A fictitious nature documentary about whales on an alien planet not dissimilar from Earth, told through a series of beautiful images. I thought the art was really good and the narrative of the documentary (including the various asides) was believable and compelling in a way that sci-fi often fails to be without being clinical and boring.

What let South Scrimshaw down a little for me is the AI narration. At points it was glaringly obvious, different voices having different pronunciations of the same word and the main narrator slipped from a British accent into an Australian one on a few rare occasions that made it clear I was not listening to a human. I feel like it shouldn't have been that hard to find people willing to lend their voices to this.

What order did I play the Resident Evil games in? I’m glad you asked!

RE 4 “(2005)” - wow yes nice but so weird
RE “HD” - retro, I like it. Scary af in places
RE 7 - FPP in a classic Evil Residence setting chef’s kiss
RE 5 - trying to blend in too much cover shooter bullshit
RE 6 - see RE 5 except it outstays its welcome about 3x over

So here we are, the RE2make? REmake 2? Resident Evil 2 HD? whatever.

It’s good, like really good. Classic survival horror vibe in that you’re essentially just solving puzzles in a building full of dickheads who want to bite you. Losing the fixed camera in lieu of an over-the-shoulder-view hasn’t lessened the feeling of dread as you squeak open a door, hoping the Licker in the next corridor is on coffee break, Mr. X’s footsteps pant-shittingly close.

Leading me into one of my nitpicks, sometimes the AI doesn’t really play fair. Mr. X occasionally just haunts the corridors immediately outside the safe room you’re in which can be flow breaking when you’re just trying to get shit done. He also seems to haul ass to corral me into rooms with Lickers in. I don’t know if this is on purpose but it is very annoying.

The story is kind of a non-point, it’s barely coherent enough to support most of the characters' motives but I’ll take a good game with a bad plot over the opposite. Playing the game twice with maybe 10% different content and story beats just to get to the “True Ending” felt a little jarring to me. I touched on RE 6 outstaying its welcome and R2make really cut it close for me.

Ultimately I had fun with Resident Remake 2: Evil; controls are tight and predictable, enemy variety is enough for a game of this size and boss encounters are usually reasonable (even if they only seem to appear when you’re least prepared). Do I want to soak up all the extra content? Not immediately and I think that is telling enough.

2 AM - Olympic Exclusion Zone - Outer Zone

I kill the engine, close my eyes and sit back in my car seat. The wind and rain batters the protective outer shell of my car, threatening to lift it off the ground and toss it down a ravine at any moment.

“There’s no such thing as a ‘Cursed Wheel’” I tell myself; and I believe it, I really do. It must have been my judicious use of the handbrake or driving a little too fast over a small pile of stones or a little too close to the Hot Dust 200 yards back. That’s why my front left wheel is loose for the fourth time on this excursion. It’s not Cursed.

I believe this despite being frequently pursued by semi-sentient balls of possessed trash and flying robots that want to steal my car. I believe this despite the existence of the Friendly Dumpster and the enigmatic-but-useful Pacemaker. I believe this despite every single piece of evidence to the contrary. There is no such thing as a Cursed Wheel.

Leaving it is an option. I can drive for miles without tending to it, I might even make it home if the conditions are perfect. Conditions are never perfect. A rogue squall could drift across at any moment and I could be left trying to repair so many more issues under a battering of acid rain or a confusing storm of Bollards and Shakers throwing my car and my self around like toys. Best to deal with it while the weather is only pre-apocalyptic.

I slide out into the maelstrom and tighten the wheel. It’s literally a moment’s work, even with my tools haphazardly thrown into a side-storage container. I even check around the car for any signs of weakness in the vehicles doors and panels, it’s the kind of thing that can save your life in the Olympic Exclusion Zone. All good, I slide back into the driver’s seat, soaked but satisfied. It’s time to head home.

I pick an exit point (why do they have to be so far away?) and all hell breaks loose. The real storm is coming and I am going. Fast. Tearing across the terrain in the near pitch-black at 100, 120, 140 km/h, squinting through the pouring rain. While my back was turned, exploding Tourists have drifted into the road causing me to veer into a ditch and mow down two dozen saplings before colliding with a tree. I check the dashboard console, no serious damage but the hold-up means that the initial storm has overtaken me and the worst is still to come.

Pulling back onto the road and flooring it, I can feel the true nightmare breathing down my neck, my exit point so near and yet not-near-enough. It’s a damn good job I dealt with that wheel.

An alert chimes on my dashboard.

There is No Such Thing as a Cursed Wheel