Barbarian 2

Copyright : Palace Software | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

At the finale of Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior, the barbarian defeated the warriors of Drax and thus freed Princess Mariana from the evil spell. Drax fled to the dungeons beneath his black castle, vowing to wreak disaster on the Jewelled Kingdom. Yes it?s ass kicking time once again as you follow him into the deeper dungeons and slash your way through monster after monster in order to put a stop to Drax?s little game for good.

Graphics

After the massive, and we do mean massive success of the first game, Palace decided to release a sequel and cunningly call it Barbarian 2. The only problem is that the sequel to the best beat-em-up on the CPC has lost something the original had, the graphics are still very well presented and colours are used to a great extent once again (unlike some other titles). There are a number of problems however, the collision detection from the first game appears to have gone a little nutty, gameplay has slowed down much more with the addition of different enemies and more complex backgrounds and combat move appear to be a little limited compared to the first kick-ass. On the plus side though you can now choose to play either the Barbarian (for the blokes) and the Warrior Princess (for the ladies, or pervy blokes) on the title screen - a tip though, if you use the hacked and trained versions you will not be able to choose your character past the first level.

Sound

Sound has lost something also, the atmospheric music has been removed and only a tiny bit of the quality remains at the start of each level (about 3 seconds of music). A lot of the in-game sound has also been removed, no more clanging of metal or head shots in ths one but at least there is something - it could have been removed all together.

Gameplay

Gameplay is 100% different when compared to the original, no longer are you playing against human oponents on pretty backgrounds, you?re fighting more complex alien like creatures and you must make your way across the screen after completing certain battles - this helps you go deeper into the dungeons, standing still won?t help.
Because the game has changed so much and it feels a whole lot slower than the original you?ll think you?re playing a whole new game. Personally the sequel was a little bit of a let down because we expected more of the same, slashing the heads off your friends and those nasty CPC controlled characters but we were shocked when the game loaded (a whole 24 minutes of loading time). Unlike the original box there are no comments on the back from popular magazines such as Amstrad Action which was a little bit strange, either the comments made about this sequel were none too pleasing or they simply didn?t review it in the first place.
Barbarian 2 isn?t a bad game but as you all know the sequel is only rarely as good as the original and hardly ever surpases it. That statement is certainly true when you think about computer games that failed because of the "part 2" at the end, the best we can do is recommend that you give it a shot but please don?t expect the same quality as the original as you?ll only be disappointed.
Be thankful you didn?t go rushing to the shops with the only pocket money you had left to buy this title after telling your friends "I?ll slash your head off when I get Barbarian 2" and they all come around to see a totally different game (sob).