Often this is all in slow-motion.
Give me a shotgun, a slidekick, and slo-mo, and I’m happy.
It’s the near future and you are a supersoldier fighting for a secret organisation.
More importantly, hey, it basically plays like F.E.A.R.
with a dash ofCrysis, and that’s great.
I will explain the key keys and you will understand the possibilities for cool murder.
Press Q to enter bullet time, depleting a generous gauge which refills with kills.
Press E to turn invisible, which doesn’t last long but does recharge quickly by itself.
Right-click is your melee attack, contextually ranging from a pistol whip to a jumpkick.
Press to G to throw your own grenade, axe, proximity mine, or other doodad.
Trepang2 feels like how F.E.A.R.
exists in my memory.
Loud action followed by quiet exploration.
Healthpacks and armour kits (though with the tiniest little emergency bar of regenerating health).
Occasional jumpscares and ghost nonsense.
Grenades exploding with a spacetime-bending bubble effect.
Mostly it’s in the fast and stylish fights against enemies who are trying their best to stay alive.
’s much-praised AI, part of its success is the clever trick of enemies vocalising their behaviour.
The allied troops who sometimes fight alongside you actually seem helpful too.
Stealth is an option, mind.
Enemies don’t magically know where you are, and can lose track of you.
you’ve got the option to use silenced weapons.
you might shoot out lights.
you’ve got the option to silently crouch-walk.
you could snatch people and snap their necks.
you’re free to lurk in shadows, and the crosshair indicates darkness.
Your cloak recharges quickly.
you could even snipe, though most spaces are too close for it.
That seems like it might be fun.
That might be important on the highest difficulty levels.
Every gunfight trashes the place.
If not, it will at least shower debris and sparks.
People burst into blood and limbs and viscera when violenced with an appropriate method.
Flames linger too, burning breakables and roasting corpses.
Sometimes destruction is important.
Othertimes, destruction is simply pretty.
Trepang2 is a 2005 FPS through and through.
Levels are combat arenas connected by meandering corridors littered with collectible lorelogs.
The obligatory multi-phase boss fights are perhaps a bit better (or less bad?)
than in many 2005 shooters.
The plot is justification enough to visit a variety of places and fight some variety of enemies.
It’s not a long campaign either, taking me 8 hours including all side missions.
As you complete story missions in sequence, a scattering of optional side missions unlock.
These littluns boil down to surviving waves of enemies in a smallish area.
Others are boring killboxes whose hollow presence only makes a small game feel smaller.
Oh, I do enjoy shooting these faces!
A demo is upon Steam, though I think that might be a bit old now.
This review is based on a release copy of the game provided by the publisher, Team17.
