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There's a lot of different ways I could approach this review ofResident Evil 2, but I don't write long so I just have to pick one. My choice is coming at it from the perspective of someone who has not played the original game for even a second. Seeing this remake with absolutely zero expectations from what the landmark title did back in 1998, I can say that this game absolutely rules and delivers the definitive survival horror experience I've been looking for on mobile.

Running scared

Resident Evil 2 puts you in the shoes of Leon S. Kennedy, a young police officer who arrives in Raccoon City amidst the breakout of virus that turns everything it touches into undead monstrosities. In an effort to just survive and get out of town, you find yourself uncovering what happened here and work to put an end to it.

Although this setup seems pretty boilerplate for most Resident Evil games, this game captures the feel of being in this situation better than most. There are always new horrors and tough situations waiting around every corner, and more often than not you are barely scraping by with a only a few armaments on hand.

Laser-focused labyrinth

Perhaps the highlight of Resident Evil 2 is the setting itself. Very quickly into the game you find yourself trapped inside the Raccoon City Police Station, but its byzantine structure reveals an interconnectedness to other parts of city infrastructure to create varied and horrifying environments to wander through. As more and more paths open up, you are free to wander between them for the majority of the game and backtrack to find new gear or secrets, but to do so you also need to brave through any enemies that might reawaken there.

This leads to an experience that tells a linear story, but gives a lot of room for players to have quite different experiences, all within an arc that shouldn't take more than 10 hours to see credits roll on. As a perfect example of this, I found myself finishing Resident Evil 2 with seemingly infinite ammo for a weapon I never even found, which ended up making me really have to stretch the meager supplies I could use even further.

Two games in one

After completing Leon's story, Resident Evil 2 offers a ton more to do in it, including a playthrough with another character, challenges, costumes, and more. It also is a free-to-download game that lets you try it out before committing to a purchase so you can make sure it runs well on your device and you feel good about playing it there.

If you're familiar with my previous coverage of Resident Evil games on iOS, you should know the story here isn't really different. The controls are fine if you have a controller, and game performance is on par with all of their previous releases, minor bugs and all. None of that got in the way of my enjoyment of Resident Evil 2, especially since this one is so darn good.

The bottom line

I have no idea how the Resident Evil 2 remake compares to the original game. All I know is I thoroughly enjoyed the kind of white-knuckle survival action this release delivers. For anyone disappointed by some of the more silly and action-oriented Resident Evil releases on mobile have been, this is the game you've been waiting for.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/review-270287/

Of all the qualities that need to come together to produce a great game experience, one of the most critical is the pacing. Oftentimes, games approach the kind of experiences they want to give players and then the pace takes shape around what these actions are, but in the case of a game like The Longing, everything is built around a set pace that is very intentionally drawn way out. More specifically, the playtime here is stretched to the incredible length of 400 real-time days. I am not sure that this decision makes for a particularly enjoyable game experience in the traditional sense, but playing it can be so hands-off and reflective that engaging with it as an academic exercise is easy enough to do.

Shades of adventure

In The Longing, you control a tiny dark humanoid referred to as “The Shade.” The Shade seems to act as a sort of servant to a stone king underground. The game opens with the king explaining that his powers have faded and that he needs to rest to restore them so he can “create a world without longing.” As The Shade, your duty is to awaken the king after his 400 day rest.

With all that time on your hands, you can just wait patiently until it is time to do as you are told, or you can wander the elaborate underground cave system that the king and Shade reside in the meantime. All that the king warns you not to do is try to leave the caves and reach the surface. From there, you are on your own for the next 1.1 years.

Slow burn

Once the wait in The Longing starts, you are constantly aware of it via an in-game clock at the top of the screen. It advances whether you are actively playing the game or not. Active play generally means plodding very slowly between rooms and gathering collectibles like coal or books that can be brought to your home to start a fire and read. There are also puzzles, some of which are time-gated and require you to wait until something changes about them before you can proceed further.

Another option–and one I was fond of–is to instruct The Shade to go on a walk to a random location before closing the game, which led to always opening the game up to find myself in a different part of the cave system. No matter what you choose to do in The Longing, the pace at which is happens feels glacial compared to just about every other game, but that's also kind of the point. I'll also note here that in playing on mobile, popping in and out of the game is probably the easiest it will ever be.

400 Days of Shade

The Longing is absolutely meant to be a slow and meditative game. There is no trick to suddenly get faster movement (though there are ways to manipulate the in-game time). The point is to spend time with it and develop patience–or not. Remember, time advances either way. What it does ask you to do is engage with this core premise until you reach the end, and doing this is an interesting and rewarding exercise.

I could see a situation where I just decided The Longing didn't move or feel the way I wanted it to and just deleted the app, but I didn't. I wouldn't say I spent a ton of the 400 day timer with The Longing open, but having it sit there on my device led to times where I would check in on it, find myself somewhere new, perhaps discover a book or a disappointment (perhaps the oddest in-game collectible), and then put it back down for a few days or more. Whenever I saw it's icon, I knew that even if I didn't tap it, The Shade was there, passing time, whether while walking or standing around waiting for a puzzle to open or my next commands to come in. In my time with the game, there was never a moment where my own life was not intertwined with The Shade, whether I was choosing to actively play The Longing or not. This is a neat idea! I like it, and it is remarkably well-executed! But I'll also say that there's a lot of reasons I've already mentioned why I didn't do a ton of active exploration in this game.

The bottom line

I guess at the end of reviews I'm supposed to assign some value that gives you an idea of whether it's “worth it” to play the game I'm reviewing. Games like The Longing make this practice seem silly and superfluous. In a more traditional “game rating” sense, The Longing isn't exactly something I'd say would net a particularly high score, but it has arguably more value as an experience than many other games I may rate more highly than it. Do I want to play it again? No. Am I glad I played it? I guess? Was it a worthwhile experience? Absolutely. If you're left here scratching your head, probably the best advice I can give you is that if anything I said above hasn't completely turned you off from trying it, you will probably like The Longing.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/review-270307/