Vectorman 2

"A sequel with way too many bugs..."

Vectorman was one of the slickest platformers to hit Sega's 16 bit Genesis, with large and intricate shoot-em-up levels, mixed seamlessly with the occasional mini-boss which tended to focus more on observing and timing than simply blasting away. In 1996, when the Genesis was drawing it's last breaths as the 32 era drew nigh, it saw a sequel which used much of the same game play aspects as it's predecessor, but with some new features: Vectorman had new weapons upgrades, tons of new forms to transform into, and a plethora of new, insectoid enemies to immolate. At first glance, the sequel seems only to improve upon the already well-done aspects of the original. So why such a shabby score? Well, there seem to be as many new negative aspects in this game as there are positive.

First off, I didn't find the new level design very pleasing at all. The first 3 or so levels are set in a swamp which has a thick canopy above it, which you must eventually clamber your way out of. All this takes place at night. The problem: you can hardly see a thing on screen the whole time. Even when I turned up my TV's brightness to absurd levels, I was still only to make out much of what was in front of me during the brief blasts of light given off by my beam cannon thing. Maybe that was one of the intentions they had when they chose a color scheme comprised mainly of black and dark green, but it seems an especially bad way to start off a game that brags so much about it's revolutionary graphics.

The design flaws aren't all simply cosmetic, though. The stages are not as straightforward as in the original Vectorman, in fact a good deal of the time they can get downright labyrinthine. Your path is often obscured by (admittedly well-rendered) objects which appear both in the foreground and the background. (Such as trees and crags.) Discerning between objects that actually block your path and ones that are simply there for show is often difficult, if not impossible. The result is that the levels often cross the line from being intricate to being just downright convoluted.

I didn't like the enemies in this game much, either. Rather than battling renegade robots as in the first game, you are pitted against mutant insects which have overrun earth. Enemies and hazards in this game are often illogically placed; you find yourself making numerous blind jumps off of cliffs in hopes of not landing in a pool of lava, or finding yourself situated between two giant bugs, or even some especially unpleasant combination of the two. In fact, you'll often find yourself fending off several types of insects at a time. While this does make the combat in this game a bit more engaging than last time, it can wind up being more irritating than anything. Especially when some cheap combination of projectile attacks knocks you off a ledge and back to some difficult to navigate section of a poorly lit stage. Also, the total lack of technology is sort of unfitting for a game starring a super intelligent cyborg. Not that every level has to be some Ghost in the Shell-esque superstructure, but how did the insects manage to reduce all of earth to nothing but swamps and volcanoes since Vectorman's bout with Warhead?

As with last time, the standard shooting stages are occasionally interrupted by short mini-quests, such as rocketing your way down a bug-infested tunnel or blasting away at rocks to clear a path in a Dig-Dug style minigame. The problem with these stages is that they're awfully repetitive after only a short while, and to make things worse the same few mini stages are repeated and revisited several times by the game's end. (Sometimes with only a single real stage between them!) The drab design of the minigames in addition to the frequent repetition of them just makes it all the more effort to plod through to the bitter end of Vectorman 2.

All in all, Vectorman is a pretty big disappointment for those who (like myself) were fans of the original. Even though it didn't get much notice, having been released right as the Genesis was on it's way to the big discount bin in the sky, it's probably just as well. Had more people played it, there'd probably be just that many more fans disappointed by the game's convoluted level designs, illogical traps, repetitive minigames, and lackluster enemy designs. Play Vectorman 2 only if you've played Vectorman 1 and Gunstar Heroes to death already.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/08/04