Status Chovus Jan 18, 2023
Beat 100% on Hard with fast aim, aim zoom and hip fire crosshair on, even though I did not get 3 stars on every level. Hard was annoying because every enemy was a bit of a bullet sponge, taking several pistol/smg shots to kill. This made the first level in missions especially difficult due to lack of starting ammo, but …
Beat 100% on Hard with fast aim, aim zoom and hip fire crosshair on, even though I did not get 3 stars on every level. Hard was annoying because every enemy was a bit of a bullet sponge, taking several pistol/smg shots to kill. This made the first level in missions especially difficult due to lack of starting ammo, but by the 3rd level I had plenty. I missed having the garand rifle or any decent long ranged accurate gun for much of the game. My overall accuracy was much lower this time at 30% and the number of shots fired was about double. Most shots were to the torso then head, then right arm with the legs being the least hit. My title was disarmer. The stg was excellent when I got to use it, even better than the bar. The sniper rifle was better because it was semi auto, but still was severely lacking in range due to the draw distance. It was still awkward to use with the slow aiming down the scope, so sometimes I hip fired it in close range like a shotgun. I got really good at hip firing the shotgun while strafing back to cover for each pump in Doom style run and gunning. This was only possible because I customized the PSP controls with strafing on L and R, triangle aim, square shoot, X jump, O reload, and crouch and weapon swap on the stick. Now I could move around sensibly and even circle strafe to flank. I still did plenty of tactical going prone and aiming at distance with the other weapons.
I got mostly 3 star ratings. It was very easy to take massive damage when caught at close range by any enemy with an automatic, especially when they were strafing; it was difficult to keep up with them and sometimes the crosshair seemed to move even slower when there was a lot going on. I liked the new vehicle enemies but heavy machine guns should not counter tanks. The whole point of real tanks was that they could withstand automatic fire and either close in to destroy machine gun nests, or provide cover for infantry to do it, so hopping on a turret to take out tanks made no sense. The first 2 star I had was mission 2 lighting the torch in Africa; I just didn't finish with high health. I was not a fan of the stealth missions but they were better than in the previous game. The level design overall was significantly improved with more alternate routes, actual secrets and better set pieces. I especially liked the castle level with the knights and secret puzzle. I head shot the first 2 knights with crossbow and wondered if they were statues. The next stood still while I walked right up to him and sized him up. He didn't attack until a few seconds later, which was almost a jump scare. The escape mission annoyed me because of the vegetation on some edges that blocked my view but did nothing to hinder the enemies. I also fell through the bridge before I even set the charges. I could get back up, but that was still a big bug. I did not like the following level because it was timed; I had to destroy all of the trucks before they escaped. It was not difficult once I figured it out after a few failures but I really hated how letting even 1 escape failed the mission and booted me out of it. There was no continuing on to learn how the level worked. Mission 6 was where I really had to get good with the shotgun, though I only got 1 star for the sidecar escape. It was fun, but on rails shooting is a different genre so the standard for 3 stars was not fair. Then the end of the game was brutal. Plenty of levels up until now look a few to several tries to beat, but I failed the street by street level many times. Usually it was from getting caught at close range, and others were from backtracking for health only to find enemies respawned. I did not like that design choice at all. I only got 2 stars here and for the final level (which was also annoying with enemies suddenly spawning in behind), and thus did not get the medal. I thought that mission was brutal but the bonus sci fi mission was even more grueling. I got some nice Wolfenstein vibes though, and I appreciated how they used some new and underused assets for silly fun. The dogs were very annoying, taking 8 pistol shots to kill. Sometimes I could get my aim to lock slightly lower to easily hip shotgun them, though one time I had my aim locked too low to hit rocket launcher dog as I comically chased him around at close range to prevent him from shooting to buy enough time for me to aim up or shoot him in the foot. Most dogs I lured to the window to kill from complete safety. I died a lot to the rocket and gun dogs until I mastered their locations though I somehow beat the later half of the level on my first try. The next level was even more difficult with the zombie gunners, and I began throwing grenades into new passages just in case. After many attempts and mastering exactly where every enemy was, I used a walkthrough to give me an idea what to expect towards the end. This game could have used some checkpoints because I did not like having to replay significant content just to reach a little further each time. I expected the final level to be the most difficult of all, but the robots were so easy I beat it first try. It helped that they were so loud.
This game was a significant improvement over the previous, but seemed to have less polish. There were minor bugs and times where my shots were blocked by invisible walls that were not nearly close enough to the object they were meant to be. It had the same great sound, atmosphere and enemy hit detection, while also having the same flaws with control. I did not like the change to limit ammo carry capacity, which meant I had to keep track of both health and ammo pick ups to backtrack for. It was also annoying that lowering the difficulty did not seem to do anything, so I would have to start a new game on lower difficulty to just have fun mowing enemies down. Or I guess I could put on the invincibility, no reload and enemy infighting cheats that I unlocked. I overall rate it the same as the previous game.
8.2/10
