Putrefaction 2: Voidstalker

Putrefaction 2:Void Walker  

The difference between the two is night and day, literally.

Saddened by a lack of moving targets and energy drinks, our protagonist of purity plunges precariously into the perilous portal. Enter, Putrefaction 2: Voidstalker!

During your maddening descent you are greeted by a disembodied voice, well, almost disembodied. The Hermit's avatar is a floating green skull that is telepathically linked to our Agent of Purity, his first bit of exposition explains that we are in fact a Voidwalker now, along with some deets on the mysterious beings from the first game, calling them 'The Putrid Ones'. Now that we've gained some supernatural powers, a ghost-demon gps, and our first guns. It's time to go Voidwalking, (think moonwalking, just more violent) yow! 

Putrefaction 2 looks and  plays a lot differently from it's predecessor. Huge, bright, arena-like environments set this game apart from the first. I found my movement speed nearly doubled, along with the addition a doublejump to help traverse the newfound vertical areas. Jumping, strafing, and generally wreaking havoc is the core gameplay here. Sit still too long, and get swarmed by large groups of mobs. Action happens in waves of violence, interspersed with some minor objectives that required me to hit a switch or collect some lost items to proceed. It doesn't slow the action to a great degree though, this is more of a way to raise the games variety and interaction, after all, we pc gamers need (slightly) more mental stimulation than a goldfish.

Putrefaction 2, its lit, yo

This is the entire plot to the first game in a nutshel, spoilers.

Speaking of mental stimulation, Void Walker could have surely used some during his maddening trip through the void. His attitude has evolved to levels of smartass beyond science. Voidwalker and The Hermit lighten the tone of this sequel with some witty banter throughout the game. Exposition is another benefit to the voice work, even if it's from only two characters. Voidwalker spouts one-liners referencing some action films and other games.

Putrefaction 2 makes up for it's silent first title with it's own 90's inspired fps attitude.

As Putrefaction 2 grows into a fully fledged fps, it learns a few new tricks. The much needed addition of a map makes navigating some tricky areas a lot simpler. Two upgrade systems are also available from the in-game menu; one for gun upgrades, and another to boost your character stats, like run speed, max health, etc. Now keep in mind, the upgrades don't carry over to different playthroughs and I never got all the upgrades in the game, so choose wisely.



Choosing the hard difficulty seemed like the right choice. I had a decent amount of fun leaping and blasting through the three very distinct worlds of Putrefaction 2. Enemy types were varied enough and original, this kept things fresh and interesting. Gunplay is massively improved, even more so with the dlc 'Rumble in the Hometown". The biggest and only complaint I will make, is that the final bossfight of the game is absolutely ridiculous in terms of difficulty and length. Now I don't mind difficult games, but turning the difficulty down from hard to easy and still spending what seemed like an hour to finish the game was too much. If I had to guess, this rapid spike in challenge is due to the overall length of the game being so short, a 5 hour affair for me. Another minor fault, but even at nearly five times the price of  Putrefaction 1 it's not going to break  the bank, heck, add that $0.99  dlc to your cart too, its pretty damn good.

this is Chain Comp now, feel old yet?

So that's essentially the gist of Putrefaction 2: Voidwalker. The sequel really begs the question, will we see another sequel? Oleg Kazakov is actively developing games for steam, the latest being Galaxy Squad, a much different title with a mainstream appeal. It may be worth a look, but until then, stay frosty, homeboys!