Since I’m a big fan of the first game, my expectations were high when I first loaded “No More Room in Hell 2.” Yes, I’ve heard the backlash about its shaky October launch, but I gave the developer, Torn Banner, a chance by playing it after its first large update. Now that I’ve played it, the only thing I’m wowed about is how a $30 sequel to a free “Half-Life 2” mod could take so many steps backward.
“No More Room in Hell 2” prioritizes gameplay over narrative with no handholding. However, there is one tutorial in the main menu that rams complicated tips and controls down your throat.
There’s also a character system intended to make every death feel like a tragic loss of an important person. As you complete missions, you’ll gain XP and level up to acquire skills that are lost upon death, but the characters themselves don’t bring much to the table. Essentially, this is the player-model selection screen from the original game with no visual standouts and OK voice acting. You’ll grieve the loss of your skills more.
Then, you have to actually play the game.
Compared to the previous game’s linear, claustrophobic objective-based maps, “No More Room in Hell 2” tries to compensate for its small number of maps by making them more open in scale with different paths and multiple variations of the layout. I like this idea, but I don’t like its lackluster execution.
Each map of the original had a unique theme. “Rockpit” had you escalate out of a square quarry, “Cleopas” began in cramped alleys between Liverpool flats, and “FEMA” is literally a recreation of George Romero’s “Day of the Dead.”
In “No More Room in Hell 2,” all three maps— “Lewiston,” “Pottsville,” and “Power Plant”— look like the same rural town, but they look gorgeous and capture the dark atmosphere of a world that is gone.
Games begin with eight players spawning in different corners of the map. Everyone must follow their compass to the objectives, complete them, then seek extraction. Usually this is simple, although sometimes objectives can be too vague. What’s always standing in your way are all of the poor infected souls that are taking over the country bite by bite.
Most of the previous game’s realism and ideas carry over. Some examples are how you need a free hand to hold your flashlight, how supplies decrease your stamina, and how you have no HUD.
There are also some welcome changes to the formula, like stealth. However, making noise can benefit you in specific scenarios since zombies can be baited, like triggering car alarms or placing down an FM radio.
One change you should note is how infection works. Just because you weren’t bitten doesn’t mean you’re safe since the lower the health you have, the more likely you can become infected. Once you’re infected, you’ll eventually turn unless you can stall the infection with pills. The infection itself is also more disturbing to experience thanks to a variety of symptoms your character experiences: blurry vision, veins crawling to your eyes, voice distortion, and you can even hallucinate.
Murdering the experience are a variety of technical problems. Sure, it’s in early access, but I’ve never encountered this many bugs in an early access game.
Most issues revolve around zombies. I hate admitting this because they are well-designed. They sound soulless, and damaging them presents gory wounds that further the idea that these are walking corpses. Even cooler is how some of their apparel is determined by their location.
Like before, special variants balance realism with toughness. Runners and crawlers return, but new additions are also nice, like SWAT zombies that block bullets with their arm-bound riot shields or firemen with explosive air tanks on their backs.
It’s really unfortunate how these positive design choices are held back by poor programming. I vividly remember several instances of this. None can top the time I was outrunning a zombie in a house and passed an AFK teammate and, for whatever reason, so did the zombie, despite my teammate standing idly in the open.
Removing the head or destroying the brain can prove difficult due to poorly implemented hitboxes. Whacks from melee weapons didn’t always register and wasted my stamina, and I was questioning the zombies’ durability when clean headshots scalped zombies without killing them.
The zombie spawns are also not well thought-out. I was confused about why most buildings had dozens of zombies upstairs. Then, there’s places where zombies crawl out from underneath cars or fall from attic hatches– most likely to keep the zombie population consistent after you’ve cleared the area. One or two zombies from these places makes sense, not ten or twenty.
Other glitches range from eye-squinting to “Aw, come on!” situations. When you’re breaking control panels, the second whack questionably fixes its cover back onto its hinges. That’s nothing compared to being soft-locked outside of an important room because of a fuse box that’s already been tampered with, or how picky the game is with what you can and can’t jump over.
Game performance overall can be jittery. I witnessed a lot of framerate stuttering and rubber-banding from connectivity issues. This makes it hard to stay immersed in the survival horror atmosphere that “No More Room in Hell 2” is trying to provide.
However, if you can power through these issues, there’s something about cooperating with teammates and escaping with your skin intact that motivated me to complete each map. After getting slaughtered several times, it made me exhale in relief when I was evacuated. Besides, I just survived a painful ordeal.
In the end, “No More Room in Hell 2” is a bloody mess, even for an early access title. To be worth its price, it needs serious reworking and more content. The only thing currently setting this experience apart from other zombie games is how buggy it is, which is sad because you can see the developers’ ambition. If it’s any consolation, at least I felt like I was in hell, but not in a good way.
RATING:
(This review is specifically for Update 0.4.0, so a reevaluation is possible in the future)