>>720045203 (OP)
Finished it today. One of the best sequels in history. The first game was ok and had a nice winter night atmosphere but felt extremely sluggish, slow, unresponsive, clunky, and repetitive. While the concept of the story was good, the execution made it feel like a shallow excuse for shooting. MP2 feels a LOT faster, responsive, dynamic, and cool with a lot more fun action, creative levels, and sick stuff to unlock. The story was not only very poetic and noir-like like the first game but also actually flashed out and engaging with much deeper and human characterization of Max himself and a lot more interesting and personal themes of newfound love, learning to forgive yourself, and finding a motivation to live. Don't even get me started on the graphics, art style, physics, sound design, and audio. The game looks amazing to this day and it's fucking mindblowing that it came out back in 2003. It's even more mindblowing that most of it was a passionate work of 2 people who managed to achieve much more than a million-dollar company with millions of workers today. It really shows that budget and technology are not substitutes for talent, skill, and passion.
Overall the game is a MASSIVE upgrade from the first one and genuinely one of my favorite action games ever. It's magical to go back in the past and still find something truly amazing that I never played before, asking myself why I didn't give it a try for so many years. The game reminds me of times back when vidya industry was a place of passionate expression of talent of specific artists with a vision. The ending and final song genuinely made me tear up. It's such a shame that Remedy never made the third game. It could've been an amazing trilogy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ym7MwIkLbA
