The Resident Evil 2 HD remake seems a lot like the original - from the typewriter save points to Leon’s dreamy boy-band hairstyle. But there are three big design changes. And they make it a different game. The fixed camera angles are gone! Like most early horror games, Resident Evil 2 framed its shots with cinematic flair. When the player reached a certain point, the perspective changed, showing them something new.
And usually horrible. Fixed angles cut down on the processing needed to render backgrounds, which is why RE2 looks so damn good. Look at all those polygons! The fixed cameras defined the style of horror for these games because a scene could be perfectly staged. With a sudden zombie! Essentially these were just jump scares, but they could happen any time the camera POV changed, which was often. You couldn’t just look around a corner to see what’s coming. So you always had to be ready for an attack. The tension came from needing to master your fear to keep exploring, and that was a near-constant pressure. The original game also used tank controls, which based the directional movement on the character’s POV, rather than the player’s. In modern 3rd-person games, the player sees over the character’s shoulder, so forward is always forward.
With tank controls, forward is whatever direction the character is facing. So using the joystick doesn’t move the camera – it only moves the character. The combination of the fixed angles and tank controls meant maneuvering wasn’t just difficult – it was an essential gameplay skill. The so-called remake doesn’t rely on camera angles or janky controls to stage scares. The player has control of the camera and can usually see what’s coming. The trade-off is – there’s no default auto-aim. The original games featured auto-aim in the normal difficulty because, well, it basically had to. Just moving was hard enough; aiming would have been a gameplay nightmare. So combat became this cat-and-mouse game of figuring out when to stand your ground, and when to break and run. In the new Resident Evil 2, normal mode is all manual shooting by default. There’s still an auto-aim option, but if you turn it on … what are you left with? While the original focused on exploration and fight-or-flight strategy, this version is about aiming well without panicking and wasting ammo. Basically, it’s a shooter.
As a result, the tension isn’t quite as persistent as it was in the original – it’s more bold spikes of adrenaline and panic. That, more than anything, makes it feel like its own entry in the Resident Evil franchise. If the new Resident Evil 2 were a movie, I’d say sure, same general characters, setting, plot – it’s a remake. But games are more complicated than that. Is every Zelda game a remake of the first one just because it’s the same characters in the same setting playing the same plot? No, and that’s in large part because the feel of the gameplay is unique. Resident Evil 2 plays like a fundamentally different game. And … It looks and feels great. But instead of being a remake, it’s more like a reboot. It’s “fixing” the original game for modern audiences, correcting those frustrating tank controls, outdated graphics, and stilted cutscenes.
Sorry.... but.... it looks like your party.... has been canceled. Resident Evil 2 reflects the overall evolution from pure survival-horror to more action-adventure… while still delivering plenty of scares along the way. Enjoy!!!
As found on Youtube
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