Trepang2

 

Trepang2 is FEAR 1 on steroids: insane slide-kicks, flying ragdolls, and weapons that turn soldiers into paper. Only 3 hours long, barely scary, but I loved every chaotic second.

Being a big fan of Fear 1, one of the greatest FPS games ever, developed by Monolith from 2005, its sad it never really had a direct successor. Sure theres Fear 2, and FEAR 3, but those never really played the same and were just inferior experiences. They even had worse graphics. Something Monolith was cooking with back then in 2005 just had the special sauce. Trepang2 (Trepang squared?) is marketed as a sort of FEAR spiritual successor. Really, thats all
I needed to know to want to buy it. So I did.

Upon hitting NEW GAME you get a difficulty selection. Theres a lot of them. But it seems like the last 2 difficulties are more meme/challenge modes. They even say they arent really reccomended. So then the other choice is to play the actual 'real' hardest difficulty, VERY HARD, but I'm not gonna put it on the techincally hardedst difficulty on my first run. So I decided to just put it ON HARD. Which says "Reccomended for people experienced with FPS games" Sounds good to me.

The premise of the game is pretty vague, its not very story heavy, which I like, it just goes straight to the action. Something like youre just a typical military sort of mercenary working at some agency. Though the game starts off and youre in handcuffs, escaping from soldiers that are chasing you through a series of office buildings, an enviornemnt very reminiscent of Fear 1. Kinda weird to start the game off with a stealth segment, but it doesnt last long at all, withing a few minutes you unlock your cuffs and get a pistol and youre off to the races. You can press E to Cloak yourself, or Q to go into Slow-motion like FEAR, and I never bothered to use the CLOAK ever again past this first segment. I'm not trying to stealth.

Also, there is no quicksaving. Its a checkpoint shooter, meaning the only reaching certain areas in the levels and autosaving is how you gain progress. I kinda like this. Quicksave shooters feel trivial like theres no challenge, because you can so easily spam the quicksave quickload button, sure you can just NOT do that, but if the game allows it as a core feature its hard not to. Instead, when it lacks this ability and it forces you to have to reach autosave checkpoints, its like  theres more tension and high stakes, so it makes you try to play better.

The game's general gameplay and combat mechanics, are, to put it short. Over the top. Perhaps in the best possible way. There are so many particles flying all over the place, pieces of paper, debris. rediculous physics making objects and corpses fly everywhere, its a damn sight to behold. FEAR 1 is also known for having close attention to detail with the lighting, and the ability to shoot anything and it have physics, and it seems like they took that notion and really honed in on it.

For instance, the movement is very high paced. You can sprint, slide, jump kick, and even in the beginning of the game a message pops up which says "Killing an enemy gives you stamina", almost like a burst of adrenaline. So clearly it wants you to GO FAST and rewards you to keep moving by giving you stamina on each kill. Not only this, but when you slide kick an enemy, the physics on their body ragdoll is just absurd. A slide kick sends a heavily armoured soldier FLYING across the screen, really its just hilarious. The first few times I Did this I just stopped and starting laughing my ass off. Its pretty goofy, but also entertaining. Even corpses on the ground you can easily push around as if they weigh as much as a piece of paper. It's sort of a complaint, like this is such a common thing you see in games, where corpses on the ground will be so light you  can push them all over the screen by just walking onto them. Why can't they just dial in the corpse weight a bit better? It comes across as low quality. It just seems like it would be a number tweak or something simplistic, but I don't know, I digress.

Although there is attention to detail in many other areas. For instance when you reload, you actually drop your magazine on the floor and it remains there. A small thing, but adds to the imersion and 'weight' of everything you do. Also, if you go too close to a wall, you can see your arms move closer to your body, a small touch but it makes it feel polished. You can look down and see your torso and legs, giving a sense of connection and polish. There are lots of little details like this that overall add to the experience and make the gameplay just satisfying. Even shooting objects can take small chunks out of them, piece by piece, like statues and other things, adding a real sense of impact to everything you do.

The game doesn't have iron-sights aiming, which is actually refreshing. Another thing inspired by FEAR I suppose.
FEAR is also known for having very good enemy AI, it sends these military squads after the player, who use all sorts of tactics, flank you, run for cover, throw grenades, and they frequently talk amongst themselves and even commentate what the player is doing. Its great. Does TREPANG similarly have great AI? Kind of. Its not as fleshed out as FEAR, it does try to do the sending squads at the player thing, but it feels more scripted and not as organic. The enemies do talk amongst themselves, but again it feels more scripted, like it will be the same thing each time. They do use a fair bit of tactics, they don't just blindly run at you, and theyre fun to fight, but still, FEAR somehow manages to still have some of the best enemy AI in gaming 20 years later.

The first level was pretty easy, which sure, fair enough, but I had hoped the game would be more challenging as it goes on, especially since I picked hard. Its just you have such fluid movement options, AND the ability to slowmo almost constantly, its just so easy to outmatch the opponents.

The game has an Arsenal also inspired by FEAR. You've got the assault rifle, Spaz12 shotgun, Submachine gun, Pistol, DMR Sniper, later on you get access to a grenade launcher and minigun, its not the biggest variety of weapons but the ones you have access to feel fun enough. The assault rifle has just a bit too much recoil so I didnt use it for most of the game, you shoot for a second and your screen just goes shaking all over the place. Really, the gun I used for most of the game was the Shotgun. It has to be one of the most insane, over the top, powerful shotguns in all over gaming. This thing is really dialed up to 10. You blast an enemy and their entire body turns into pieces of gore, intestines, theres just nothing left. Its very impactful. The reloading sounds, the gunshot sound, its huge.

You carry two guns, and you come across these weapon boxes where you have access to weapon customization. The weapon customization feature is basically just the default Crysis system , despite the game running on Unreal 4 engine, at first I was wondering if this was a CryEngine game and it lifted some template from Crysis. You don't have weapon attachments unlocked at the beginning though, you need to go around the levels and find these weapon caches which then permanently unlock the attachment for you to swap out at these  weapon boxes. A neat system, but I didnt use it too much and its not THAT fleshed out. Just stuff like add a supressor (but it lowers damage), Still it was fun to try to come across some of these unlocks, especially for the Shotgun, you can get an Incendary upgrade where just one shot will spray fire across the screen and a group of enemies will fall to the floor rolling around on fire in agony, usally kiling them.

In between each mission you're at a sort of HUB zone, this military base. You can walk around and interact with various things. Funnily enough you can customize your 'appearance' , like your gloves, boots, shirt, which you barely ever see, still a neat touch I guess. Theres a "Combat simulator" which is basically just Wave survival of levels youve already played, and also very strangely theres an almost Garys Mod sandbox mode, where you can enter a level and spawn enemies and objects wherever you want. Odd, but interesting addition. Theres a place where you can view "High Value Targets" - I'm not really sure what the point of this is. Its just a big screen showing a bunch of guys you can kill in the levels, and you often come across them at randomly, at first I thought they were just standards parts of the levels, but maybe they get added randomly and it gives you an incentive to play through the levels again? I dunno, still kind of an entertaining feature. But mostly all you do at the HUB is just walk towards the Mission Select board and pick the next mission.

There is like 5 Side missions, I didn't do any of them, it turns out they're all kind of just wave survival with no actual objectives or plot or anything, so theres not much to see there anyway. So here I just pick the next main mission and continue with the game. A cool addition is you can pick your difficulty on each mission, and it even tracks what difficulty you beat each mission on. There's only 5 main missions, so theres really not too much going on.

Unlike FEAR, this game has a good variety of locations and mission premises. Its not just linear office hallways. No two levels are alike, really, although there are only 5. The first mission (the prelude I guess) Is offices and warehouses, which was pretty fun and nostalgic. You come across friendly soldiers at the end of it, get on a helicoptor and then go back to the HUB base for the first time. Second mission is inside some big corporation complex, which is sort of office building, but more like high end skyscrapers. This level feels more like a Call of Duty mission, you have friendly soldiers that sometimes fight with you, youre planting breaches on doors blasting your way through the base, but its fun.

Up until this point the game is missing something crucial that made FEAR a classic - Horror. But all of a sudden in level 2, you go to some labratory medical basement segment. Then out of nowhere monsters appear. Youre going through this dark hospital segment with these flesh peeled acid zombies coming at you, its awesome and spooky. Theres a few other beasts you fight, like this big winged bat thing. Sadly this is basically the only part in the whole game with these sort of enemies. A big complaint I have is that the game only uses some ideas once, like these horror monsters you only come across in one level. And since the game is so short, only 5 levels, it leaves you wanting more.

The game does have quite a bit of bossfights though, and theyre cool and exciting. Theres the Mothman monster boss, theres a cult leader boss, more kind of biological mutant bosses, and so on. Really helps keep the game exciting and fast paced to have these epic boss fights spread around, I don't think thats something FEAR did.

The third level suddenly shifts things up, its not any corporation or office buildings, its inside this old library cult member base. Theres no soldiers you fight, or monsters, its all deranged cult members wearing masks. Where did that come from? Well it was cool and fun regardless, these enemies are crazy, theres guys that run at you exploding themselves, shouting about 'nonbelievers', this level has you going all throughout these big library buildings tracking down these cult members, which was a good change of pace and you come across a boss called Enforcer which shoots at you with this huge minigun which was intense. Theres another boss in this level, the Patriach, which is like a Resident Evil biological mutant type boss, sadly I just annihilated this guy, he just stood still while I unloaded incendary shotgun rounds into him and he was gone in no time so I Didnt get to see much of him.

You even unlock Dual Wielding at this point in the game, you inject yourself with a Serum now I can run around with TWO incendary shotguns, just trivializing the rest of the game. So sadly, another gripe is that the game never really did get that challenging. The firepower, and movement ability that the player has is just so strong the enemies can barely scratch you. Especially since almost every enemy you kill also drops Armor, so for much of the game it felt like I wasnt even losing health. Of course you can just play on a harder difficulty, but I was basically already on the second hardest difficulty.


The fourth level changes things up even more. This one isn't so much a combat focused level, which was actually kinda disappointing and a bit boring. Instead, its a full on paranormal horror level where a lot of the times youre sneaking around past this black smoke cloud that one hits you. You're going around in these bio labs and dark basements, then all of a sudden you literally come into these like actual meme Backrooms. Like the devs playing off that "So liminal" trope. I mean it was kinda amusing and novelty, but there wasnt much to it. Just wander around these sterile rooms looking for the exit. You fight a wave or two of enemies but not much else. Its just a meme basically. This happens a few times.

You come across the lamest "boss" here too. Its just this room with a magical sphere in the middle and all you have to do is run around killing waves of enemies then turning off power boxes, then you one hit the "boss" when you turn them all off.

The fifth level takes place inside the big Horizon corporation building again this time you work your way in from below. Fighting waves of military soldiers, the combat is fun throughout the whole game thankfully. This level is more sort of corporation buildings, offices, placing breaching charges blowing through the building fighting waves of enemies. Then you come across another "boss". This CEO is uploading his consciousness to brain boxes around this arena, you just go around blowing up the brain boxes while waves of enemies spawn at you. Then you get a cutscene of you caving the guys face in. Nasty. Thats basically the whole last level.


There is one segment after this. Theres a plot twist where your allies betray you and try to incenerate you, but you get yourself free and avoid that fate. Now the final segment is just fighting back against the people that betrayed you and going to the final nuclear reactor to blow up the base. A cool segment for sure, and the plot with its twists is fun and interesting. The plot is strange, though, its all about "BREAK THE CYCLE" and you come acros these floating drones you can interact with that just give you a text screen saying vague ominious things, I was never sure what the hell that was all about.

Anyway, you fight your way through the final segment, and come across a series of final boss fights against this humanoid monster that wields a sword that zips across the screen at you stabbing you almost one hitting you. This guy was challenging and I fianlly died a few times to him. You wittle his health bar down a few times, he runs away to a new arena spawning a wave of enemies, at one point he chops your arm off and you play the last 10 minutes with one arm which is kinda funny, rinse repeat and you beat the game by detonating the nuke and blowing yourself up.

I was wondering if I got the bad ending, since I didnt do any side missions. So I looked it up after, and no, the side missions dont unlock anything else. However if you do manage to find all of those weird floating drones it turns out you DO unlock a secret ending, where the ony difference is you get an extra 5 second long cutscene of some scientists reviving you after the nuclear explosion.

So thats Trepang2. I actually had a lot of fun with it. The biggest gripe is the lack of challenge and how short it is. I beat it in one session, only 3 hours long. Another gripe is the lack of parnormal or horror vibes, I mean theres only like maybe 30 minutes of actual horror events in the whole game, unlike FEAR the whole game is drenched in horror atmosphere and lingering spooky vibes. In Trepang, it feels like they just shoehorned a few horror segments in to say they have it. Oh and another gripe is I guess the name: What the hell is a Trepang? Why is it squared? Its a stupid nonsense name, do we ever find out in game? Who knows. Anyway, The game is ultimately just too short, it needed more main missions with more of a coherent flow, each level just feels detached and aimless. Although it does keep the game fun with a lot of level variety, it just feels like youre playing random levels with no rhyme or reason, and its not that much of a coherent experience. Its not better than FEAR, but it is a good spiritual successor that any FEAR fan should play, its just dialed in very extreme with its frantic combat and effects.

8/10