Amatuer Review- Shellshock 2 : Blood Trails

I pretty much have a open mind and I enjoyed the Prequel, Shellshock: Nam`47, so when I got my hands on Shellshock 2 : Blood trails I started the game with a smile on my lips.
Which turned upside down and back again as if a rollercoaster ride.

The Plot is set in Vietnam, 1969, and I start in a Hospital or apartment complex that well worn out by the marks of war. A officer guides me around in the building and in the many rooms I see War-tired soldiers grying in a corner, other are laying down down on the floor exhausted and only get up to hurl out their morning rations over my fine polished boots as I walk past them. behind closed doors I hear baby screams, crying moms and dogs whining. It's quite before the storm.
The developers seems to be diving a multicolored image of the war where it's not just run-and-gun but also psycological factors in works. And it soon shows that you, the main characters is a nerve-wreck himself. He pants and gasps as if he's hyperventilating as we move down the hallways, which in the long run i suspected could get a little irritating.

The story is pretty thin to begin with but I soon understood that the main character has a brother in the war who was sent to Cambodia to retrive something called "Whiteknight", his brother has apparantly gotten some kind of virus that make him aggressive and infectious, very much like the "zombies" in the 28 Days later movie, and for some reason you are able to see his actions through dreams.
You are then sent by orders from the brass to try to stop the infection your brother has caused and to find your brother.

Vietnam is a country known for it's comfortable Hotels and great staff

The gameplay can be pretty repetitive, you either hold your ground against the Vietcong or infected Vietnamese population, or you walk around alone in the jungle, caves and even in a mansion.
While you are running around in the jungle you have to watch out for booby-traps where you need to bush a series of buttons to survive it, surprisingly enough this feature is one of the best functioning features in the game as it causes the most nerwrecking tension, the second one is actually when you walk around in vietcong tunnels or the mentioned mansion with only your flashlight being your lightsource and if the developers had focused more on this then the game could've been much more fightening to play.
Instead it gets tossed in between certain chapters and serves as breaks from the loose Run-and-Gunning, which I though the developers tried to portray differently in the beginning of the game.
To fill in the story, when you load a new chapter you can read a draft from the main characters diary, this maybe to give the game a more nuanced story but the text just shows how thin the story really is.

A large irritation moment is that the AI sucks, When you get soldiers to help you then they're about as helpful as a toothpick in a gunfight. They rarely shoot at the enemies and drop like flies, leaving you against a ocean of enemies.
Now in that situation a grenade is great to have, where the blast will send the enemies flying and leave you unscatered. In Shellshock 2 you'll have more luck throwing pebbels, The blast rarely kills anyone, Yours truely threw two grenades at an infected and she didn't even stagger even after they had blown up beltween her legs. I assume the brass had to cut back on the explosives and filled some grenades up with firecracker powder thanks to the hippies protesting back in the US at that time.

And the Locals are always willing to sell you souvernirs

Graphically, it's not really something to brag about. With exceptions, the majority of the game's visiuals don't really offer much atmosphere. If you've seen one jungle then you've seen every outdoor level in the game.
Additionally the animations also tend to be beyond bad at certain points. I encoutered a "zombie" somewhere that came bursting out in a terrifying way from a hole, but then he walked back inside and then out again. he repeated this for about five times before i bothered to blow his ugly infected face off.

So come on down to Vietnam Soldier, we're waiting for you!

Shellshock 2 doesn't come with any shocking inovations ( Hehe, wordplay). The mixture of Vietcong and Zombies sound like the recipie for a poorly B-horror movie combined with a war movie, and Honestly that's what Shellshock 2 : Blood trails lives to be. And I honestly find it a little sad because at times I could see and imagine that this came could be of grand proportions but it reaches halfways up the hill and struggles to stay there.

However, When I sat down afterwards and decided to acknowledge it as a B-movie game, It was cheesy, frustrating but also a little bit fun.
It grew on me like when I saw Braindead for a second time, or maybe I'm suffering from some kind of infection now.
If you have a open mind and have a extreme love for First person shooters, zombies, the Vietnam war and cheesy B-movies then you'll find this game entertaining, others..well..Get it when it ends up in the bargain bin.

Pros

- At times very creepy.
- Fun to sneak around in dark caves and hallways with a flashlight
- Good button sequences.

Cons

- Thin story
- Below mediocre AI
- Useless Weaponry

Score : 4.8/10