Anyone who’s ever had a favorite series or character has felt it...a disappointment

so massive and so complete, your only instinct is disbelief. There’s no way this franchise,

my franchise, could have its name on something so incomprehensibly terrible.

Something like Resident Evil 2 for the game.com.

Sent to us by our good friend Chip from Alabama, this version of Resident Evil 2—yes, the

Resident Evil 2—was released in 1998 and universally considered a failure. But the

truth is, I mean, it kind of does what it can. The game.com had some strengths, but

its screen was not one of them. Releasing a game this visually demanding for a system

with a screen that fits somewhere between the Game Boy and a calculator...

Not exactly an optimal situation for success.

Nonetheless, Resident Evil 2 feels at least vaguely familiar on the game.com. This version

is based on Leon’s quest from the original game and, again, loosely follows Resident

Evil 2’s structure and storyline. The game doesn’t look terrible either, with decent

sprites that are alright when...you can see them...and it’s nice to see little touches

like the door animations were also included.

So this game feels about as authentic as it possibly can, given the limitations of its

platform. But otherwise, everything goes wrong. The controls are almost unplayably bad, first

and foremost. There’s a strange delay between virtually every action Leon performs and the

button press that commands him to do it, which in and of itself is enough to make this game

too frustrating to play.

But what’s interesting is the weird dynamic between those clunky controls and the game’s

use of touch. Moving Leon and shooting zombies is a wreck, but when you pause the action

and start using your inventory, the game suddenly feels...modern. Tapping items and navigating

menus with a stylus works really well, almost like a prophetic look into gaming’s future.

In fact, Tiger’s game.com had a list of features that were a decade ahead of their

time...but when you play a game like this, you understand why it didn’t last. In some

ways, this is a lot like the Resident Evil 2 you remember. But in most ways, this is

a Resident Evil 2 you’ll want to forget.