Winback 2 Project Poseidon is a 3rd person shooter that feels like it should have been made in the mid 90s. Mixing the “back to the wall and shoot” theme from kill.switch with the arcadeyness of Time Crisis, Winback 2 is quite the pile of irrelevant monotonous crap.
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The first Winback appeared on the N64 back in 1999. While this game suffered from rather bland level design (how many lasers can one person destroy?) it was still a hallmark for the system. The game was ported to the PS2 a couple years later and added a few new features. Since this game’s release, numerous other games have completely raised the bar in terms of entertainment value, gameplay, and graphics. Winback 2 reuses many of the first game’s gameplay ideals without taking note of all of the better games that have been released since then.
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Because this is an action game, the story has taken a back seat to the gameplay. Taking control of a group of three special ops soldiers, the player will wall-shoot his way through each level in two different ways. Each mission will start along the lines of one character cleaning out a room of bad guys or clearing a path for the second playable character. Once this mission is completed, you play through this same level through the second character’s eyes. While this can be considered a cool concept if executed right, Winback 2 does it sloppily.
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The first playable character’s path is restricted by a time limit. If the player beats this time limit a simple health upgrade is added to the health bar. However, this stage’s completed time does not directly reflect the time of the second path. Meaning, if you complete path A in record time, you do not have to rush to get through path B with the second playable character. It is small inconsistencies like this that totally throw off the whole experience.
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Making its return is the ever important “pop out shot”. Just about all combat instances involve this duck and cover form of fighting. Once the character has his back to the wall, the player has the chance to line up his shot, then pop out and fire. Just like kill.switch before it, monotony sets in very quickly. In fact, just about every enemy must be killed this way. Using a run-and-gun style of gun play will force the player to see the Game Over screen within seconds as the player can only take about 2 hits before the grim reaper appears.
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Popping out and shooting enemies might not be so bad if the enemy A.I. wasn’t so predictable. Enemies all use the same attack pattern. If they use a pistol, they will shoot about 3 or 4 shots before reloading while automatics usually involve a few more rounds. Knowing when the enemy is going to reload is incredibly disappointing and boring. But what makes the A.I. even worse is enemy movement patterns. At times, enemies will fire a few shots, then run away, only to come back to the exact same spot. This means you can line up your shot, and patiently wait for your enemy to come back. And because all enemies do this, it won’t take long to figure out the attack pattern.
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One shot to the head results in instant death, while two shots to the body will make enemies put up the white flag and surrender. But this surrendering animation makes absolutely no sense. After you shoot an enemy in the arm or leg twice, they will kneel down, put their hand on their heads, then disappear. Why was this feature even in the game? If you force someone to surrender, you usually would want to interrogate them or install handcuffs around their wrists. But instead, we get a couple of flashes, then a vanish into oblivion.
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Besides using guns, the player also has the option to use grenades and melee attacks. If the player gets close to the enemy, he has the ability to face plant his dome into the ground. However, because the A.I. is so stupid, it is almost possible to face plant every enemy in the game. This throws off the game’s balance and pacing entirely.
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Winback 2 is considered an action game, not a stealth game. Because enemies usually see you wherever you are, the element of stealth is completely thrown out the window. And since there is less stealth, this only means there is going to be more pop-out-shot combat. What a shame.
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Another one of Winback 2’s greatest flaws is that too many moves are mapped to a single button. It is a pain in the ass when all you want to do is use a keypad when instead your character will hug the wall or perform his roll maneuver. The game does not even use all the controller’s buttons, but yet, several moves are mapped to one. Why?
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The game does not really have high presentation values either. All environments are quite drab with its dark blue and gray color scheme. And fighting an army of the same cloned soldier is quite disappointing and repetitive. The voice acting is laugh out loud horrible. This game would have been better presented though text bubbles on screen. Or even better yet, with no text bubbles or no story of any kind… not like there was one in the first place.
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The game does contain split screen local multiplayer for up to 4 players, but it will not hold anyone’s interest as each game is nothing more than a form of deathmatch, just with different guns.
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Winback 2 Project Poseidon is quite the stinker. Low presentation values combined with a gameplay theme that was unique in the mid 90s only harbors repetitive moves and boredom. This game is entirely irrelevant to the evolution of video games and does not contain even a speck of entertainment value. Why play this game when there are so many other better games on the market?