The Good
When I played the first Last Stand I was blown away by it and was eagerly awaiting a sequel, but when this game came out it blew away my expectations and then some. This game is much more massive than its predecessor, now with seven cities to explore and a plethora of weapons to choose from: AK-47, .357 magnum, UZI to new ones like grenades, bow and arrows, RPG's(Oh man excuse me while I wipe away the drool from my mouth).
I love the added strategy of having to search certain buildings to find the supplies, weapons and survivors and how they changed the control scheme a bit. While in the previous one you could only use the classic "A-W-S-D" scheme to move, this time around they not only put that scheme in but now you can use the arrow buttons on the right of the keyboard, eliminating the hated "you-think-your-hitting-the-A-button-but-hitting-the-Caps Lock-button instead".
I also like how each different city had different barriers, some more easily destroyable which I really had fun with, it really gave me a sense of emergency of trying to eliminate the zombies as fast as I can and I love the new traps (land mines, bear traps, gas cylinders), they really come through in a pinch when you need them.
Another thing they eliminated was the monotonous repetitiveness of the previous game. In the first one, you could easily tear through the zombie hoard once you get enough powerful weapons and survivors where they are no longer a threat, this time around you can only have four survivors which you think would be enough but you also have to assign their weapons (a nice touch I might add).
Not only are there limited survivors make it a bit harder, but now the zombies are coming at you with weapons, which wouldn't be that bad, but this time around you can have a truck load of "runners" (not including the rottweilers) coming at you with weapons and they can easily kill your survivors with ease, making things much much harder to boot.
The game still has the dark & creepy feeling to it with the creepy music and the sound of the zombies coughing up blood when you put a bullet in their head gives me shivers (both good and creepy). Needless to say, this game really ups the ante.
The Bad
Well, there are still some problems with it, one of which I touched in my review of the first game is the inability to customize your character or make your own zombie. It would have been nice, but it doesn't hurt the experience at all.
Sadly, one thing that really stuck out to me is the same sounds are used over, which isn't bad, there has been some new ones like the sounds of explosions, the bear traps snapping shut, but it would be nice to hear some screaming when a survivor gets hacked with a hatchet. It also would have been nice to hear some voices somewhere in it, but once again, nothing to hurt the experience.
Well, even though I liked the difficulty, there are times where I curse it, not because it's too hard, just very frustrating. This game will throw a lot at you at once. I've even had six runners all armed at once head towards me and just rip through my survivors like they were nothing and still continue to hack away at the barrier as I uselessly unload a round of AK-47 fire into them. Somehow I actually escaped that even though they ripped down my barrier, luckily it was down to the last few.
It's something that a person that doesn't like the fact that a lot of things are thrown at them at once will like, hell, even the first stage I've had three runners and two dogs come at me and I only had a 9MM. I've played it so much it doesn't bother me, but a first time person that's easily frustrated may be turned off by it.
The Bottom Line
In the end and all the little quibbles pushed aside, The Last Stand 2 is one of those games where you will be hooked on it the first time out and will occasionally bring it up on a boring day. But if you've never played the first one yet, play that one first to get acquainted with the series, this one will challenge you at every turn.
Hopefully Chris Condon will come out with a third one somewhere down the line, though he has done another game as of late called Warfare 1917 which I will get to another time, but for now, this game will do fine. Like the tag line says "One helluva sequel!"
