Parasite Eve 2

Pros • The graphics are excellently done, and playing for the visual tour alone is almost worth it • The story line is an excellent continuation from the first game and a solid component of the play experience • PE2 is genuinely creepy, okay, I may be a wuss, but it is	Cons • The combat system needs some help - player movement during tense moments is far too clumsy • Though not a problem unique to PE2, the puzzles fall into the random and lame category of "search the entire level for a key," etc. etc.
Bottom Line Cute gun-toting chick goes up against a host of inhuman creepies in a beautiful game hampered somewhat by a few clumsy play elements. Parasite Eve II picks up the story shortly after the first Parasite Eve left off, and once again, NY cop Aya Brea pits her wits, her abilities as a pistolero and some odd powers against a world rife with mitochondria-induced monstrosities. With beautiful graphics and an engaging storyline, PE2 will suck in fans of the first game and Resident Evil freaks, but PE2 suffers from similar gameplay problems as others in this genre, which will chip away at the fun-factor for less than fanatical players.

It's fortunate for testeronically charged gamers that whenever some sort of alien or monstrous trouble breaks out, the best man for the job (in games) is a woman, and usually a young, curvaceous woman in short-shorts. If you want a real horror game, imagine that Parasite Eve II stars a real NY cop, pot-bellied, sarcastic, and with a bit of donut jelly smeared on the upper lip. But we're not tough enough for that level of scare, so Square has wisely returned Aya Brea to us, the nubile and gun-toting former-NYPD babe from the original Parasite Eve.

Parasite Eve II picks up the story shortly after the first game left off. Aya has joined an organization known as M.I.S.T. a.k.a. the Mitochondrion Investigation and Suppression Team (anyone wonder if the MIST name was inspired by Stephen King's brilliant short story of similar title?). Aya treks to Los Angeles to investigate incidents of neo-mitochondrion monster induced mayhem, and along the way also learns about the mitochondria infecting her own body, what it can do for her, and to her. PE2 is more focused on the action elements of the game than the RPG, unlike the first title, but remains a positive evolution of the franchise.

Folks, this game is as beautiful as we've come to expect from Square's titles. The graphics, characters and especially cinematic cut scenes (which play an integral part in story-progression) are colorful and deep and just damn pretty. In a game that's about monsters jumping out at you (and like any good horror experience, they do jump out), the visual experience is critical. Square has definitely delivered the eye-candy. In addition, the audio on PE2 is very complimentary, furthering your immersion into the game-world and heightening the tension. All of this tells a story that kept me genuinely wanting to know what would happen next, or, more accurately, what hideous thing would happen to me next.

Unfortunately, PE2 suffers from some gameplay issues that were just as effective at yanking me rudely out of the experience as the aforementioned were at immersing me. Some of these problems are endemic to several releases in this genre of late, but nobody I know likes the way these things are being handled, so let's hope they are changed in the next generation of survival horror titles.

Problem number one: stupid puzzles. I could call them "random" puzzles, but "stupid" is more appropriate, since reviewers and fans have been dinging this kind of puzzle-construction for a couple years now. What am I referring to? I'm talking about the "search an entire level to find the key/thing-a-ma-bob," and I mean the entire level. Activities like this quickly become boring and work; finding a needle in the haystack hasn't been fun since the dark ages, so I don't know why games keep hitting us with this sort of hunting and pecking. To be sure, PE2 isn't the only game that forces us to slog around like this - genre leader Resident Evil is notorious for this. That being said, we're talking about PE2 here, and they could have done better than this.

Problem number two is the character movement/combat system - again, borrowing annoyance from Resident Evil, the character movement is clumsy (unless Aya has been downing tequila at an alarming rate, she shouldn't be bouncing off so many friggin' walls), and the combat is equally non-adept. PE2 makes an effort to address this by giving Aya an auto-targeting ability - but it doesn't solve the problem by half. Other improvements were made over the original game and the special mitochondrion attacks are easier to execute, but it's still a sub-par system. There are many other games that have cracked this cipher, and PE2 should have as well.

Ultimately, Parasite Eve II is a tough game to score; it had the potential to be a really great game. If you are a survival horror fan, then I would recommend this game to you despite the mechanic hiccups. I'm a survival horror fan, in a big, possibly unhealthy way, and the good was enough to outweigh the grief for me. I'm not sure, however, if the negatives might be more impactful for someone who isn't quite so fanatical.

Info & Screenshots