I'm kinda going back and forth with myself on the story. I like that it's fairly broad, but I think the variety of characters and viewpoints, even the gang, kind of undercut the theme I enjoy a little bit. At least, what I liked about the story of the first game was that the violence, the weirdness, your character, the questionable reality you're in, it all kind of came together to explain how an average guy goes ape shit and kills like someone possessed.
In this, it's kinda, ya know, that's how people fight and no one seems to think much of it. Everyone is beast, even a journalist. The cop investigating all this stuff gets doors shut in his face, and then goes to a major crime scene and wastes like 100 people. For...reasons?
It starts feeling a little disconnected, and even the gang, as odd as they are, feels pretty far away from how the first game handled itself. (Until this game starts just inserting WEIRD into otherwise normal moments.) Again, compared to the first game where I sorta felt like I/my character was being taken for a ride. Here I feel like a distant observer (and all the VHS-tape visual effects and stuff are meant to reinforce that.) It's not bad but it feels a bit less cohesive than the last game...as cohesive as a game like this is gonna get.
I dunno. I'm on like scene 13 so I shouldn't prejudge. But after 5 screens of murdering people on a boat where I have literally no idea why I'm there, I want some sort of payoff from the story and occasionally I feel like I'm not getting that.
I think this would make a pretty good acid-trip movie, but when half of your characters look like the same ugly-ass mofo and there's no voices to distinguish them, just the tone of their dialog, and you have this many people and this many interludes that don't amount to much, and then you gotta cram an obligatory murder-level in there.....it's a bit much for a pixel game to try to pull off. I'm trying to pay attention and look for those subtle cues and clues in each scene like the first game had but I dunno. Somehow it feels like the story is trying to be more complicated or broad and is less tightly constructed and executed as result. Not surprising I guess when you think about it. Maybe that's the trade off you get for going all Quentin Tarantino with your timeline.
I have to say I fucking despise the segments playing as the swans, it seems as though they didn't put enough thought into making them and swan 2 gets stuck on every fucking piece of furniture in every fucking level.
First mission with them, Swan #2 would get locked out of the level by the front door about 50% of my attempts. I ended up just finishing it with Swan 1 and the chainsaw. When it works it's kinda cool, but it's too finicky for my tastes.
Ermahgerd,
dig this song.