Shellshock 2: Blood Trails

Traumatised

Given the lengthy developmental process and astronomical budgets generally associated with the creation of modern videogames, you'd be forgiven for thinking publisher Eidos would have sought to maximise potential profit return for Shellshock 2: Blood Trails by actively avoiding a confrontation with one of the year's most eagerly anticipated releases.

Yet, by selecting a North American street date of February 23rd, thereby placing Shellshock 2 just a few days ahead of a certain PlayStation 3 juggernaut from Guerrilla Games, clearly Eidos must have seen something special in Rebellion's Vietnam-based pseudo zombie action title - something sadly lost on this particular reviewer.

To be fair, Killzone 2 and Shellshock 2 do have a great deal in common. For example, they're both sequels to fairly uninspired PlayStation 2 games, they're both first-person shooters, they both favour linearity over exploration, they're both littered with adults-only expletives, they both offer up scripted set-piece action sequences, and they're both more focused on gunplay than narrative.

Yet while Killzone 2 employs mind-blowing aesthetics and system-selling gameplay to nimbly sidestep the critical landmines that can accompany rinse and repeat action, linear structure, offensive language and shallow narrative, Shellshock 2 is left as a disembowelled torso trailing blood across the battlefield while scrambling through gory destruction in search of its legs.

Not that the threadbare story is really worth recounting, but... Shellshock 2: Blood Trails sends the player deep into the jungles of Vietnam to retrieve a mysterious item known only as Whiteknight, which is in someway connected to a horrific outbreak of infection that has caused the dead to rise... okay, that's enough.

It's complete drivel. And, when placing the game's woefully misplaced zombie plotline beside its already ill-timed calendar release, it's difficult not to notice the looming presence of Capcom's Resident Evil 5. Similarly, with Shellshock 2 now overshadowed by the close proximity of not one but two genre heavyweights it's hard not to visualise Eidos as a teeming den of self-harming masochists that enjoy nothing more than watching their expensive creations being torn limb from limb.

While it may appear cheap to run such comparisons alongside Shellshock 2, the stark reality remains that the videogame quality bar is being continuously raised as hardware generations progress, and the PlayStation 3 is capable of hosting considerably more than is on show here.

It's not just that the ugly exterior environments consist of little more than linear corridors pushing the player from one poorly designed indoor, trench-based or underground distraction to the next, or that enemy A.I. is relentlessly single-minded in its idiotic rush-the-player mentality; no, the overriding disappointment with Shellshock 2 is that it's all so cheap and PlayStation 2.

The lack of presentation pizzazz and detailed nuance is compounded by unfulfilling gameplay across 10 relatively short acts offering tiered objectives that only ever involve defeating waves of onrushing Vietnamese soldiers and (literally) brain-dead infected. An uninspiring selection of weapons, all of which lack any form of tangible resonance, don't help attune wandering player attentions, while controller-hurling frustration is likely to rear up every time enemy bullets inflict damage through supposedly solid cover points or the twitchy aiming system results in wasting an entire machine gun clip on just one foe.

And - as an aside - should anyone from either Eidos or Rebellion be reading this, it's perhaps worth bearing in mind that while easy bloodletting and liberal expletives may attract a certain demographic even more brain dead than the game's A.I. zombies, most of us prefer our adult themes to be a secondary facet of in-game authenticity. Seriously, we're totally fine with it when immersed in rich environments, original design and ambitious gameplay that's supported by attention to detail and thorough quality assurance. Shellshock 2: Blood Trails, while going through the motions as a paint-by-numbers shooter, will be remembered (at a stretch) for nothing more than its splashes of head-popping gore and pointless cursing; these are clearly its selling points - it has no discernible strengths to speak of.

The real problem with Shellshock 2 is that its utterly ridiculous storyline, poorly portrayed choice of setting, and flaccid execution encapsulate a creative failure spawned from the fear of failure itself. Built on nothing but outdated run-and-gun action that clearly strives to avoid risk taking at every turn, there's absolutely nothing on show to inspire prolonged interest. No pacing, no originality, no variety, no tension, no atmosphere. No risk. Indeed, attempting to hide the game's shameless lack of ambition behind a worthless zombie premise and an overall gameplay package that would have struggled to impress five years ago leaves Shellshock 2: Blood Trails looking not unlike Medal of Honor: Rising Sun had it been peppered with hordes of the undead - and that's some way short of a ringing endorsement.

Somewhat ironically, the original Shellshock Nam '67 from Eidos was developed by Guerrilla Games, which, as pretty much everyone now knows, has gone on to more than redeem itself of past indiscretions with the truly excellent Killzone 2. Rebellion, on the other hand, is yet to rise above largely forgettable prior offerings such as Rogue Trooper, Miami Vice and Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. Sadly, Rebellion's staid middle-of-the-road performance continues with Shellshock 2: Blood Trails, which, although not unequivocally broken, is so thoroughly unappealing and 'last generation' that it's all-but guaranteed a well-deserved place amid the lower echelons of gaming mediocrity.

40%

By Stevie Smith