Resident Evil 7: Biohazard - Banned Footage Vol. 2 Review - Screenshot 1 of

Oh, Capcom – why, oh why did you cut Resident Evil 7: Biohazard - Banned Footage Vol. 2 from the main game? Banned Footage Vol. 1 served up a couple of quality VHS tapes, and its successor – launching less than a month after the core campaign – is arguably better. The DLC is cementing the survival horror as a modern classic, but it's marred by the fact that it's clearly cut content that's been sold after the fact.

Take nothing away from this slice of scares, though – it's bloody good stuff. The first cassette, 21, sees the return of luckless cameraman Clancy, who's ushered into another of Lucas' deadly games. This time he must play a torturous round of Blackjack, with his life being the chips on the line. The minigame essentially sees you attempting to ensure that your card numbers add up to, yes, 21.

The artificial intelligence is surprisingly great. Your opponent will always have a hidden card, but you can determine what it is by reading their moves. The stakes intensify with each round, culminating in your adversary being smoked and subsequently puppeteered by the Bakers' sadistic son.

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What's brilliant is that Lucas cheats when he's about to lose, so you have to use your wits to outsmart him just like in the Happy Birthday room. Once you've completed the story, you'll unlock a more arcade version of the game which moves at a faster pace and is a bit more replayable. As with the Nightmare tape, there are persistent unlocks here, so it's worth coming back to.

The other cassette, Daughters, adopts a more story-based approach, as it turns back the clocks to a time before the Bakers went insane. This is essential viewing for fans of the main game, and while the pace at which things go south is a little too accelerated for our liking, it's really harrowing seeing the family turn before your very eyes; one domestic dispute between Mum and Dad makes for particularly hard viewing.

This video's less replayable than 21, although there are two different endings for you to figure out, which at least gives incentive for a couple of playthroughs. One thing that's cool about it is that it allows you to explore the Baker household before its partly destroyed, which is sure to please fans who are eminently familiar with the layout of the building.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard - Banned Footage Vol. 2 Review - Screenshot 1 of

And then you get Jack's 55th Birthday, an absolutely ridiculous mini-game that kits the patriarch out in a party hat and sees you sprinting through small sections of familiar environments, foraging for food in order to feed the greedy papa. Perks can be placed in your inventory, but equip too many and you'll have less room for snacks, which means you'll waste time sprinting backwards and forwards.

Some items can be combined in order to improve the taste of the sustenance, meaning that Mr Baker's satisfaction metre will fill faster. Your goal is to feed the fatherly figure as quickly as you can, killing hatted Molded along the way to stop the clock. It's a positively barmy mode, but with multiple levels and persistent unlocks, it's incredibly fun stuff.

Conclusion

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard - Banned Footage Vol. 2 is arguably an even better piece of DLC than its already excellent predecessor, but our excitement for the additions is tempered by frustration that they should have been included with the main game. We liked the core campaign as it was, but with these packs bolted on it could have scored higher. Still, what you have here is some truly inventive content that repurposes the game's main mechanics in a variety of interesting and exciting ways.