It is very difficult to be truly objective about anything, especially if there is any amount of anticipation involved. It doesn’t matter if a person is a professional reviewer, writes a few on the side, or is just some Joe buying Madden for the tenth time; if someone is looking forward to something, odds are they will like it. Not because it is actually any good, just because they want to like it and will overlook anything negative to get there. It becomes self fulfilling. Such it is for Assault Heroes 2. I loved the first one, love the genre and every game that has come out in it, and was looking forward to it since it was first announced months ago. It should come as no surprise that I enjoyed it, but in the cynical recesses of my jaded gamer brain I know that the game is nowhere near as good as the first. Somehow, despite additional weapons, length, levels and vehicles there is actually less of a game.
The denial took a little while to settle in. For the first 30 minutes, Assault Heroes 2 was torture. The first game had a very smooth difficulty curve, usually killing me off right before the end of the game, like any good shooter should. The entire first level of Assault Heroes 2 was filled with death and profanity, followed by more frustrating death and louder, more offensive profanity. The biggest offender here is the position of the camera: it has been zoomed out significantly from the first game. So far, in fact, that many of the units are just too small to see. The tiny infantry bastards routinely hide behind rocks or trees waiting for the camera to move forward, then fire at the player from off screen in a blatant affront to video game bad guy etiquette. The camera never moves backwards, either, so they are free to pester the player in relative safety for minutes at a time.
None of the other additions do the game any favors, either. The one new weapon is just like a weapon that was useless in first game. Big surprise: it’s useless here as well. There are a few new vehicles to try as well, and it is a noble effort, but when I wasn’t killed getting out of my jeep-on-steroids, I was getting killed because the new vehicles universally sucked. Everything new in the game is bad. All that is left is what worked in the first game, just smaller and 3 times as long.
To my own surprise, however, just after the first level something clicked. I stopped dying, stopped yelling at the TV and started enjoying myself. The game certainly hadn’t changed; it didn’t miraculously get better between areas. Because I wanted to like the game so much I had unconsciously made concessions to get there. I had moved my chair closer to the TV just to see what I needed to shoot. I avoided all the ‘improvements’ from the prequel, opting instead to play the first game in new levels with my nose nearly resting on the screen. You could build a circus with all the mental hoops I jumped through to like the game. There was no hype but my own to live up to. Imagine if it would have had a multi-million dollar ad campaign behind it.
There are already too many dual analog shooters out for XBLA and PSN, and this one sits near the bottom if the pile. It takes a lot for me to admit that, mostly because I have purchased and played them all (yes, even the sequel to Mutant Storm). Assault Heroes 2 took what was good and buried it under needless additions, losing the simplicity that worked in the first game. Remember Smash TV? You moved, you shot things. How do you screw that up?
