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By Contributing Writer Jimmy Payne Rating: Crappy If you're in the mood for a deep, involving game with gameplay that keeps you coming back for more, you should stay away from Nightmare Creatures 2. If you're in the mood for a shallow, button-mashing game... actually, you should still stay away from Nightmare Creatures 2. Nightmare Creatures 2's gameplay is just like Tomb Raider's, which means it sucks. The main difference between Nightmare Creatures and Tomb Raider is that the bulk of Nightmare Creatures' gameplay consists of running around killing things. It's a pain in the ass to do this because you can't even run around smoothly; you have to do the old turn and move forward, turn and move forward routine. This control set-up is bearable in games like Resident Evil where the focus isn't on action, but there's no excuse for it in an action game like this. Also, the fighting engine itself is about as basic as it gets. Although you can sometimes pull off some cool- looking combos, the vast majority of the combat is just mindless button- mashing. This game's camera system puts even Tomb Raider to shame when it comes to sheer stupidity. Whenever you turn or stop moving, the camera always seems to zoom in on the back of the main character's head. The game also makes it un-necessarily hard to find doors that you need to go through because if you aren't standing in a particular spot, the camera won't swing around to show you the door. Nightmare Creatures 2's Artificial Intelligence is also horrid. It's way too easy to simply go up to a monster and beat the heck out of it without being hit a singlet ime. The only time the monsters ever fight back is if you take a short pause in between button-mashing to give them a chance. Even when there are groups of three or four monsters, they don't attack at the same time. You could be killing one monster just a few feet away from a group of three others, and the other three will politely stand by and wait for their turn rather than attacking. The game is also stupid when it comes to the so-called puzzles, which usually require you to find a key on the ground, move a desk to find a key, kill a monster so you can get a key, and so on. Sound effects can make a scary game even scarier, and this is yet another area in which Nightmare Creatures 2 fails to come through. The most distinct sound effects in the entire game are the banging of doors when you open them, the dinosaur-like roars of monsters, and your character's groans when he gets hit. All the other sound effects that you would expect to hear (like noises in the distance, your feet hitting the ground, and any sound from a monster other than roaring) are either completely absent or so soft that they're not noticeable. The developers of this game couldn't even capture the age-old effect of hacking up monsters (it sounds like they took a shoe and rubbed it on a carpet really hard). If there's one thing that the developers did right, it's creating a pretty creepy atmosphere thanks to the monsters themselves. The game would have been even worse if it didn't have such a wide variety of creatures that are hideous enough to make anyone at least a little bit uneasy. The environments aren't as creepy as the monsters, but they do a decent job of setting the mood. The problem with the environments is that they're way too dark, and they're also a little pixelated in both the Dreamcast and PlayStation versions of the game. A Tomb Raider clone with a greater focus on combat could have been fun... if your idea of fun includes playing Superman 64, Frogger 3D, and South Park Rally. It takes a lot more than creepy monsters to make up a great action game. A great action game also needs to have strong AI, control, combat, camera positioning, and sound. Nightmare Creatures 2 has none of these things, which makes it just as bad as the Tomb Raider games that clearly inspired it. Send your thoughts on this review to jimmy@mastergamer.com
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