I will admit I liked Resident Evil 2 better, but this was a lot better than the first.
First off, let's start by the game intro. It's not so bad, actually. When it shows you crashing through the window, it takes you back to RE2 with the zombies surrounding you. You gotta pop these undeadlies quick, which you get a pretty good gun to use. Every Resident Evil you start off with a handgun. Don't know why, but you do.
I like how later, after you're running away from the zombie overload into some weird warehouse thing and this guy locks himself into a trailer-type thing, you can go upstairs to the office, get a key, and suddenly when you look in the item box, it's like Tommy Vercetti at the Ammu-Nation. The spoiler? AWESOME F***ING HARWARE! And you get lots of ammo, too.
To say the least on the weapons - Assault Rifle and the Magnum were my new friends throughout the game. You got the shotgun and the handgun, too, but... Are those really all that exciting? Meh... no. The shotgun does help get rid of more than one zombie with one shot, if you aim right. Except against Nemesis. The magnum will be your friend against him.
The cool part about this game? Mixing up more ammo. You get these items you can use to make rounds for your magnum or shotgun, or even your grenade launcher. Nemesis is still pretty tough, but until you get the rocket launcher with infinite ammo (it can be done, it's up to you to figure out how) then Nemesis is down in two shots.
Another cool add-on was the quick-180. If you hit Down and Square at the same time, you could turn around. You also have the dodge feature, which is excellent against Nemmy.
You get new environments. The only thing that is similar to 2 is the police station, only this time most of the doors are locked and you can actually enter from the front gate. This is where you reach the first multiple choice scenario. Your buddy Brad is in for a treat and suddenly Mr. Nemesis comes at you - you can either stay and fight or lock him out of the police station by running under him. If you take too long to choose, he gets you and you could be in a world of hurt.
The new environments and the new puzzles make this game just as good as some of the others, but I still prefer RE2 simply because it's got a two-sided story, which you don't see very much.
All-in-all, I gave it a 9.1 because it is the only good series of zombie games. I dunno if there are any more, but I never bothered to check either.