Fighting Force 2
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Fighting Force 2 is a 1999 third-person beat ‘em up and shooter game by Core Design and Eidos Interactive, released for the PlayStation and Sega Dreamcast. It is a sequel to the 1997 PlayStation/Nintendo 64/PC game Fighting Force and is the second/final game in the Fighting Force Duology. Another sequel was in development for the PlayStation 2, GameCube & Xbox, but it was cancelled.
Plot
The game is set in a cyberpunk future where the world is ruled by powerful corporations. Not only that, human cloning is possible but has been banned by an international treaty. The player, as one of the first game‘s protagonists, Hawk Manson, is sent in by SI-COPS to destroy the Knackmiche Corporation, which has been suspected of developing a bio-weapon based on human DNA.
Why It Sucks
- The main problem Fighting Force 2 is it's tone, this game takes itself way too seriously were as the first game is far more silly and humorous by comparison.
- Yes, making a game's sequel much more darker then it's previous installment CAN work if done well (E.G.: Bomberman 64: The Second Attack!, Sonic Adventure 2, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door), but the key difference is that THEY still knew when to joke around and lighting up the mode, but in the case with Fighting Force 2, there's none of that.
- Sluggish movement controls, as once again they are very clunky and unresponsive, it is even more unresponsive than the first game too, thus making it for a really tedious game to play and create fake difficulty.
- Poor camera placement.
- A tedious and stiff first-person shooter mode which can be toggled if you use a gun.
- Boring and repetitive gameplay which involves fighting the same enemy types over and over again until one of them drops a keycard, and while the first game was repetitive, at least it wasn't to this extend.
- Braindead enemy AI. Oftentimes they fail to see you even if you‘re right in front of them, or noticing a live grenade getting thrown next to them.
- Nonsensical item placement; for instance, you can find guns, knives, and grenades in computer monitors, chairs, and security cameras for some reason.
- Overly long levels by beat ‘em up standards, with some of them taking 30 minutes, making it for a really boring and tedious beat em up (or a third-person shooter game if you prefer).
- One of the levels, which involves fighting mutants and zombies, doesn't really make much sense in the game‘s storyline.
- Disappointingly easy boss battles; in fact most of the levels have no bosses.
- Extremely awful checkpoints system; if you die, you go back to the beginning of a level unless you find one, much like games such as South Park: Snow Day!, this is especially annoying for the longest level and it doesn't help that the game might be hard at times.
- You can only save whenever you beat a level, making it for a really terrible save system.
- A scoring system which is pointless due to a lack of high score rankings, and the fact that this game isn't a simple beat em up like the first game was,
- Blocky graphics. While this is somewhat tolerable in the PlayStation, it‘s downright outdated by Dreamcast standards, although the graphics were improved in the Dreamcast version.
- The characters models are as blocky as the first game, they are very undetailled, pixelated and also their textures look downright awful, though it is a slight improvement over the first game.
- The colors palette is also poor due to having washed out colors, and not being as good as the colors from the first game, yeah the first game may not had good graphics either, but still had much more colorful graphics than this, although it is more colorful in the Dreamcast version.
- No cooperative multiplayer support, as the back cover says, "You're all alone. Live with the pressure.".
- Has barely anything to do with the first game other than a recurring character, Hawk himself. Dr. Zheng, the first game‘s villain, was only mentioned in passing.
- Lackluster soundtrack that is very forgettable and generic, you will quickly forget the musics.
- Practically every object in the game (including wooden boxes and chairs) explodes when attacked.
- This game unfortinitly killed off the Fighting Force franchise, as there is yet to be a third game or even another kind of installment.
Redeeming Qualities
- It is longer than the first game, lasting 5 hours.
- The game had some good ideas but where poorly executed.
- Decent voice acting, there's even some other dubs than the English version such as a French dub.
- The cover art look cool, detailled and is overall great, being one of the only good things of the game.
- Despite the huge changes from the first game, some peoples might like this game, despite being pretty bad.
Reception
Fighting Force 2 was met with worse reception than its predecessor. Most critics and gamers consider it to be simply nothing more than a disappointment from the first game, while others think it's a decent game by its own standards.
It received a score of 50% and 54% for the Dreamcast and PS1 versions on Gameranking respectively.