SHENMUE 2 REVIEW (XBOX)

Adam Hall

Publisher: SEGA | Developer: SEGA | ETA: Out Now | Price: £39.99 Inc VAT.

I’ve always been aware of the first Shenmue title, but due to a lack of time/money/effort, I never felt obliged to play it despite its apparent depth and amazement being shot into my face at least four times a day! I always thought I had better things to do, but now I’ve got the sequel in my Xbox, I’ve realised what a horrible, horrible person I’ve been!
The quest for the deepest, most involving game has been an adventure often proposed by gamers worldwide and although we have things like GTA, it still doesn’t conform to our idea of a totally free roaming game because the basic notion of it is to kill and destroy. Although Shenmue 2 doesn’t quite fill out this expectation either, it’s the closest thing yet and believe me, it’s nothing short of stunning.

Gameplay
Shenmue 2 is a lot like CS in absolutely no aspects whatsoever except the fact that you have to prepare yourself good and proper before you get onto playing the main game. By this I mean, S2 is probably the most progressive game I’ve ever played and although it makes for a nice long adventure, it isn’t for the restless by all means. This game relies purely on dedication if you have any intention of getting even half way through, but once you’re there, you’ll realise what a fantastic game this is.

Shenmue (and 2) is a story of revenge. One day, a long time ago, you return home to find your Dad battling a stranger in a red robe. He brutalises him to death and leaves with a precious artefact know as The Dragon Mirror. After you recover from the shock of seeing your Dad have a mysterious mans foot installed in his arse, you swear to avenge his death and go on a magical, mystical and spiritual journey complete with clenched fists branded with rage!
The fact that I managed to get the fundamentals of the storyline into 4 lines of text would imply that this game has little to no substance, but Sega have taken the ‘scraping at the bottom of the barrel’ phrase to previously inconceivable levels and made a phenomenally large game out of, what would appear to be, very little essence indeed! Also, if you feel a bit left out in terms of story, S2 comes packaged with a DVD filled with a movie that tells you all you need to know. How’s that for convenience?!

Fortunately, the length and depth of the game doesn’t get too monotonous. Shenmue2 is bulging to the brim with features; you can touch, hold, and use practically anything you see. Ranging from getting a can of drink to arm wrestling the locals, this game strives to achieve unparalleled levels of freedom.
It’s not all a walk in the park though, Shenmue2 comes bundled with its fair share of problems and although they’re not that destructive or compromising, they do result in the failure of some tasks and the odd swearword emanating from your mouth every hour or so.
One of the most annoying, yet infinitesimal, problems that S2 flaunts is the lack of running direction whenever you move the camera round. I’ve always found such a feature excessively useful because you don’t have too little sensitivity resulting in you using a wall to shimmy your way around a right-angled corner, but not too much in that you run into everyone and everything at the slight touch of the control stick. It’s a nice balance, complete control. Definitely a missed opportunity if I’ve ever seen one!

Talking of missing things, or not in this case, the NPCs of S2 are somewhat of a disappointment. They’re the only things that really bring you back to reality and remind you that you’re only playing a game. Some tasks within the game see you following people around and along their journey of guidance, they collide with just about every object possible (slight exaggeration). I admit, the game’s not the newest of titles, but such a problem threatens continuity with realism with the rest of the game.

Another minor flaw in S2 is I couldn’t help but feel elements of repetition coming through. “Repetition?” you say, “In a game that practically re-invents diversity?” Well, yeah, I never seemed to climb out of the idea that all I was doing was ‘fight, get some money, walk around a bit, follow someone’. In addition to that, everything seemed annoyingly disjointed but maybe that’s a problem that clears itself up towards the latter parts of the game, it’s pretty big ya’know!

Posted by LNorton at February 18, 2004 08:08 AM