| Parasite Eve 2 The survival horror genre needs something apart from Resident Evil to keep people interested and it needs something that is going to turn the genre around. How about something with more guns, more horrible mutants and a superior system to that of the Resident Evil series, how about this little gaming gem from Squaresoft. And that game is Parasite Eve 2, a game that crosses between two genres. Its an RPG and horror title all rolled into one really, and it isn�t too bad either. You play the role of Aya Brea, a young woman who hunts down Parasites with huge amounts of firepower, which she is going to need. The graphics deserve praised simply because they are downright gorgeous and the attention to detail is superb, come on everyone these are the guys who brought Final Fantasy into our shallow RPG collection�s, so what would you expect, no less I bet. I mean, just watch in those desert areas as Aya walks in among the sand, sounds exciting doesn�t it well be amazed when you see sand fly from her boots, mega realistic, and just look at that sky its amazing, it is actually blue, something you don�t see very often around here, something even greater though is the detail in the actual sky, great isn�t it. The battles are equally amazing with some tasty weaponry at your disposal but we�ll talk about those later. In battle you have a bit of magic to play around with, see, told you it had some RPG elements included in there somewhere. These spells are valuable to you as they can heal you, protect you and even attack those damn parasites with elements including fire and lighting and other stuff that can really hurt. Just use whatever spell is needed at the time and you�ll get through the battle. The magic effects are stunning with some superb fire and electrical effects showering the screen, they are even good enough to rival the biggest budget of movie�s. This is a gun lovers dream and there is a load of weaponry in there to drool over. The gunblade from Final Fantasy 8 makes an appearance along with machine guns, flamethrowers and spark guns, and I�m sure a lot of us will love it. A clever new system has been designed where you attach the health and weapons to your armour to use in battle. But you have to be careful you make the right choice of weapons as you have to make room for your health too, in case you are badly injured. And many times in this game you will come close to death thanks to the huge bosses, who have perfect AI and perfect polygon counts to boast, and you could be fighting these for a very long time. They can suck you up, breathe fire at you and cause other serious amounts of pain. Impressive is the only word to describe them. Games have down-points just like everything else and this is no exception, in fact it has quite a few flaws and if they were not included it could have got a little bit of a higher mark. The dreaded down-points include some ridiculously hard enemies, with some included that you cant even hurt and others that are far too fast for Aya. Also most of the puzzles are too much to work out (for us anyway) and all they will do is frustrate you and make you want to kick your little grey box into little grey plastic particles. But if you ignore these faults and you�re a Resident Evil fanatic, be prepared for even more scares and an even better game. Simon Wigham 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Other Opinions |