Dreamcast Review: Fighting Force 2 (1999)

See the crates. Feel the excitement.

I love the original Fighting Force. I hate this one. Fighting Force 2 is a perfect example of subtraction by addition: it's longer, has more of a story, has more weapons, has more keycards, and it most certainly has more destructible crates. Really, the only things removed from the original are the multiplayer option, the other three characters, and just about all the fun (or, hell, just about all the functionality). Instead, you play as mercenary Hawk Manson, sent by some agency clowns to investigate human cloning experiments being conducted by a shady Japanese corporation. You bounce around the globe trying to stop all this cloning from going on, gleaning most of this story from a few poorly animated cutscenes and a whole lot of pre-mission menu briefings. Though the original barely had cutscenes, let alone text to explain why you had to pummel some fools on an aircraft carrier, I'm not sure the extra plot in 2 was worth the effort. It's nowhere near interesting, nor is it even comprehensible, so why bother?

Playing Fighting Force 2 is alternatively curiously amusing and, way more often, incredibly frustrating. If you love crushing boxes underfoot, and if you love replenishing your health with soda, 2 may be just the thing you need. If neither of those two things appeals to you, I'd avoid this one. 2 plays a lot like the original, only with more of an arsenal. That's doubly true for your plentiful adversaries. Here's the general idea of each level: proceed through drab room after drab room, get shot immediately upon entering each room, get the keycard from somebody, probably backtrack for a long time in search of the right door, unlock that door, and do this all over again. This gets old. This is compounded by the difficulty of the later levels. One level in particular, an assassination assignment on the renovated "Alcatraz 2", nearly ended it for me. It's one of the most poorly designed levels I have ever suffered through. The levels after that aren't much better.

Screw this level.

Moreover, Fighting Force 2 has almost zero in-game music. It's an odd, uncomfortable experience gunning through the tedious halls of this game without a soundtrack, and it makes your encounters with the idiotic AI even weirder. Sometimes you can jump over their heads without them noticing, sometimes you can run around a group of goons until the moron in the middle with a gun shoots all his friends, and sometimes you cannot for the life of you get through a door without being blasted. You can bet, though, that each new room will have a keycard or three to pick up, maybe a few boxes to jump on, and you can also bet that there'll be approximately 3,000 rooms to get through before the level is over. Stay away from this one. Despite the name, it's more like a mediocre Tomb Raider than a true sequel to Fighting Force.