Review By Vastro
The Surge 2 by Deck13 was in many ways reminiscent of the ‘souls‘ games series for me. Pushing my patience and skills, or perhaps lack thereof, to their limits I enjoyed every moment of it, even the rage-fuelled ones.
Story
You take on the role of your customized character, thrown into the post-apocalyptic sci-fi city of Jericho, which has been ravaged by a nanite-based disease.
A wall has been erected (don’t you dare laugh) around the city, leaving you fighting for survival against scavengers and machine-like creatures.
Following the main story of The Surge 2 helps to give you some degree of direction, guiding you through zones with varying objectives in mind, instead of wandering aimlessly living in hope that you will make some degree of progression towards the games end goal.
Side-Quests
One thing I quite enjoy is the game’s use of side-quests, which are added to your log so you know what people would like you to do. This nifty little feature allows you to reference back to side quests at any point, meaning you’re free to wander around and forget about them until you’re ready to take them on.
Yes, this may not seem like anything major, but those of you who have played any games of this nature will know that any…I don’t even think they deserve to be called side-quests…perhaps they’re better referred to as additional objectives, are quite often not very clear. So enjoy this added little feature.
Gameplay
At its core, this is a very simple action RPG with a “get good or die” sort of playstyle. If you don’t learn to adapt to the enemy’s positions, movements, and fighting styles, you can expect to die a lot.
That being said, it has a lot of very interesting features that make the game The Surge 2 feel new and fresh that I fell in love with right away. You are supplied with a RIG that allows you to equip yourself with a wide variety of gear, each offering their own bonuses and benefits, allowing you to fully customize your experience to match your own playstyle.
Using the game’s unique playstyle system you must dismember your opponents to gather up upgrades, resources, and weapons. This means you can’t just blindly slaughter every enemy you see, you need to take your time to gather the appropriate materials to help you survive.
You can equip a variety of implants into your suit slots to give yourself added bonuses, including but not limited to more health regen and poison resist, but you have limited slots (that increase as you level up your RIG) so play around and see what works for you.
Lastly, my favorite feature of the game. The ability to bank your scrap, which is the resource used to level-up, craft, and upgrade gear. When you visit one of the games upgrade stations, labeled as Med Bays, you’re given the option to store your valuable scrap.
This means that if you die you will only drop the scrap you currently have on you, but you will retain all the scrap you have banked. No more late level rage quits as you lose thousands of scrap! I’m not saying that can’t still happen though, so be careful out there!
Overall Score 8/10
In my opinion, this game deserves a very solid 8/10. I would 100% recommend it to anyone looking for some self-punishment, a new challenge or something a bit different from the norm.
Sadly though, I cannot in good conscience recommend this game to any casual gamer who isn’t prepared to be pushed to their limit. You have been warned!
1 thought on “The Surge 2”