History Fridge / ResidentEvil2

* Some people have claimed Ada using her real name when she's suppose to be an undercover spy is unrealistic and stupid of her to do so. However, [[TruthInTelevision this might not be the case]], as undercover police officers, as well as federal agents working undercover often use their real name and real history for their undercover purposes. The reason for this is so that the undercover agent is able to keep facts straight, as its easier to use what you already know, such as your past, than to create a fabricated one and risk mixing up details when you tell multiple people about your past. [[RealityIsUnrealistic Ada using her real name isn't as farfetched as it seems]]. This Fridge Brilliance only applies to the original version of RE2, not the remake.

* Some people have claimed Ada using her real name when she's suppose to be an undercover spy is unrealistic and stupid of her to do so. However, [[TruthInTelevision this might not be the case]], as undercover police officers, as well as federal agents working undercover often use their real name and real history for their undercover purposes. The reason for this is so that the undercover agent is able to keep facts straight, as its easier to use what you already know, such as your past, than to create a fabricated one and risk mixing up details when you tell multiple people about your past. [[RealityIsUnrealistic Ada using her real name isn't as farfetched as it seems]].

* It seems a bit odd that, when trying to start up the train in the B Scenarios, the game requires you to pick up two Joint Plugs and then immediately use them one room later, with nothing in between. Even more odd is that you only have to use one of the plugs on the generator - it automatically places the second one in with the first - when every other part of the game has you use items individually. Odd until you realize that what the game is doing is forcing you to have two inventory slots open, so that you can pick up the two-slot rocket launcher [[spoiler:Ada]] throws to you during the [[spoiler:Mr. X/Tyrant]] fight that starts immediately afterwards.

* If you take a closer look at the new Resident Evil 2 logo, you see lines on it. Then you realise it's actually some sort of road map of Raccoon City and the surrounding area.
** This confirmed in the intro as it zooms out to show Raccoon City with Streetlight roads showing the map of the city, the lights slowly go out, the only ones left revealing the title.
* Doubles as fridge horror. But in the Remake, a man named Elliot calls out for a man named David when Leon spots him on the CCTV. Both the names Elliot and David are names of posthumous characters only named via files in the original game.
* While the game going to [=RE4's=] style of gameplay is a wise decision to keep the game up to date. It's also brilliance that the [=RE4=] style and [=RE2=] debuted with Leon. We've come full circle.
** Furthering this, [=RE2=] ''began'' the shift to Action Horror that became most prominent with [=RE4=].
* The fact that headshots aren't one-hit kills in the remake would help explain why Raccoon City was so quickly overrun despite being set in a world where zombie fiction is implied to exist. A lot of people early in the outbreak [[WrongGenreSavvy tried for headshots]], but seeing that it didn't work the first time [[OhCrap made them panic]] and not try again. By the time they realized their mistake, the zombies were in numbers too big to manage. Even if a zombie is felled by headshots, it stands a good chance of rising again a short time later, which would have caught many people unaware.
* In the remake, Mr. X normally walks at a steady pace; but, if you shoot his hat off, he charges you at full speed. Why he doesn't charge you to begin with? Because normally, he tries to pass off as a relatively normal human (note how the remake's Mr. X is considerably shorter than the one in the original game), and hides his face with the fedora so that people won't recognize him. If he loses the hat, though, he has already been uncovered - so he switches to "kill every witness present as quickly as possible".
* The remake has two cassette tapes lying around the deceased U.S.S. bodies, often not far from a tape player and TV at all (particularly the second tape technically isn't far from the Birkin lab). Annette probably extracted their recordings and either watched them herself or left them around to be seen if anyone managed to survive that far so that they would understand just why everything went to hell. It wouldn't be out-of-character either, considering she wants Umbrella to burn and would probably blame almost everything on them.
* Headshots not being an instant kill isn't instantly an indication that the T Virus has given their skin a thicker hide. The reason why humans pass out from getting shot in the head is due to overwhelming shock that's delivered from the bullet's impact. A zombie has lost all sense of pain, and thus the terminal shock from a bullet's impact would no longer register with their nervous system. Making things even more complicated, is brain shots aren't always an instant kill, since some parts of the brain are more essential -- in other words when your foe isn't gonna pass out due to the pain of the bullet, which part of the brain you hit starts to matter way more. The unfortunate people at Raccoon City probably found themselves wasting more bullets than they had to spare on vital organs, with it just being a matter of time until one of the bullets finally did the job. Unfortunately that strategy spread out across thousands of pain resistant zombies put them in a hopeless situation before long.
** The brain itself has no pain receptors; those who have just suffered trauma to the brain are often unaware of the severity of their injuries for this exact reason. People are knocked unconscious from being nonfatally shot in the head because of the concussive force of the bullet, not due to pain. The other thing seems to check out, though, so if they can't suffer concussions, then the only brain damage that will do the trick is the kind that affects their motor functions. YourHeadASplode-type attacks can one-shot zombies because they take out everything down to the brain stem, which is as close to an "off" switch as the human body can have.
** Additionally, the T-Virus outbreak that infected Racoon City is the variant of the original Progenitor Virus specifically developed to create a powerful bioweapon. That weapon? The Tyrant. The T in T-Virus stands for Tyrant Virus. What is one of the defining characteristics of the Tyrant series bioweapons? Their insane resistance to small arms fire.
** A better showcasing of their intense resilience is the fact that zombies often stumble around on fire, acting none the worse for wear. Not to mention if they did have anything resembling pain receptors, they wouldn't be able to stumble around with lost limbs or large portions of their face missing. They may not be Tyrants, but T Virus zombies were built to take some punishment.
* In the ''Remake'', Leon's design before getting shot and bandaged is pretty typical for police uniforms. However, after Ada patches him up by removing his sleeve, Leon's design much more closely resembles that of his look in the 4th game. In a way this design change serves as character development on a meta level; Leon develops from the naive police officer who struggled killing his first zombie, which is shown with his blue uniform, to becoming the action hero he becomes known for, which is shown with his look resembling his look in the fourth game.
* Why is Marvin so much harsher to Leon than Claire? Simple; Claire is a civilian, Leon is a rookie police officer. Marvin goes easy on Claire because he expects her to just save herself, plus he knows ordering her around and bossing her around is not what a truth police officer would do. On the other hand, Marvin expects Leon, one of the last active police officers in the entire city, to be at his best so that he can help other survivors he comes across in his travel. Marvin is his boss, but he needs Leon not letting his cop instincts blinding him like he does, while Claire, as a civilian, wouldn't have the same instinct normally.
** It also helps that Marvin is probably low key trying to get Leon to get the hint and leave him behind, hoping that if he's harsh to Leon his protective instincts towards Marvin will be impacted. The fact that he has to point his gun at Leon in order to hammer in the point "I'm a lost cause, don't waste your time trying to save me" shows that Marvin is aware Leon will be harder to budge than someone like Claire.
* Raccoon City is now an actual "city" and metropolis. In the original Resident Evil 2 (and 3), Raccoon City was more of a large town than an actual city, lacking the usual amenities that would be characteristic of a city (subway, zoo, wide open streets, skyline). The only aspect of it that gave it a city-like feeling was the name and a blurb at the end of Resident Evil 3 that mentioned it had a population of 100,000. In the remake, Raccoon City has a large skyline with office towers and high-rises, a subway system (glimpsed in the opening cutscene), and a much larger urban sprawl. This makes more sense; Raccoon City is stated to be the "Home of Umbrella", and they would thus invest a great deal into city projects that would allow the area to grow and expand its infrastructure and give it the appearance of a bustling, vibrant city, while also attracting workers and people (as well as unwitting test subjects) to work for Umbrella, making them reliant on the corporation's money and influence. It is even possible (though not confirmed yet) that this iteration of Raccoon City has a larger population than 100,000.
** On top of that, this explains the Outbreak games having such larger levels, as well as the presence of a zoo and subway system.
* [[spoiler: The way "G" one-shots Mr.X in Claire's scenario serve as not only a awesome moment for William in the moment, but for "G" as well, since by doing so, he essentially is giving Umbrella and all of its research into the T-Virus a giant middle finger by utterly destroying the highest peak of T's existence, "The Tyrant", like trash in the passing, proving how bad of a mistake it was to double-cross him.]]
* Why ''is'' it so damn dark all over the police station in the remake, even though the power is still on? Because Lickers have been stalking around all over the walls and ceilings, damaging wiring and breaking overhead fluorescent lights.

*** Not only that, it's implied the G2 mutation was done specifically in reaction to his attempts not to hurt Sherry; It learned that its host fights against it when it tries to find the next host, and thus it bypasses his input by sprouting a second head, presumably with better control over the body's nervous system.
* Birkin also does the main characters another favor. One Tyrant was an unstoppable juggernaut they can barely cope with. [[spoiler: Two at once would have meant certain death.]]
* Early in the remake, a frustrated Marvin tells Leon "If you see one of those things--uniform or not--you do not hesitate." The implication seems to be that he's speaking from experience: He got infected because he hesitated to shoot one of his now undead brothers in arms. It's also almost ''certainly'' foreshadowing to his impending zombification.
** Just before that, he qualifies his advice to Leon with "And don't make my mistake." It sounds like this was exactly what happened to the poor guy.
* The sheer amount of civilian zombies in the police station indicates that many sought refuge in the police station (and Sherry explicitly mentions that she was told to go there for safety). [[TakingYouWithMe They didn't know they were walking straight into a death trap sprung by Chief Irons]]. It is seen that the Main Hall was set up as a triage ward, with gurneys and medical supplies, while other parts of the station (the West and East wings) were sealed off via shutters due to their windows allowing for ingress for zombies.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AzuHeppOjs In this video]] a comment mentions that at 10:30 you can clearly hear one of the zombies saying "kill me." Basically if it's accurate, it means many or all of your enemies are fully aware of what they are and just can't stop themselves.
** This is semi-confirmed partway through the game, [[spoiler: you run into Kendo, who had to shoot his wife, and his daughter is also infected, one side of her face is disfigured and one eye is visablly gone white, and she moans, but she can also say "mommy" and "daddy" but she is clearly in the final stages]], so maybe a few of the Zombies you shoot are only just succumbing to the virus.
* It's a good damn thing the B scenario character's path incidentally leads them to the back gate of the police station, considering that the front gate has been locked by the A character and is full of zombies.
* Another remake factor comes with the Umbrella HQ Labs from which the G-Virus emerged to begin with. In the original game, they were somewhat futuristic, but also rustic and very outdated, looking like they were not exactly a recent creation nor very polished and cleaned up too often. The remake redesigns this into making the entire place cutting edge tech that makes the death lasers from ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' look reasonable. Just how much money, effort and advanced technology that put the entire rest of the world to shame did Umbrella have access to?
** A subtle factor of this that crosses with FridgeBrilliance is that the S.T.A.R.S. locker computer requires a USB dongle. USB was invented in 1996, but the USB 1.1 update that made the tech viable was released in September 1998 - the same month the Raccoon City incident occurs in. They also have it two years ahead of the curb in public flash drive use or the like. It makes sense that Wesker would invest in the best for his personal pet team of sorts, but it also means that Umbrella had their hands on state-of-the-art tech ahead of anyone else. Considering the ''Resident Evil'' series is sort of an alternate timeline divergence from real life, it could even mean that Umbrella helped create commonplace technology that everyone else would have access to. And that doesn't bring positive implications to mind.
** We already know the answer to that question. Cloning (T-103 are made from clones of Sergey Vladimir), Artificial Intelligence (the Red Queen exists in the game), cybernetic augmentations (TALOS) and energy weaponry (the Linear launcher) are just some examples of what Umbrella is capable of. It's a very good thing that Umbrella was shut down in time, or else they may have grown so big and integral to society that not even the government can touch them. Since Umbrella owns various islands and has its own prison and armed forces, the Corporation may have been able to achieve NGOSuperpower status had it been allowed to have its way.
* Why do zombies often have missing strips of skin around their mouths? Well other than the logical assumption that they're undergoing accelerated decay, the more horrifying answer might be their intense hunger. While not the strongest thing in the world, skin, sinew, muscle tissue, etc. ''does'' put up some sort of resistance; meaning a zombie can only rip off chunks of human skin so many times before the skin around their mouths starts to decay. This is to say nothing of what would happen to a human mouth if it munched down on bone. Some of the zombies you encounter might have eaten enough corpses to harm the skin on their own faces, and no matter how much harm they do to themselves their hunger for flesh will never cease.
** Also consider that zombies might mindlessly chew off ''their own lips''.
* In the remake, we get a radio interview in the intro scene where someone talks about encountering a zombie at a bar and not understanding what he saw even as he talks about it. At first this might seem like a weird plot hole, but the most likely explanation is that the caller isn't from Raccoon City. Between that and the gas station attack, where an Arklay Sheriff's deputy tries to ''arrest'' a zombie without knowing what he's up against, it's safe to say the infection has ''spread beyond the Raccoon City limits.''
* While [[AmbiguousSituation kind of a stretch,]] the Chief's taxidermy diary mentions that his last specimen was a 22 year old pig. Wild pigs only have an average 8 year life expectancy while domestic pigs average 15-20 years tops. Given the way he waxes poetic about how its skin is "soft, sweet, and white all over" and how "it's mine forever," it raises the question about [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame whether or not he's talking about a literal pig]].
** It's very, ''very'' obvious that it's the mayor's daughter he's referring to, and that he uses the word "pig" to describe her because he's a ragingly misogynistic asshole.

[[AC:Fridge Logic]]

* Anyone else curious as to why the remake's infinite knife looks like an ancient, crudely-made Bowie, while the shitty, breakable ones are ostensibly based on the M9, one of the most rugged, well-constructed, and expensive heavy-duty knives in existence?
** Perhaps [[LethalJokeWeapon that's the joke?]]
* In the 2nd run, you encounter Mr. X on the left side of the hallway where the laundry room is, but there's something odd about it: There's only two rooms, and the second door is locked from the outside where the library is. So how did he get from that side? Smashing the door open would generate noise, but he didn't do so, and you can clearly hear his footsteps in that direction.
** Most likely he had actually come from the same direction you did, and turned around because he didn't feel like unlocking (or smashing) the locked door at the end, reasoning that if there were any prey in the station, it didn't pass through that way.

* In the 2nd run, you encounter Mr. X on the left side of the hallway where the laundry room is, but there's something odd about it: There's only two rooms, and the second door is locked from the outside where the library is. So how did he get from that side? Smashing the door open would generate noise, but he didn't do so, and you can clearly hear his footsteps in that direction.

* Why ''is'' it so damn dark all over the police station in the remake, even though the power is still on? Because most of the overhead fluorescent lights have been damaged or destroyed by Lickers as they stalked around on the ceilings.

* Why ''is'' it so damn dark all over the police station even though the power is still on? Because most of the overhead fluorescent lights have been damaged or destroyed by Lickers crawling across the ceilings.

** It's very, very, ''very'' obvious that it's the mayor's daughter he's referring to, and that he uses the word "pig" to describe her because he's a ragingly misogynistic asshole.

** Perhaps [[LethalJokeWeapon that's the joke?]]

* Anyone else curious as to why the remake's infinite knife looks like an ancient, crudely-made Bowie, while the shitty, breakable ones are ostensibly based on the M9, one of the most rugged, well-constructed, and expensive heavy-duty knives in existence?

** It's very, very, ''very'' obviously the mayor's daughter he's referring to, and that he uses the word "pig" to describe her because he's a ragingly misogynistic asshole.

** It's very, very, ''very'' obviously the mayor's daughter he's referring to, and he uses the word "pig" to describe her because he's a raging misogynistic asshole.

* While [[AmbiguousSituation kind of a stretch,]] the Chief's taxidermy diary mentions that his last specimen was a 22 year old pig. Wild pigs only have an average 8 year life expectancy while domestic pigs average 15-20 years tops. Given the way he waxes poetic about how its skin is "soft, sweet, and white all over" and how "it's mine forever," it raises the question about [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame whether or not he's talking about a literal pig]].

* In the remake, we get a radio interview in the intro scene where someone talks about encountering a zombie at a bar and not understanding what he saw even as he talks about it. At first this might seem like a weird plot hole, but the most likely explanation is that the caller isn't from Raccoon City. Between that and the gas station attack, where an Arklay Sheriff's deputy tries to ''arrest'' a zombie without knowing what he's up against, it's safe to say the infection has ''spread beyond the Raccoon City limits.''

* In the remake, we get a radio interview where someone talks about encountering a zombie at a bar and not understanding what he saw even as he talks about it. At first this might seem like a weird plot hole, but the most likely explanation is that the caller isn't from Raccoon City. Between that and the gas station attack, where an Arklay Sheriff's deputy tries to ''arrest'' a zombie without knowing what he's up against, it's safe to say the infection has ''spread beyond the Raccoon City limits.''

** Also consider that zombies might mindlessly chew off ''their own lips''.

** The brain has no pain receptors; people are knocked unconscious from being nonfatally shot in the head because of the concussive force of the bullet. The other thing seems to check out, though, so if they can't suffer concussions, then the only brain damage that will do the trick is the kind that affects their motor functions. YourHeadASplode-type attacks can one-shot zombies because they take out everything down to the brain stem, which is as close to an "off" switch as the human body can have.

* Raccoon City is now an actual "city" and metropolis. In the original Resident Evil 2 (and 3), Raccoon City was more of a large town than an actual city, lacking the usual amenities that would be characteristic of a city (subway, wide open streets, skyline). The only aspect of it that gave it a city-like feeling was the name and a blurb at the end of Resident Evil 3 that mentioned it had a population of 100,000. In the remake, Raccoon City has a large skyline with office towers and high-rises, a subway system (glimpsed in the opening cutscene), and a much larger urban sprawl. This makes more sense; Raccoon City is stated to be the "Home of Umbrella", and they would thus invest a great deal into city projects that would allow the area to grow and expand its infrastructure and give it the appearance of a bustling, vibrant city much larger than it, while also attracting workers and people (as well as unwitting test subjects) to work for Umbrella in the city, making them reliant on Umbrella's money and influence. It is even possible (though not confirmed yet) that this iteration of Raccoon City has a larger population than 100,000.
** On top of that, this explains the Outbreak games having such larger levels.

** Also consider that zombies might mindlessly chew off their ''own lips''.

** Also consider that zombies might mindlessly chew off their "own lips".