Obvious flaws drag State of Emergency 2 from being fun.
The Review
--------------------------
DC Games seems to have completely taken the original State of Emergency, tear it apart, kick it around a few times, dump a bunch of junk all over it, and then added some Third Person Shooter elements that makes this game all too easy and end far too quickly.
SoE2 is set a decade after the original SoE .You start off as Roy "Mac" Macneil, who used to be a member of Freedom, an anti-corporation rebellion, sadly, The Corporation has captured Mac and put him on Death Row.
The game would not be fun if it had killed off the main character, so one of your buddies hides a machine gun in the execution chamber. Mac discovers it and BOOM, loads of gun toting action commence and blood flying everywhere. You will be wowed during the first part of the game. Seeing some of the neat explosions and bullets wiz pass by give some excitement.
Then you're set free, somehow, the game ain't exciting anymore. You're stuck in the prison looking to find your ally while having to go through a plethra of soldiers. See this is the problem, there are tons of soldiers on screen and the stupid crosshair can't even aim correctly so you're force to stand still, slowly jiggle that right analog stick until you get that lead write through those coporate scum.
As you can see, that makes the title, not fun at all. What's good about this game is that it certainly varies in gameplay. Spanky's missions for instance have you in charge of a gan to take down some corporates and blow up stuff. It adds squad based elements in your game but c'mon, tons of other games have alread done it. Hey DC, how about thinking outside of the box?
The fact there is even a story has certainly dumbfounded me. After Mac escapes the prison, the story degenerates into into a big confusing story of government mind control, wacky conspiracies, and the awful...plain awful, voice acting. Should I mention Spanky who sounds like a latino gangster who just came out of Sesame Street?
Probably not, but taking a cue from 007: Everything or Nothing or the levels where Libra must rappel up and down a building. See this is what really bugs me. The rappel levels are more like a game of Whack A' Mole. Your enemies are knowned to pop out of windows in front and behind you, forcing you to twist and turn and start shooting at them. Should I also mention that if you don't watch your back, your life is most likely to end in about a few bullets in SoE2? Hmm no, that would make you even more angry.
It's nice of DC to add some vehicles in the game, but each vehicle has some of the worst handling and controls ever seen on a console. You can't even use them in multiplayer.
What SoE2 also lacks is the chaos. State of Emergency 1 had 150-200 people on screen with no frame rate hiccups. This game, well, there are only people panicing if a nearby gunfight is being commenced. Nice of them to cheer you on though. In fact, there's a lot of running around an open ended area that covers up most of the action.
The action is also too quick. You're most likely to beat this game in 5-6 hours. So soon, you'll be heading for the multiplayer. Which is the only fun you will have. (also compatible with multi-tap) It's got 5 of the most basic multiplayer modes out there and what's the point of it, if you can't go online?
Nice try DC, but next time, let Rockstar handle their games and you focus on yours. State of Emergency 2 scores a poor 4.5.