MechCommander2 Review

Itâs taken a little while to get here, but finally one of the greatest action/adventure games from last year makes its bow on the PS2.

MDK2 is the sequel to Shinyâs 1996 sleeper hit MDK. Surprisingly Dave Perry and his talented team didnât handle the sequel, instead it was farmed out to Baldurâs Gate creators, Bioware. Thankfully the guys at Bioware produced a more then worthy title, being acclaimed as the best action game on Dreamcast last year.

Fast forward a year and the team have brought it across to the Playstation2, complete with a fresh lick of paint and a name change.

MDK2 follows three unlikely heroes in their space adventure against the evil Shwang. The team is headed by the clumsy crackpot Dr. Hawkins, the inventor of such items as the Atomic Toaster and inflatable dummy; his pet Max, a badass canine equipped with an uzi for each of his four arms; and hero/janitor Kurt equipped with the Doctors coil suit and armed with sniper and chain-guns.

As seen recently in Sonic Adventure 2, each character opens up the scope for differently styled gameplay. The doctorâs levels take on more of a puzzle-solving approach, whilst Kurtâs rely on stealth and Maxâs are all out action affairs. The balance works perfectly, and is integrated flawlessly.

Gameplay really shines out on this title, itâs fun, thereâs always something new and challenging to do. Many complained about the difficulty level, however I found it refreshing to face a challenge rather then see how quickly it can be completed. The game rewards practise and with a little perseverance it wonât be long before youâre past a seemingly impossible task. To remedy this Bioware have included four different levels, however I urge people to stick away from the easier levels, itâs a tough game but rewarding.

What really impressed everyone last year was how great MDK2 looked, levels were wide open expansive affairs and packed full of enemies without slowdown, textures were crisp and packed full of detail, lighting effects were beautiful, Bioware really had pushed the DC and it showed, here was a showcase for the machineâs power if ever there was one.

Unfortunately the port hasnât survived intact on the graphics front. During the development Bioware had announced that they had actually run out of texture memory when re-creating the more elaborate levels, to get around this the detailed textures in the DC version have been simplified leaving a bland affair compared to the vibrancy of the DCâs levels.

The graphics also suffer from the infamous âjaggeysâ, the comparison with the DC version is painful at times.

However, overall the game still looks great and should impress with the relative dearth of nice looking PS2 titles, one area that Bioware have improved over the DC version is with some very nice particle effects, explosions, blood splattering and gun shells, they all look amazing.

Presentation really canât be faulted; the humour throughout is actually funny, hilarious at points, the story line involving and the sound is superb, voice dialogue is some of the best Iâve heard in a game, whilst the aliens trademark farts never grate and machine gun fire sounds authentic.

Comments
MDK2 is a great purchase for PS2 owners, ok so itâs probably not the best game to whip out to impress Dreamcast owners, but because the game was so good in the first place it doesnât really matter. Pick it up and be ready to immerge yourself in a fun filled, action packed adventure, that you wonât want to finish in a hurry and thankfully you wonât. 

Chris Leyton

       
»
back to top