Death Jr. 2: Root of Evil
Pint-sized death strikes back, but is it worth a second look?
Published: January 4, 2007
The platforming genre has been something of a crooked nail to hit since the PlayStation Portable first touched down on American soil. And the flaws are common enough to be laundry-listed. If it’s not a busted camera, it’s a poor execution of controls. If it’s not controls, it’s back to the wanky game angles. And if you happen to avoid both hazards while delivering a title as sharp looking and as it is smooth playing, then you might have a product somewhere along the lines of Daxter. Platformers can work on the PSP, as Ready at Dawn’s handiwork reassured us, but in the meantime we’re forced to keep our fingers crossed that developers take note of the pitfalls and a deliver a title that gracefully surpasses them.
The game in question is Death , Jr. 2: Root of Evil, and as easily as we roped it into the platforming breed, truth is, it’s as much a timed-jumper as it is a third-person shooter. Action platformer, they call it. What’s ultimately intriguing is how the game fares in relation to the borrowed genres.
For one thing, Death, Jr. 2 makes no shrewd attempt to cover up its influences. The whole idea of integrating two- and three-move melee combat with the option of blowing your enemies sky-high with an assortment of purchasable weapons is straight-up Ratchet & Clank. A certain ending boss fight rips a page right from God of War. Heck, even the additional character dialogue that runs over the ending credits reeks of Family Guy.
Blatant imitations or no, what it all really amounts to is execution (after all, how many titles have we seen mimic the mission-guided, open-ended gameplay of GTA in the past five years?). For the most part, DJ2 makes good on its endeavors. Melee combat, while slightly hum-ho, works well enough in that almost every new combo or move-enhancer you add to your repertoire (with a trip to the mini labs stationed about each level) is useful enough to pepper into your combat routine.
Where this and woeful amounts of the level-trekking fall victim are when faced with the onslaughts of enemies in ungodly numbers that too often come swarming. It all somehow relates to the grander premise of the game (scouring a series of toy cemeteries, waffle houses serving as fronts for treacherous government experiences, and a host of additionally unrelated levels in an attempt to thwart a disgruntled cheerleader and her master plan to rule the world with plants… or something), but by the time you face the wrath of your ten millionth robotic chicken, you’ll likely question the significance of all the enemy slaughtering and your own willpower in choosing to drudge through it.
The saving grace here is the game’s shooting mechanic. Don’t count on the sparsely-occurring cutscenes to reel you back in – a lot of the fun is really had giving your arsenal of miscellaneous weapons a run for their money. Actually assembling them is a matter of piecing together hidden parts and throwing away the adequate amount of ducats to build them, but even a few weapons under your wing is sufficient enough to liven up the pace.
The game in question is Death , Jr. 2: Root of Evil, and as easily as we roped it into the platforming breed, truth is, it’s as much a timed-jumper as it is a third-person shooter. Action platformer, they call it. What’s ultimately intriguing is how the game fares in relation to the borrowed genres.
For one thing, Death, Jr. 2 makes no shrewd attempt to cover up its influences. The whole idea of integrating two- and three-move melee combat with the option of blowing your enemies sky-high with an assortment of purchasable weapons is straight-up Ratchet & Clank. A certain ending boss fight rips a page right from God of War. Heck, even the additional character dialogue that runs over the ending credits reeks of Family Guy.
Blatant imitations or no, what it all really amounts to is execution (after all, how many titles have we seen mimic the mission-guided, open-ended gameplay of GTA in the past five years?). For the most part, DJ2 makes good on its endeavors. Melee combat, while slightly hum-ho, works well enough in that almost every new combo or move-enhancer you add to your repertoire (with a trip to the mini labs stationed about each level) is useful enough to pepper into your combat routine.
Where this and woeful amounts of the level-trekking fall victim are when faced with the onslaughts of enemies in ungodly numbers that too often come swarming. It all somehow relates to the grander premise of the game (scouring a series of toy cemeteries, waffle houses serving as fronts for treacherous government experiences, and a host of additionally unrelated levels in an attempt to thwart a disgruntled cheerleader and her master plan to rule the world with plants… or something), but by the time you face the wrath of your ten millionth robotic chicken, you’ll likely question the significance of all the enemy slaughtering and your own willpower in choosing to drudge through it.
The saving grace here is the game’s shooting mechanic. Don’t count on the sparsely-occurring cutscenes to reel you back in – a lot of the fun is really had giving your arsenal of miscellaneous weapons a run for their money. Actually assembling them is a matter of piecing together hidden parts and throwing away the adequate amount of ducats to build them, but even a few weapons under your wing is sufficient enough to liven up the pace.
