![]() I did run into a handful of technical issues on the PC version. But the characters and their dialogue are largely forgettable, with the tone striking an odd balance of sorta serious while still not taking itself too seriously – but not exactly being very funny either. What you’re fed in dribs and drabs is serviceable, including The Division-like flashbacks. While the action and level design are strengths of The Surge 2, I can’t say the same for its story. The Surge 2 can still be difficult but it’s rarely unfair. There are few deadly environmental traps, and even falling off a ledge or drowning is generously resolved with a respawn back on solid ground. ![]() Other than the old favourite of enemies hiding behind corners ready to pounce, it avoids overly cruel trial and error. That said, it didn’t stop the odd boss battle or tougher grunt from handing my ass to me at times. This let me heal frequently, allowing for a more gung-ho playstyle than you’d expect of the genre.Ĭombine this with the ability to grind through the levels, craft and upgrade high-defence armour and augment yourself with other useful implants and there’s plenty you can do to mitigate the challenge of The Surge 2’s levels. Prioritising slower charged attacks further increased my charge rate. I opted for weapons with a 100% bonus to charge rate paired with a couple of different healing implants. Attacking enemies builds up battery charges that can be spent on your healing implants. Even fire from a safe distance with your drone. You’ve no shortage of ways to get an advantage over your enemies and avoid damage. It’s overly gratuitous, sure, but they never get old.įor a Souls-like, The Surge 2 makes you feel pretty powerful. ![]() This returns, but now with a selection of glorious slow-mo dismemberment animations to sweeten the deal. One of The Surge’s defining mechanics was the ability to focus on certain armoured body parts and chop them off when you’d dealt enough damage to them, recovering that armour part. The finishers are the real icing on the cake this time around. It’s still faster than its Souls inspiration, perhaps even more so in this installment. It strikes a nice balance between weightiness and responsiveness, with hits feeling satisfying. The combat feels like a successful evolution from The Surge. This is one of those games you do not want to shelve halfway through and try to pick up again a year later. They’re devoid of any detail and completely useless for working out how to get to where you need to go. But not within your menu – you can only access it by squinting at posters mounted on walls across the city. The problem with this elaborate level design, however, is that The Surge 2 stubbornly rejects maps. It’s genius, and a little witchcraft-like, how such an intricate urban labyrinth has been constructed. By the time you’ve unlocked them all, some medbays can potentially link to as many as seven or more paths. It goes all-in on that signature Souls-like level design that is full of secrets to uncover and winds around itself, with a host of doors, elevators and even zip lines that can be opened up as a shortcut back to a medbay safe zone. Some parts are a soulless concrete jungle, and others are a tad too brown, but these are interspersed with cyberpunk neon, cultish adornment from the bizarre nanite-worshipping religions, and some beautiful post-apocalypse porn of crumbling buildings. It looks good in places but doesn’t feel like a living, breathing world – even taking into account the fact that it’s post-apocalypse. Rather, much of your time will be spent navigating back alleys, facility corridors, barricaded streets and underground passages.Īs a setting, the city is a mixed bag. That said, it’s not exactly a sprawling open-world metropolis. This setting is quite a contrast from the somewhat claustrophobic and samey factory of the first game. An outbreak of a nanite virus has led to a quarantine of Jericho City. ![]() Outside of the prison, things still aren’t too good. Going from bad to a little better but still pretty bad, a mysterious machine creature raids the prison, allowing you to make your escape. Going from bad to worse, they’re in a prison. The protagonist – this time, a customisable one of your choosing – wakes up in a medical ward, their last waking memory being of a plane crash. The Surge 2, much like its predecessor, is a hodgepodge of influences and ideas, from Dark Souls and The Division to Borderlands.
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