Review - Shellshock 2: Blood Trails (PC)

Shellshock 2: Blood Trails is a first person shooter set in the middle of the Vietnam War.  You play a private on the search for your missing brother, Cal, who was the sole survivor from his squad who were deployed on Operation WhiteKnight.  Shellshock 2 attempts to incorporate a zombie outbreak with your typical war shooter.  It's a unique concept, as you'll not only have to fight against enemy soldiers but also the infected.  The story actually starts off interestingly enough, but that's mostly because WhiteKnight is shrouded in mystery.  You begin with very little background information, and the game fills you in with visions through your brother's eyes.  The story takes a dive though once you get towards the middle, and just ends up being ridiculous by the end of the game.

Gameplay

The shooting mechanics in the game are adequate at best.  The issue is that though everything works as it should, you don't ever enjoy the shooting in the game, which is a significant issue in a FPS, key word here is SHOOTER.  The controls feel sluggish, from just navigating around to going through the many shooting galleries.  I can understand in a horror-esque shooter, you'd want people to explore areas slowly and more tactically, but that's no excuse for controls that don't feel as responsive as they should.  The camera bobs wildly while you run and it's extremely nauseating, forcing me to walk throughout the game, which just artificially made the game longer than it actually is.

The game also incorporates quick time events into a number of areas, such as when you get ambushed by an enemy at melee range, or when you have to avoid a trap.  They come off as gimmicky and like most other aspects of the game, not enjoyable.  The enemy AI typically just stands there and shoots at you, or runs towards you while shooting at you.  They don't really bother to try to evade incoming fire, or find good vantage points, or advance in an intelligent manner.  Basically, they don't really behave like humans.  The enemy soldier AI behaves more or less like the zombie AI.  That's a problem.  Perhaps part of the reason why I didn't enjoy the shooting is because the shooting aspects weren't really challenging at all.  The enemy doesn't pressure you enough so combat ends up feeling like you might as well be shooting against practice dummies.

Atmosphere

This is the only part of the game where I actually felt Shellshock 2 was decent.  The game is a bit hit or miss when it comes to setting the tone and mood.  You'll see some pretty disturbing corpses laid about as you work your way through the various levels.  The majority of the game takes place at night, and you'll have to make use of your flashlight to keep areas lit.  Wandering through tight narrow tunnels with only the light from your flashlight, while hearing a creepy sound effect as a shadow runs by your screen was definitely tense.  A lot of other games do this better, but I do have to say there were a few moments in the game where I started to get freaked out.  I never actually got scared though, and that's because Shellshock 2 misses the mark a lot of times when it tries to set a tense mood.  The stars seem to align a few times though throughout the campaign, so in my playthrough, it's the only thing that stands out as remotely memorable.

Technical Issues

This was one of the most frustrating games I've ever tried to get running on my rig.  Before even being able to play the game, it kept returning with an error message stating that I was missing a dll file.  After reinstalling twice, I discovered I needed to download OpenALInstaller just to run the game.  Once I got the game up and running though, the issues didn't stop there.  The game is extremely finicky; it only allows me to run in fullscreen mode, but yet doesn't set borders so while in fullscreen, the game allows me to click outside the screen onto my second monitor.  This wouldn't be quite so bad if not for the fact that the game apparently does not want to play nice while alt-tabbing, and any time you leave the game window, it hangs and ultimately crashes.  I've had to manually force the game to close no less than 6 times, in addition to 2 random game crashes and a complete system crash in the 6 or so hours I played the game.  If it weren't for this review, I honestly wouldn't have bothered after the first hour.

Overview

I'd like to think I have a fairly high threshold for mediocrity, but there's really not much good to say about this game other than the occasional tense moments.  The game is actually fairly short as well, since even with all the technical issues I had with the game, I finished a playthrough in 6 hours.  After you beat the game, there's really no point of playing it again, as there's no co-op or multiplayer.  In fact, the entire experience was so lackluster that it's probably not even worth playing the first time through.  The game is simply not enjoyable.  It's not unplayable, but you won't have fun while playing it either.  There are so many other better first person shooters out there that playing this game is frankly a waste of time for anybody with a backlog.

Final Score:
4/10 (3/10 if including technical issues)