This game is riddled with soap opera dialogue.
Those of you who read my review of the original Gateway (and if you didn’t, you can catch up here) know that I had a few complaints. I was mainly dissatisfied that the game seemed to be heading somewhere, but never really took us there. It was like a buildup to absolutely nothing — anticlimactic at best.
But Gateway II offers quite a bit more than its predecessor. It takes the original concept (which was actually pretty cool) and varies it, and then throws a plot on top of it. And to make things even more complex, there is a heap of character development. In the first game, you pretty much felt like some sort of creeper watching a bunch of robot-creatures doing boring things. In Part 2, you watch video footage of these creatures, which is admittedly still creepy, only this time they are in the middle of a mysterious conflict.
This is getting messed up...
Yeah, there is a whole slew of soap opera style dialogue, but it’s properly placed amongst a creepy soundtrack and an enigmatic storyline. In fact, you might just find yourself a little weirded out by some of the things that go on.
Because things happen in Gateway II. Things you won’t always expect. The kinds of things you wanted to see in Gateway I but you never did. And you get to know these robot-people. You even get to delve right into the psyche of one of them, helping her untangle the emotional mess she’s been left with over the course of her life.
The puzzles are even more creative than they were in the first installment. There are eerie, foreboding clues and brain challenges that almost stand up to the original Myst. Yeah, that clever! And that’s not a compliment I would ever dish out lightly. (Don’t believe me? Wait til you see the telephone puzzles. The second set of telephone puzzles. Those are pure puzzle-making genius!)
Bottom line: we need there to be a Gateway III. I’m dying to find out what happened to Mike (the blue guy in the first screenshot). You hear me, Cockraoch Inc.? Gateway III, pronto!
This does not look good...
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A mind-bending puzzler with an unusually deep plot and a lot of character development. | ||||
Game: Gateway II | Developer: Cockraoch Inc.