A squad based survival horror game?! Just that by itself should be enough to get you to play. Check out my review!

User Rating: 8.2 | Yuusei Kara no Buutai X: Episode II PS2
So you say you didn't see John Carpenter's The Thing back in the 80's? Well, thats ok because you get to play the sequel to that very movie with this squad based survival horror game. This game features a couple of twists to the normal survival horror. The first being the fact its SQUAD BASED. One of the other innovative features of the gameplay involves a paranoia factor, which relates to your squad mates. If you have seen the movie you know that as the alien life force invades the settlement the members of the science team start to turn on each other as nobody knows which one is infected or not, since the alien takes over the person and looks exactly like them. This makes for interesting situations where you could have your own squad mates turn on you in the middle of fire fights because they think you are one of them. I like this aspect of the game very much. You need to spend some time convincing your squad mates and people you meet in the game that you are trustworthy, but are they? See it's pretty cool. Now back to that little AI thing. It's just plain frustrating, when your own squad mates will run right in front of you while you are trying to fire at aliens for the 100th time. You say, "thats not unlike any other squad based game I have played." Well, that may be true but you add the paranoia factor unique to this game and when you shoot them they think you are an alien and start firing back at you. So you really have to be careful in firefights to position yourself away from your squad mates. Not always easy to do when you are also trying to avoid several aliens. The aliens in this story are not necessarily scary in and of themselves, but they manifest in different forms with different abilities and ways of defeating them. There is enough variety to keep it interesting. You get a nice variety of weapons to play with and have to utilize your easily frightened comrades to get through certain areas based on their skills. So the gameplay, while not necessarily innovative is enjoyable and not repetitive. Overall, the game's graphics are good, but not spectacular. They do create a good atmosphere in the frozen tundra of the science lab you are wandering around in. You actually feel cold sometimes as you are tromping through blizzards and the icy rooms of the science facility. The environments and level design is diverse and requires some thought to plan out your route depending on what is between you and your goal. In addition, as you go through the game you will see scenes reminiscent of the movie which is a cool bonus. BTW, if you can go rent the movie and watch it before you play this game. You will be rewarded by little references to events and characters from the movie. A sweet little extra if you ask me. So, if you like survival horror and want something a little different from the norm go check out this sci fi based action thriller. You won't be disappointed.