Resident evil 2

Out Now | PC, PS4, Xbox One

Zombies have become such a videogame staple that your average player has surely killed thousands of them. So the fact this expansive, ground-up remake of the 1998 original – for many fans, still a series peak – makes the undead scary again is borderline miraculous. Much has changed in 20 years, but the story remains broadly the same: student Claire Redfield and rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy escape from the hordes to Raccoon City’s police station, only to find that their problems are just beginning…

A gory new opening in a petrol station makes it clear this isn’t the

Resi 2 you remember. Where the fixed camera angles of the original allowed Capcom to contrive tension by letting you hear threats before you could see them, this adopts a more conventional, over-the-shoulder perspective.

And yet, through masterful use of light and shadow and binaural sound, it manages to repeat the trick. A deliberately narrow field of vision lends a claustrophobic intensity to

encounters, while limited pocket space often forces you to choose between more bullets and health-restoring herbs. Either way, these zombies are made of sterner stuff, taking a good few shots to the head before dropping.

With such limited supplies you’ll find you can’t kill them all, and so you’ll need to improvise, stunning them with a flash grenade before sprinting past, or shooting them in their legs… though they’ll still lunge for your ankles if you’re not careful.

The game’s incongruous puzzles don’t require much brainpower. Rather, they force you to waste inventory space with bolt cutters and crank handles, and to backtrack past windows that you’ll need to barricade to prevent more zombies getting in. And that’s before the trenchcoated Tyrant arrives to hunt you down: as relentless and unstoppable as the T-1000, the sound of his stomping footsteps cranks up the tension even when you’ve got your hands on a shotgun.

Almost inevitably, the game struggles to maintain the terror. A trek through the sewers introduces some grisly new horrors, but the pace starts to flag – though it does rally for an explosive climactic confrontation and a breathless escape. Start again with the second character, meanwhile, and Capcom remixes just enough to keep you on edge. Most horrors lose their impact when revisited; that Resident Evil 2 still leaves you dreading what’s around the corner makes it close to a classic of its kind. Chris Schilling