PC games
nowadays are having a hard time appealing to the masses. Casual gamers are
leaning towards playing World of Warcraft and are often play their
favorite Sims title to death. Meanwhile, hardcore niche games are
struggling to gain a lot of attention on the PC side of things. Enemy Engaged
2, a helicopter simulator, falls in line with the latter of the two.
Let’s begin with
the basics; Enemy Engaged 2 is a hardcore sim – gamers looking for something
else should move on. If players love the more technical side of controlling a
helicopter, then Enemy Engaged 2 will be a sweet spot for them. Oddly enough,
the game starts off with a painful installation that tested my patience. The
next time I started up the game, it asked for me to do it all over again –
something I didn’t want to do in the first place.
The gameplay for
EE2 is old-fashioned but easy to pick up and play. It plays at a snails pace and
I can never imagine helicopter pilots dreaming of their lives being this dull.
Though, I do bet that helicopter pilots wish for the career EE2 presented – long
and full of missions. The campaign plays out in real-time with each mission
having an expiration time before the AI accepts the mission on their own and
completes it. Players are encouraged to rush through and finish the missions –
at the expense of potentially completing all the objectives.
Regarding the
campaign, the mission interface isn’t user-friendly. It took me a few tries
before I realized what I was doing due it being clunky. I ended up screwing up
in the first few missions due to the lack of an intuitive guide to aide me
through the game. As for the storyline, the gamer is thrown into hypothetical
wars such as a second Korean War, the liberation of China, and a few others.
The
entertainment value of the combat is minimal. Control over the helicopters is
simple but with constant glitches, such as clipping and frame rate problems that
I ran into, the game wasn’t as smooth as it could have been. It’s unacceptable
for a game to ship with this many bugs that I encountered. But alas, the
developers put a lot of emphasis on the campaign. The campaign continues along
with or without the player when they are selecting their missions. This may be
enough to draw simulation fans into purchasing EE2 – the feeling of a living and
breathing war.
The graphics are
terrible and at some points they resemble the first generation of PlayStation 1
titles. The landscapes are ridged and offer no visual experience of flying a
real helicopter. The presentation is ugly and menus are boring to shuffle
through. Ground textures are blurry and the scenery leaves a lot to be desired.
Outside of the helicopters themselves, the graphics are overall poor.
The multiplayer
maps aren’t any smaller than the single-player maps. It may be impressive that
the maps are big but there’s nothing really to them. One thing that is
impressive, at least in my eyes, is that the bridges are destructible. There’s
nothing better than shooting down bridges with missiles with a helicopter. But
with the larger maps, one-on-one matches are even less entertaining.
With all things
being considered, there is a good game in Enemy Engaged 2 deep down inside the
belly of the beast. It is Windows Vista compatible, so it has one thing going
for it. On the other hand, the two joysticks I have were not recognized by the
game. Enemy Engaged is a below average game that should cater to only the
smallest percentage of simulation fans.
|
Review Scoring Details for Enemy Engaged 2 |
Gameplay: 5.0
Glitches hold
this back from being playable for me.
Graphics: 4.1
Environments
aren’t even close to where they should be.
Sound: 5.1
The audio work
is all rudimentary. Nothing leaped through the speakers and grabbed my
attention.
Difficulty:
Medium
The procedure
of setting up and installing the game is a pain.
Concept: 7.5
Experience of
flying a helicopter is rare in video games.
Multiplayer:
5.0
The
multiplayer is lackluster and offers no form of excitement.
Overall: 5.5
Enemy Engaged
2 is a title that falls far below expectations.
