Welcome back to Raccoon City, where you won't necessarily have to worry about the local townsfolk knocking over your trash cans... though they might end up trying to eat you.

The original Resident Evil (called Biohazard in Japan) was the video game equivalent of the film The Shining in terms of pure suspense and genuine creepiness. Gamers played as one of two special police force members sent into a secluded area on the outskirts of Raccoon City, where several possible murders had been reported and bizarre creatures sighted. After being forced back into a seemingly deserted mansion by an attack of bloodthirsty beasts, players slowly learned that the building was actually a research laboratory where strange biological experiments had gone decidedly awry. Players then had to keep vicious bioengineered creatures and zombified scientists from escaping the facility, while escaping with their own lives intact.

The storyline for Capcom's Resident Evil 2 picks up immediately following the events at the end of the first game. Apparently, after the destruction of the mansion, the nearby populace starts suffering from a particularly virulent skin rash. This epidermal epidemic grows increasingly intense, eventually turning its victims into flesh-eating zombies much like the unlucky scientists from RE1, though in significantly greater numbers.
At the same time, a new batch of kill-crazy mutants arrives on the scene from the nearby Umbrella bio-lab, the bio-lab initially responsible for creating the disease.

Our old friends Chris and Jill, heroes of the first game, are missing, so gamers now have two brand-new characters to choose from: Leon Kennedy, a rookie policeman, and Claire Redfield, Chris's younger sister. The two are united in a quest to stop Umbrella, find any survivors, and survive a town that wants to see them digested.