The most memorable action games I’ve played are Max Payne 3 in 2012 and FEAR in 2005. Trepang2 makes great use of memories of slow motion action, powerful enemy AI and diversity. Yes, it’s officially called Trepan 2.no, nothing to do with it sea cucumber with the same name. Instead, it’s a clearly action-leaning first-person stealth action shooter. There’s plenty of great running and shooting, and the story isn’t all that terrifying, but the occasional jumpscare mixes in the near-constant mayhem of battling a surprisingly clever commando and a corporate cult. Sure, it’s a little short when it comes to concentrating on its main purpose, but that means it never goes beyond what’s welcome.
You will be part of Subject 106 in Trepang2’s vigorous 6-12 hour campaign. Subject 106 is a generic super-soldier type who works for Covert Task Force 27, similarly unimaginative. After escaping from a cold Alaskan underground prison, he spends the next ten hours chasing him. The evil ruler of the Horizon Corporation. Famous for his unsuccessful attempts to create his own Super-His Soldier, even in his evil schemes, the Doctor is something of an Evil. What ensued was a series of video game and action movie cliches carried out with so much violence that I had no problem suspending disbelief, often in unhindered bliss.
I mean, except when Trepang2’s gimmicky cheap monsters hit the screen in classic jump scares fashion, before the story even started, in a sense… completely forgetting their existence and shrugging their shoulders. There are also the occasional grotesquely-pictured info entry that just brought me back to that brutal military shooter-inspired action. Let’s be clear, these monster encounters are totally fun, but it’s a shame that Trepang2 doesn’t lean more towards them.Excellent setup like a spooky homage The Backrooms Memes create a dark atmosphere to provoke fights, but don’t draw the attention of the story to more than one segment of one level at a time. Beneath Trepang2’s wave of action, it’s not a character like FEAR’s Alma Wade that maintains the steady tension of a more personal horror story. As a result, the Horizon Corporation and all its monsters feel more satirical than eerie. But there are few indications that it was done on purpose.
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At Trepang2’s best, it’s a clear homage to the gruesome, bloody shooters of the mid-to-late 2000s, but without any added melodrama to slow the tempo between battles. ah FEAR 2 or DOOM 3. Most of the time, it cleverly connects the corridors of various military installations and corporate bases with a steady supply. Boss fights are often fun but simplistic because they rely on a single gimmick. For example, Mothman can chase around maze-like structures, only damaging certain parts of his body that are most vulnerable while spewing acid. On the other hand, every nook and cranny of each level is littered with weapon customization parts and information to gradually explain what’s going on, but it didn’t turn out to be all that interesting.
That said, it’s nice to be able to comfortably ignore the story. Doom Much like his Slayer, the protagonist Subject 106 ruthlessly rips and tears apart the corporate underground, the main enemy of Trepang 2’s campaign. He acts with such enthusiasm that he quickly kills everyone he encounters, and other members of Task Force 27 often comment on how he possesses superhuman strength. It’s played ironically, but it’s no different than the impromptu commentary the UNSC soldier gave Master Chief in Halo, and a little laughter does the trick. It takes it a little more seriously than that, but still adds an over-the-top spectacle of B-movie violence throughout.
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Halfway through the first level, we’ve already introduced Subject 106’s nifty cloak and time-delaying Focus ability. Combined with a button that lets you jump into a crouching position whenever you want, these abilities give you superhuman abilities in most situations, but not to the point where I felt overwhelmed in Trepang 2 – at least not on the difficulty level. After going up a notch or two.
You will often see a great many enemies (maybe 20 or 30) on screen at once, and they will swarm relentlessly to attack you, flank you, and tell each other your location. Maintaining versatility is especially important as it appears to create cover with Basically useless in the heat of combat unless you can stay hidden. I’m not much of a stealth player and I’ve always found the cooldown timer on my cloak ability to be a bit too long for my liking, so I almost forgot about it. And I didn’t miss it. Because good level design is much more important to stealth than lazy invisible buttons. In Trepang2, you’ll often shoot lights to get through under cover of darkness, or set up traps to pass the good old glare. All this speaks for excellent open-ended combat across 6 main missions and 6 side missions. Eight highly customizable weapons gave you as much leeway as simply jumping into the action and killing everyone in sight at will.
The rhythm of combat in Trepang2 isn’t about choosing the right gun. Whether you’re dual-wielding an assault rifle or slashing through enemy forces with a single handgun, every weapon is useful in every battle. Instead, it’s all about establishing the right approach. Aside from regular enemy soldiers armed with SMGs and pistols, many of Trepang’s enemy types are shielded or armored and vulnerable only to headshots. Some are armed with long-range firearms, scurrying around the outskirts of combat, picking you off cover, or chasing you with explosives in hand. Each enemy required a different approach, and my favorite moment was when I was surrounded on all sides by a wide variety of enemies, forcing me to improvise rather than sticking to a particular weapon or tactic. It’s time.
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The run-of-the-mill arsenal may seem boring at first glance, but it worked well with a mouse and keyboard and was equally enjoyable with the handy Xbox One controller. You can dual wield pistols, SMGs, shotguns, and assault rifles by finding the hilariously titled Dual Wield Serum, which fortunately unlocks about halfway through the campaign. Dual wielding adds an extra dimension to gunplay in that any weapon can be deadly at close range, but it can be difficult to pick off enemies from a distance. Likewise, it’s a bit disappointing that he can’t use the shotgun in combination with his SMG, as the same weapon can only be dual-wielded.
But it pays off with a satisfying spectacle when you wield two shotguns or assault rifles like toys while slaughtering a mob of armored villains in slow motion. The reload animation when he dual wields his two shotguns in an extended position is laughable, and no matter how many kill shots he lands, he’s ready to go into battle with two different weapons. It feels awful to do. Adding to the Trepang2’s combat frenzy is the comfortable melee button. With it, you can take out enemies or unleash the Spartan’s kicks when you close the gap. Carnage in slow motion.
The slow-motion focus feature will most likely kill a few nasty enemies before the meter runs out. Also, flying around costs nothing, so he gets Trepang2 at his best when continuing to move while his focus meter recovers in the background. . Power sliding past ammo, health, and armor pickups, and popping up from time to time to inflict carnage on the next group of enemies you encounter feels great.
Weapons with iron sights don’t aim down by default in Trepang2, and it’s vague about the military shooting inspiration leaning more toward Counter-Strike than Call of Duty, but it’s fine without it works. ADS for unscoped weapons is accessible at limited range via a cheat code that can only be unlocked later in the campaign, but Trepang’s fluid movement and slow-motion capabilities make it easy to differentiate between enemies. It can be shortened to , effectively balancing the battle. Using crosshairs to aim, similar to classic shooters like DOOM and Halo. I’m used to it because I came straight from DOOM Eternal which uses that shooting style, but it can be disorienting for someone transitioning from a modern military shooter like COD.
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While it’s nice to have different parts available as collectibles in each mission, it’s a bit disappointing that you can’t change your loadout anywhere. Frequently, you’ll come across weapon customization crates that display a Crysis-style weapon customization menu. There you can individually customize different parts of your current weapon. For example, a pistol can be equipped with a silencer and laser sight, a shotgun can be equipped with incendiary rounds, and the stock can be folded. All addons have drawbacks explained in the text, like laser sights being more visible to enemies or unfolded stocks giving you better recoil at the cost of slower reload times, so all feels balanced and often expands the number of viable playstyles. .
There are also various projectiles such as fragmentation grenades, flash grenades, incendiary grenades, throwing knives, mines and even “rat bombs”. All of them are comfortable to use, but you can carry up to five at a time, and only one type. Each level has a generous supply of these, and it’s nice to be able to deplete your stock in bigger battles.
Trepang2’s wild action also consistently looks great. At maximum settings on the PC, he’s splattering sparks and blood in all directions at a stunning high frame rate of 2K resolution. Even when the action seems too much for my aging GeForce RTX 2080 Super to handle. Some of Trepang’s levels are drab and colorless like typical shooters from the Xbox 360 era, but the action really comes together in some of the more detailed environments. In Horizon HQ, carnage festivities are contrasted with an array of LED panels that refract waves of multicolored light across the tower’s shimmering marble floors.
Of course, I’ve seen better. Enemies can sometimes glitch, walking through piles of corpses and hearing them all limping behind me like monsters creeping up on me, and finally that’s their ragdoll’s. It can be somewhat frustrating to realize it’s a physical glitch. But these are how well my system held up in both ultrawide (expanded field of view, requiring more processing power in exchange for a wider view of the action) and regular 16:9 widescreen mode. It’s a minor dissatisfaction compared to . Even with dozens of things happening at once, it offered a nearly consistently smooth shooter experience from start to finish with very little stuttering or staggering stops.
A well-sized hub area ties everything together between missions. Here, you can customize your loadout to replenish your armor and gear, or train in an infinitely replayable combat sim, giving you a variety of environments to play and learn from. Weapon configuration in a controlled environment. There’s also extra replayability here if you want to expand Trepang2’s slim campaign with even harder challenges. However, just clear the same mission repeatedly at a higher difficulty level. This will force you to face tougher boss fights, including some that only appear at higher levels, in exchange for unlockable cheat codes and secret gags. These are fun and old-fashioned, ranging from infinite ammo to big head mode that makes shooting bad guys in the face even more silly. It’s a chaotic pleasure to look back on the campaign with cheats in different configurations.
