I could copy here almost everything I've written about the first instalment of the series they're so similar. There are only some minor differences noticeable, even the graphics is only slightly improved. It's uncommon to have so little change for a sequel, especially because they had almost 2 years to develop it after the first game. I know most fans are usually against any change, but I don't consider myself a fan of the first game, so I can get away with that. Well let's see what they actually changed:
The first and foremost change to my relief is that now you can actually open doors in the game while carrying an unconscious body. It seems back then there were some developers who actually listened to fan feedback. Because this was one of the biggest annoyance in the first game. They also introduced the ability to shoot while hanging from the ceiling as a bat, but I never really needed to use this ability.
Another part where they probably listened to feedback are the cutscenes. The compression is much better, no more artifacts and overcompressed video. And they also replaced the low-poly character models with high polygon count ones. Unfortunately the models despite having 2 magnitudes more polygons are still not very well done. And the same can be said about the animation as well. But at least you have to give them credit for trying.
And that's it, we are at the end of the list of changes to the game. Sadly the other most annoying gameplay issue is still present unchanged: The enemies are still telepathic
About the story, it's even less interesting than in the first game, and also slightly confusing at times. More than once I felt that I was just doing random missions without much connection between them. Other times I got orders I had absolutely no idea why do I have to do. Maybe it was intentional to emphasize the feeling that you're just a field agent and decisions are made above your head, I don't know. At least the missions themselves are more interesting and complex than last time. It's not just about sneaking through the entire level and you're done. Sometimes you have to seek out contacts, follow someone in secret, or even kidnap and question a person. There are missions where you're not allowed to kill anyone, and missions where you're explicitly told to leave no witnesses (eg. kill every last person you come in contact with)
+
- Atmosphere
- Gameplay
- Complex, always changing missions
-
- This is short as well
- Your visibility seems to be completely detached from your visibility
- If one of the bad guys detects you all of the enemies suddenly know where you are
- It's the same when you attack someone. No matter that you're completely hidden, suddenly everyone knows where you are.
- The doors can only be opened when standing right in front of them, and you even have to put away your weapon to open doors
- Low quality cutscenes (animation and models)
- Every freakin door in the game closes automatically after a few seconds
- Despite being a super-spy Sam Fisher has really bad aim. Unfortunately this still stands with only one minor difference: When using a sniper rifle you can hold your breath which grants you the ability to shoot straight for one or two seconds. But in every other situation you're still screwed, despite having your crosshair nailed on the enemy, you can empty an entire magazine into him before he actually dies if you're not doing a stealth attack.
- If I'm judging by 2004 standards then this graphics quality is not good enough anymore. Far Cry which was released the same year runs circles around it easily in this regard.
- The story is hard to follow, missions are only loosely connected, to the previous ones.
Honestly it didn't feel that I was playing a new game, more like a V2.0 of the first game with some new missions. And because of that it only deserves a 7 out of 10.Not that it was worse, than the first game, on the contrary in many aspects it is better, but they shouldn't expect to sell the same thing twice and get away with it. I really hope I'll see much more improvement in the third game, because by the end of this I was starting to get bored by the repetitions in gameplay.