Trepang2 (PC)

Developed by the aptly named Trepang Studios and published by Team17, Trepang2 is a stylish indie First Person Shooter, with horror themes, some tight combat and bullet time, it has a very specific influence. But will it fare well against it’s elder. Let’s have a mooch.

It’s F.E.A.R, it’s literally a modern incarnation of F.E.A.R. The 2005 classic draws a massive influence on Trepang2, which is what a lot of people including myself have wanted for a long time.
Trepang2 is a hugely stylish FPS, a very dark shooter with some slick movement, tons of guns, and a huge amount of content.

Story wise sees you star as Subject 106, who wakes up bound and your character knows as much as you as you start the game, soon you end up with the mystery Task Force 27 as you engage on a highly dangerous mission against the evil Horizon Corporation. It’s a pretty throwaway story, but it helps you get through the game at a decent pace, with a nice roundabout 10 hour campaign. Again like F.E.A.R before it, the story ends up taking a supernatural turn as things move on.

Combat is the meat and potatoes of Trepang2, whilst looking very standard you’re introduced to a focus/bulletime and camoflage/invisibility in almost no time, these are small timed bits which will fill up with the amount of kills you get whilst in these modes. This transforms the game into an almost high score affair, you’ll be sliding all over the place, sneaking up on your foes, and trying to build up your meter to do this all again. It’s hugely rewarding and I found myself trying as many new things, swapping out weapons and trying different strats to get as efficient as possible.

Movement feels really nice, with some decent fluid movement, and very basic parkour for leaping over barriers and the previously mentioned sliding which will happily send any of your foes flying out of the way, by your side or over you. There’s some really responsive controls so you’re able to empty an entire pistol clip as fast as you click, there’s some fast reload times and beefy melee attacks.

Weaponry is something you’ll need in Trepang2 and it doesn’t disappoint, there’s strong array of weapons at 8, which doesn’t sound a lot however there’s a good variety with the usual lot with some grenade launchers, DMR’s and even a Boltgun in there which will pin most of your opponents to the nearest wall, you’ll be able to dual wield a second of most weapon carried so if you want to live your fantasy running around with 2 assault rifles and emptying entire clips into an enemy millitary force then go wild. Unfortunately you can’t dual wield ANY 2 weapons which would have been incredible. Though once you find your favourites you’ll end up sticking with them until your ammo runs out. Ammo can occasionally be a bit sparse so you’ll end up switching weapons a bit, this will get you used to the full weapons roster.

Content wise there’s a lot going on here, there’s a fairly decent length campaign, with 5 levels each with about an hour or so in each. However there’s a multitude of difficulty levels, with these all having some additional unlocks. There’s also a good amount of side quests, these can be wave based hacking missions or as simple as kill everyone in an area, again these have the same amount of difficulty levels. All of the levels are available from the map at the home base and the combat simulator also holds a huge amount . If it does seem a little on the short side, a lot of these side missions can fluff up play time quite a bit, and then again there’s a lot of content to find in the game missions too.

Audio sounds meaty as anything, each weapon sounds almost over exaggerated with the bass sounding almost at max volume, explosions also have that additional boost, everything else has some decent sound to it, and a soundtrack that’s heavy and hard, matches the combat feel as soon as you get some enemies in your vicinity.

Trepang2 is a real treat, and hopefully there’s more scope for missions in the story as I need more of this in my life.