Beat on Deathwish difficulty, which was the hardest of 2 difficulties. Despite that, this game was easier than Time to Kill on difficulty 3 of 4. The level design was significantly improved, making it easier to figure out what to do, less obnoxious platforming, and less cheap enemy placement. The levels tended to blur together a little more though. The biggest change was the button to lock onto targets, which was a downgrade from the auto aim in the previous game. I changed the key bindings to be square for manual aim, triangle for jump, circle for target lock, L and R for strafe, and put away weapon and quick turn to the analog stick. I can definitely see the game being easier to play on the playstation over the PSP, but I found the combat awkward with too many buttons to press; trying to hold circle, press X to shoot and deal with strafing. It did not seem that strafing during combat was useful for avoiding damage, and manual aim was less useful. The health system made it easier to stay alive because on top of the inventory med kits and static health packs, health was gained from defeating enemies, finding secrets, and completing objectives. Not sure how I feel about any health over 100% degenerating back to 100. It did encourage aggressive play to use that health before it ran out, but also discouraged exploration.

The game had a ridiculous inventory of weapons and it was awkward to go into the menus to switch. I did find the weapons were more fleshed out than in Time to Kill. The energy weapon was top tier because it killed quickly and stunned enemies. It could only reach short range but was excellent for mowing down run and gunning. The sniper rifle was an excellent addition that allowed out ranging enemies in certain locations. Both the freezer and shrinker were long ranged 1 shot disablers that were excellent for taking out lone enemies. It was more tricky to use them against groups. A pistol shot was great to finish off a frozen enemy, but shrunken enemies had to be stepped on. The pistol and shotgun were far less effective than in the previous game. In fact they were so weak that they were better saved for melee enemies and destroying crates. This game's shotgun was a disgrace to video game shotguns. The kick was replaced with infinite throwing knives, which was better I guess, but when I kicked down a bathroom stall and was face to face with a pigcop I took a ton of damage and could not fight back until I moved out of melee. The 3 laser weapons were very effective for general purpose but they were way too similar. Gatling laser and mini gatling laser? Really? They could have cut 2 of those weapons while upping the ammo capacity. Maybe add a laser weapon that does something other than shoot fast, like a charge up blast or something. The grenade launcher sucked because it was difficult to aim, detonated on a timer rather than impact, and the actual damage radius was way too small. The other weapons were fine though I never found the torpedo. The jetpack was invaluable for skipping annoying platforming and even skipping parts of some levels. The nightvision and toxic mask were only occasionally needed; less than they were needed in the previous game.

I liked the greater number of continues though I did not need them until much later. The first couple levels were unremarkable though I did consecutively use urinals for healing. Level 3 was weird because my starting location changed if I skipped the opening cutscene. I beat the level normally and found that skipping that scene warped me near the end of the level. No idea how the level would play out from there. The underwater levels were annoying because I had a graphical glitch that made it more difficult to see, and of course the underwater controls/movements were even more clunky than on land. I did not like the timed level with the ruptured O2 tank, though it was not difficult once I knew what to do. The first real boss (Silverback) was annoying because he kept doing a melee knockdown. I felt I won due to having enough health to tank the hits rather than through skill. I had a bit of trouble in the factory because I used the jetpack to avoid the dangerous assembly line. But I did not know that and tried to go back the wrong way through those instant death crushers. I was not happy after getting killed there as I wondered how the hell I was supposed to make it through there. Surely there was a way to turn off the machines or something... oh I don't even have to go there. I got killed at the next boss, the mother brain computer. I unloaded my rpgs into it but afterwards the health bar would not go down. I guess it bugged out. The same thing happened at the final boss, so I guess the bosses with more than 1 phase can glitch out if they take too much damage too quickly. The spaceport level was the first where I used up all my continues, after barely using any up til then. Those aliens with freezers were very annoying and could rack up a lot of damage when Duke was frozen solid. The little UFOs they dropped were immune to my freeze and hogged the target lock making it more difficult to get the aliens before I was frozen. I learned the freezer (and shrinker) were not the best weapons for them. Then I got killed by getting frozen while jumping, and finally killed myself with dynamite while trying to cheese the end. The final boss took several attempts between his insta kill rockets and me falling to death. I did not like how using a continue made me have to fight through the gauntlet again. Might as well load from the start and have full ammo, though I did not check to see if the boss health reset. I killed him slowly with 1 rocket at a time to avoid any glitch, then finished him with pipe bombs from long range.

This game was slightly better than Time to Kill but had the same awkward controls. The platforming was just as bad with stiff jumping and sometimes jumps just not happening. There was some automatic weapon sheathing for some actions, like using ladders, but it was silly to have a sheathing button at all. Still had to sheathe to interact with switches and babes because use and shoot were the same button. The plot had some terminator vibes but overall made little sense due to the motivations of the aliens. Like why did they exterminate all the men only to use the women as slave workers? And why would the aliens or the mutated animal enemies want to use women for sex? I know I am thinking too hard about the lore and it was really nothing more than the developers wanting to put in sex appeal content. I unlocked the level select, start with armor and invisibility cheats. Invisibility only lasts a short while and breaks upon shooting, so it has to be reapplied constantly in the menu. I did replay the 3rd level while skipping the cutscene and yes it allowed me to skip much of the level. Skipping the cutscene in the 1st level started me in the void and made it impossible to play. I wonder how many other levels can be glitched like that, and whether it is part of the game or just because I played on PSP. I am not inclined to replay to unlock the other cheats.

7.2/10