Trepang2 Review

I have been a fan of games like FEAR, Extraction Point and even it's more derided sequels 2 and 3 for a while now, the first game and Extraction Point are two titles I love coming back to. In fact, FEAR 1 is one of my most replayed games of all time due to how much it gets right with it's combat. Unfortunately, the series has been dead and dromant for some time and even if the series were to somehow come back, they'd probably remake the games or reboot the series but they haven't done either of those at least not yet.  

Enter Trepang2, a game that very much wants to be a spirtual indie game to the FEAR series, considering the amount of indie games revisiting ideas old games have done in the past and the amount of shooters that have been inspired by what Doom and Quake have done, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before FEAR would get it's turn in the spot light. 

I played the game mostly on the Hard difficulty, when the game was the most like FEAR where you are fighting soldiers and infantry, when the game would have you not do that, I lowered it to Easy or Normal to get past those parts faster. 

Introductions out of the way, how does Trepang2 fare? I'd say it most fares really well and is mostly a great time, it has some weird quirks about it here and there but let's start with the good. 

The good is that everything the FEAR series especially 1 and Extraction Point do well are done well here. The amazing game feel, polish and good weapons are all done well here, if the devs wanted to nail that aspect of FEAR's gameplay, then they mostly succeeded. 

Weapons tear apart enemies with ease especially when using the slo mo up close and it creates the power fantasy of being an action movie protagonist really well. 

It has the slo mo and the weapons feel down but if the game only does those two things, why don't I simpily just play FEAR instead? Well, Trepang2 has a number of things both good and bad that makes it a different enough game from FEAR. 

Let's start off with the mechanics or just the sheer number of abilities that the player can do in Trepang2, you can do slo mo, melee attacks and throwable weapons of course, but you also get the ability to cloak like in the Crysis games, human shield like in the Dead to Right series and some Volition titles like Saints Row and the Punisher, you can throw the human shield with a grenade like in later Gears of War games as well as sliding like in Vanquish, and the ability to dual wield like in Halo 2 and 3 and Timesplitters. 

Sure all of these said mechanics and moves have all been done individually in other games, but I have never played a hitscan shooter especially where all these mechanics are avaliable to use at once. It's why I played the game on Hard mode at all since I want to be pushed into using all of these moves at least once or twice in every battle and the game on Hard does indeed make me do that.

There is something really great about a game that constantly make me do momennt to moment decesions when playing. For example, when you are fighting out in the open you can do the FEAR tactics of mowing down 2-3 enemies while in slo mo, throwing a grenade then maybe doing a melee attack on an enemy. 

You can also slide into enemies with shields and kill them while they are down, use the cloaking and stealth mechanics, to relocate yourself and either throw a grenade, kill enemies in slo mo or my favorite grab them as a hostage and then use slo mo to get some kills. The stamina meter also means you won't constantly be sprinting and then spamming the slide button to constantly get enemies flying. 

You can also use slo mo and cloaking at the same time to grab enemies while in front and then try to get kills when grabbed to build your slo mo meter up or you can throw them while their grenade is activated and you can get a kill or two. 

As far as a hitscan shooter with mechanical depth is concerned, this is one of if not the best title you can find right now. 

The level design also does a good job at keeping up the FEAR tradition of having large wide open arena fights with locations also being "realistic". They are large and open for the the player to flank, and the enemies to move around and get the drop on the player too. 

The game's campaign also mostly checkpoints really well to the point where the reason why I was able to do Hard mode was because I didn't have to repeat lots of content. 

Another positive is the health system, and this might be an improvement over FEAR's. Health packs are littered everywhere and instead of storing health, they are items you pick up during battle and enemies can drop either that or armor when killed making the player more proactive during fights instead of just checking if the player has medkits left and activating a button when on a killing spree and low on health, I do like FEAR's system, but I do think Trepang2's keeps you in the action more since you aren't looking down at your health bar as much on a first time through. 

I also like how late game, the game pulls a Call of Duty Advanced Warfare with the player loseing one of his hands and as a result you have to deal with high recoil when firing guns while also losing access to moves like throwables and human shield, its a nice change up to the game and is one of the more positive examples of Trepang2 throwing something new in it's campaign. 

That now lets me transition to the negative aspects of the game. While the game is very good, there are a number of negatives that hamper the experience, the biggest being the first half of the campaign. 

While the 2nd half is great and generally has the humannoid solider fighting, the first half is rather questionable. The Pandora Insitute is mostly a good level but then the game shoves in the player fighting acid zombies and a humannoid bat. 

Considering Trepang2 and by extension FEAR is at it's best with the humanoid solider fighting, why would I want to fight enemies where over half my moveset and options are reduced? I like Trepang2 for it's wide open arenas, and fighting enemies who are smart enough to make me use all my avaliable mechanics, these enemies belong in a completely different game. The humanoid bat also just seems out of place in a game that I am playing for the over top "gun fu" mechanics. 

Jorvik Castle is better but it also has questionable enemies like suicide bombers and for a game inspired by FEAR, why would you have enemies not focused on self preservations, it's like having the headless kamikazes from Serious Sam in FEAR, they belong in SS because the latter is about shooting hundreds of enemies sprinting at you while showing no concern for themselves, in FEAR, what made the AI in that game stand out is how enemies are constantly retreating and flanking you, so having this enemy in a game styled after FEAR is rather questionable. 

Fighting a big monster where you just slide away and your enemy being the level geometry was also a low point of the game since it feels like a different game, then "killing enemies to build up slo mo bar or getting the drop on enemies". 

What's even stranger is that neither of the two quirky design choices appear in the latter half of the campaign so it was like the devs were getting experimental just for them to realize it was all a waste of time and resources. 

It also makes me realize that FEAR was truly a one of a kid game where Monolith Productions were so confident in their combat mechanics that they made the player do it for 7 hours instead of adding in different enemies and attempts at situational depth that could've ruined the game. 

The bosses are also not very good but that is to be espected, the final boss is basically a Marauder battle from Doom Eternal with a Terminator and Predator lovechild, this one was okay but nothing special, but the boss fight with the brain was pretty bad since it does the boss battle sin of having the wave of enemies being the threatning aspect instead of the boss himself. 

Dual wielding two sub machine guns have super high recoil, the weapons in the game outside of the shotgun do in general, but with the smgs it was ammo draining and the recoil made it hard to aim. I got eventually got used to the recoil but not for dual wielding smgs. 

Final issue is that the game can have it's buggy moments, for example, I saw an enemy corpse heavily clipping through the floor, I also clipped through the world during one level, I also had the game crash on me too all though it only happened once. 

Overall, if you like games like FEAR and Max Payne and are missing a highly polished adventure in the style of them, then look no furthur than Trepang2, however the game does have it's strange quirks about it about that prevent it from consistently great, minus the questionable first half of the game, there is some great shooting and mechanical depth to be found. 

Bladerkisser Review:

This DLC while not terrible is just incredibly disappointing. I feel like I'm soft on this because I like Trepang2's base game and combat mechanics a lot more than because this DLC provided substantial content. Compared to Warhammer 40K Boltgun's Forces of Corruption DLC which added 3 hours of gameplay for about $10, Bladekisser only provides slightly over an hour and a half worth of content and slightly maybe longer depending on what difficulty you play on.

The best way of describing Bladekisser that's basically an add on pack with 2 new levels and some new weapons.

New levels are kind of a mixed bag, for one there is no overarching plot with them and it's basically just standalone episodic stories. TF63 is kind of on the forgettable side providing the same amount of gameplay that you would find in the base game. Omega Facility fares better since you have an okay submarine boss and the level design is more creative with different parts of the facility you will fight enemies on, there is one standout section towards the end where you fight enemies with the same moves as the player, but these encounters are over pretty quickly and its at the very end of the level. The submarine boss is more tolerable than the bosses in the main game since it autosaves on every phase and it has enemies waves to break up the monotony of shooting the sub while running away from missiles. There is a super strange first person platforming section while jumping on the debris of the submarine you defeat, you can't get a game over here which is good since it would make this section a weird addition otherwise.

The new weapons aren't particularly that interesting either, I do admittedly like the sword since along with the invisiblity cloak kind of gives the player a ninja like power fantasy of sneaking up and surprising enemies up close with an upclose slice. I do like how you can use hostages while using the sword too which gives the weapon more use. The revolver was borderline useless since trying to fire with it for more than 2 consecutive shots mean the player character would rapid fire like in a cowboy movie which means ammo will be chewed through and the ammo pool this weapon has is pretty small to begin with on top of the weapon being super inaccuarate. The rest of the weapons I'm not sure if exclusive to this DLC or were in the main game since none of them made much of an impression on me.

Overall, this DLC I expected more out of since Forces of Corruption came out in the same month and released at the same price. I did at the very least enjoy what was here considering I like Trepang2 but I really do wish there was more on offer, maybe more is coming but I wanted this to be to Trepang2 what FEAR Extraction Point was to the base FEAR game.