"You freaking sorry Mall Cops!" - Horizon Chief Tech Officer

This game is a love letter to the lost decade of shooters in the 2000's, with scribbled hearts all around the corners. Taking inspiration from titles such as Crysis, F.E.A.R., and even Half-Life 2 source mods (SMod Redux), Trepang2 steps into the light then hands you an expertly designed game, daring you not to have fun with it.

Trepang2 presents a tight gameplay loop for a shooter; with active cloaking, "hyperfocus" abilities that slow down time, and super dashes that recharge on kill, you are a super-soldier capable of turning legions of highly trained black ops agents into fine paste with little downtime. Well, as long as you can land your shots, that is.

If you miss or choke up on your movement, you'll run out of resources and be quickly rendered into super swiss cheese instead. The higher the difficulty setting, the more it will demand that its mechanics are mastered and its AI respected; enemies will not blindly run into a room if they know you're there and will employ suppression to keep you from peeking. The diverse combat strategy from opponents (depending on their mall cop rank) demands that you manage your cloaking abilities in order to circumvent being pinned down, and to buy breathing room when your weapons are empty. You can also make human shields with stealth, and turn enemies into living grenades when grappling them from behind.

Levels are classically linear and sometimes present "gauntlet" events that force you to kill enemies to proceed. They're diverse in theme, and have secrets and weapon unlocks hidden away. It has a special ending for those that can spot all secrets. Checkpoints and pickups for health/armor are expertly placed, and depending on the difficulty it's paramount to preserve ammo/armor/health. You unlock more weapons and funny gadgets as you complete main and side levels.

There are also many challenge modes and a sandbox. Replayability lies in completing the harder difficulty modes, unlocking challenge skins for your weapons and character, and collecting the hidden lore in levels.

Trepang2 looks crisp, even if a little dated, and favors closed environments with lots of shades. It's well optimized, and has a plethora of UI/Video options. The design of the weapons vary from bog standard Flashbangs and SMGs to insane items such as a pocket Vortex, a Rat Grenade or a Minigun with Bayonets (plural) attached to its barrels.

The worldbuilding for Trepang2 borrows a lot from the contemporary SCP Foundation lore, which gives it a balance between creepy to humorous at times. The soldiers you fight against have excellent voice acting that match their roles and rank, and a lot of eavesdrop dialogue is included as they attempt to take you on. This definitely helps paint the picture that indeed you're a fearsome foe. Depending on the difficulty, you also have special mercenary minibosses with their own lore that spawn to kill you (although they end up shredded just as easily as the rest, so it's mostly flavor).

Sometimes the levels end up looking too dark, with the flashlight not being very helpful, which is a difficult thing to balance due to monitor differences. Simply turning up the gamma the moment you feel enemies are just blending with the background helped me.

Of course, it also has some jumpscares. They are very few and far between as well as insanely telegraphed. I can only wonder how effective they actually are if you're not used to them.

Trepang2 is straight up built to be fun; a must-have work of love. It is accessible to all skills levels, possesses well crafted challenges, an engaging story to keep up with, and an art direction that wraps it all together.

If you're a fan of FPS and cheesy atmospheres, break the cycle and check out the free demo on the storepage.

[i]"You freaking sorry Mall Cops!"[/i] - Horizon Chief Tech Officer This game is a love letter to the lost decade of shooters in the 2000's, with scribbled hearts all around the corners. Taking inspiration from titles such as Crysis, F.E.A.R., and even Half-Life 2 source mods (SMod Redux), Trepang2 steps into the light then hands you an expertly designed game, daring you not to have fun with it. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] Trepang2 presents a tight gameplay loop for a shooter; with active cloaking, "hyperfocus" abilities that slow down time, and super dashes that recharge on kill, you are a super-soldier capable of turning legions of highly trained black ops agents into fine paste with little downtime. Well, as long as you can land your shots, that is. If you miss or choke up on your movement, you'll run out of resources and be quickly rendered into super swiss cheese instead. The higher the difficulty setting, the more it will demand that its mechanics are mastered and its AI respected; enemies will not blindly run into a room if they know you're there and will employ suppression to keep you from peeking. The diverse combat strategy from opponents (depending on their mall cop rank) demands that you manage your cloaking abilities in order to circumvent being pinned down, and to buy breathing room when your weapons are empty. You can also make human shields with stealth, and turn enemies into living grenades when grappling them from behind. Levels are classically linear and sometimes present "gauntlet" events that force you to kill enemies to proceed. They're diverse in theme, and have secrets and weapon unlocks hidden away. It has a special ending for those that can spot all secrets. Checkpoints and pickups for health/armor are expertly placed, and depending on the difficulty it's paramount to preserve ammo/armor/health. You unlock more weapons and funny gadgets as you complete main and side levels. There are also many challenge modes and a sandbox. Replayability lies in completing the harder difficulty modes, unlocking challenge skins for your weapons and character, and collecting the hidden lore in levels. [h2]Art Direction[/h2] Trepang2 looks crisp, even if a little dated, and favors closed environments with lots of shades. It's well optimized, and has a plethora of UI/Video options. The design of the weapons vary from bog standard Flashbangs and SMGs to insane items such as a pocket Vortex, a Rat Grenade or a Minigun with Bayonets (plural) attached to its barrels. The worldbuilding for Trepang2 borrows a lot from the contemporary SCP Foundation lore, which gives it a balance between creepy to humorous at times. The soldiers you fight against have excellent voice acting that match their roles and rank, and a lot of eavesdrop dialogue is included as they attempt to take you on. This definitely helps paint the picture that indeed you're a fearsome foe. Depending on the difficulty, you also have special mercenary minibosses with their own lore that spawn to kill you (although they end up shredded just as easily as the rest, so it's mostly flavor). Sometimes the levels end up looking too dark, with the flashlight not being very helpful, which is a difficult thing to balance due to monitor differences. Simply turning up the gamma the moment you feel enemies are just blending with the background helped me. Of course, it also has some jumpscares. They are very few and far between as well as insanely telegraphed. I can only wonder how effective they actually are if you're not used to them. [h2]Conclusion[/h2] Trepang2 is straight up built to be fun; a must-have work of love. It is accessible to all skills levels, possesses well crafted challenges, an engaging story to keep up with, and an art direction that wraps it all together. If you're a fan of FPS and cheesy atmospheres, break the cycle and check out [url=https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/1164940/Trepang2/]the free demo on the storepage[/url].