex]

The citizens of Raccoon City must be really bored to have so many overly complicated, yet extremely simplistic puzzles all over the freaking place.

Though a joke like this is overplayed these days, I remember my friends and I joking how every officer in the building had a diaper on because the process to get to the bathroom would take so long that they'd unload in their pants before they could get there.

[Old Manus]

They'd need a diaper all right, there are no bathrooms at all in the building.

[Sephex]

No, the Zombies ate them. It's true. I read it on the internet, which is this actual comment. [citation unneeded]