When we reviewed the first chapter of Watchmen: The End is Nigh back in April, despite its slick presentation, we were certainly less than impressed by how repetitive and uninspiring the final product ended up. It was no secret that the game was getting a sequel to coincide with the DVD / Blu-ray release of the film and with all the punctuality of a cash cow riding a Express Bullet Train, it’s now arrived.
The first thing that hits you (with the grace of a bitch-slap across the face from a horseshoe lined glove) is just how much the game is similar to the first chapter. It isn’t unreasonable to have expected, given the rich universe at their fingertips, that the developers would have taken the extra time and effort to vary things by allowing you to play as The Comedian, Silk Spectre or even the omnipotent Dr Manhattan. Instead the player is once again foisted back into the dirt encrusted shoes of Rorschach and the tech-enhanced boots of Night Owl, in yet another simplistic brawler. This instantly plants the player deep into déjà vu territory; which just so happens to be the last place they wanted to end up after the mindless repetition that plagued the first.
This time the game is set in the 1970’s with the rag-tag duo looking for a missing girl. This leads them to the seamy underbelly of the city, filled with brothels and warehouses, teeming with all sorts of miscreants in dodgy flares and bondage gear to smack about.
Doubtless this is starting to sound very familiar and that’s because it is. All over again the game throws identikit enemies at you, as you trawl identikit locations, whilst being forced to repeatedly mash the same buttons to perform the same identikit moves and solve the occasional rudimentary puzzle. It really is even more tedious and uninspiring than the first time around. So much so that, if we were as lazy as the developers, we could review the title by just cutting and pasting the text from our previous review.
The sour icing on the already mould-ridden cake remains the refusal to budge on the grossly inflated price point, exposing it even further as little more than an attempt to capitalise on the films release for home audiences. Part 2 is currently priced at £9.99 / €12.99 / $14.99, making it only worth the asking price for sadists who enjoy having blistered thumbs from mindless button mashing, or those looking to end it all by boring themselves senseless until they slip into a coma. After all, no self respecting Watchmen fan is going to want to touch this, especially if they gave into temptation and ended up being horribly stung by the first.
Watchmen: The End is Nigh Part 2 is the very epitome of a movie tie in. The basic idea certainly didn’t warrant two separately priced chapters, let alone ones that were identical. Despite being hamstrung by a severe lack of imagination and / or budget, you have to admire Warner Brothers Interactive for having the brass neck to go ahead and try to do it anyway. For that reason alone, the second outing manages to get an even lower score, it’s only redeeming features being that it manages to provide a basic form of entertainment for someone who has never played the first. But then the mind boggles about the type of individual who would buy this chapter without having played the first…