Previously, I had the audacity of suggesting that Watchmen: The End is Nigh Part 1 was actually a pretty good game. Sure, it was a redundant beat-em-up that pitted the player against ceaseless waves of the same goons saying the same petty insults over and over. Sure, $15 for a 3-4 hour game that you may never play again seems like a strange investment in a world where you can buy Mass Freaking Effect for almost half the price. Sure, it desecrates the existence of one of the comic book world’s sacred tomes by “adding backstory” with about as much credibility as someone writing Lord of the Rings fan fiction. And sure, it contributed to a Watchmen money machine that writer Alan Moore despised with every strand of hair in his beard. And sure, I just did a great job of vilifying that very same game.
But The End Is Nigh Part 1 was a fun little snippet of violence. Most action games of today pit you against goons that circle you, but kindly wait for their turn to attack while you finish your 50-hit air combo on their best friend. The first Watchmen game made you think about crowd control; watching your back and avoiding flurries from all directions as you strategically broke the arms of assorted ponytailed gangster. And there was a certain sense of desperation as blood and teeth splattered all over the walls. You were granted two styles of gameplay; Nite Owl had his electronic stun attacks, and he head and body-scissored his enemies with such grace and flexibility that only his limp pecker could survive uncrushed. And then Rorschach found himself bobbing and weaving, breaking enemies with fighting techniques straight out of a Bas Rutten training video. The game, as a whole, reminded me of that never-imitated beat-em-up The Warriors and I missed that game’s sense of fighting like you didn’t have superpowers.
And now we have The End Is Nigh Part 2, released many months after people stopped caring about the movie. If you’re curious as to what’s new in Part 2, here are the bullet points.
-There are many doors that Nite Owl and Rorschach will need to work together to open. You’ll need to hold the X button down in order for both these characters to use all their might to push these massive doors apart before slipping through without getting their cape caught in an awkward spot.
-That is all.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected much else from an episodic game, but Part 1 was already trying the patience of players with the repetition of smashing the exact same enemies with the exact same drawn-out finishers. The wow-value of Rorschach headbutting someone’s teeth out of their mouth has since dried up, and now we’re left with Rorschach doing one headbutt too many. And the gameplay elements that were pointless in Part 1 are back and still as pointless as the Black Freighter parts of the book. There are still the segments where the two must split up because only Rorschach can crawl under a garage door for whatever reason, only for the switch to open the door that blocked Nite Owl’s access to appear right next to you. They’re as futile as ever, with the one point of solace being that they’re not as frequent. For you see, this game is shorter.
There are only three stages in Part 2. The first takes you through a stripclub…a BIG stripclub, the Fenway Park of stripculbs. Your enemies are all afroed fools looking to punk out a masked jive turkey, as you go through corridor after corridor in a stage that just simply does not end. The enemies in this and the next stage aren’t challenging, per say, they just appear in frequent-but-small waves. So the feeling of being surrounded by trouble and fighting for your life is simply not as prevalent as the first game, instead replaced with a feeling of annoyance as yet another wave of scum charges into the room for Rorschach to chastise. The second stage is ripped right out of the first game; you navigate the same streets, alleyways and warehouses while beating up the same Chinese goons as you did in Part 1. And for what story purpose?
I should talk about the story of Part 2 for a second. A teenage girl has been kidnapped, Rorschach and Nite Owl are on the case. The story progresses in a rather systematic matter; Stage 1 has them finding out who the culprit is, and Stage 2 is merely their gallivanting to the culprit’s hideout.
And then there’s Stage 3, where the game finally picks up some steam. The level takes place in a lavish bordello, and I kid you not, your opposition consists entirely of fighting dominatrixes and fat gimps. This is the one segment of the game that felt fun; I found myself not only feeling that primal instinct of survival that I loved so much about the first game, but feeling it against leatherbound fetishists of all people. And I even began to see some violent new finishers. It seems that Rorschach was saving his worst acts of violence for the women. All the while, the characters are contemplating the moral dilemma of their predicament, and it’s hard not to laugh when Nite Owl feels sorry for the ladies that are smacking the feathers off him.
But before you know it, game over. You fight a bland final boss, then you fight your partner, and then the game is over. A little under 3 hours of play. Your payoff is you find out why Nite Owl and Rorschach stopped exchanging Christmas cards, but that goes back to the query of “who could possibly care about someone else’s attempt to add to a self-contained piece of fiction?”
The best word to describe The End is Nigh Part 2 is “inconsequential.” There is little of value awaiting any players, even for the most dedicated fans of Zack Snyder’s big screen adaptation. You shouldn’t even bother with any of those “The End is Nigh Complete Experience” discs that have been recently containing both games. If you’re craving a hearty and violent beat-em-up, get Part 1 and only Part 1.
2 1/2 stars
Watch out indeed.
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