izigame.me

Have you ever seen an epic screenshot from Space Engine and wished there was a game where that was your setting? Red Matter 2 is that game—but only for a few minutes. You spend 99% of the time underground, wandering through copy-paste corridors, rarely glimpsing a vista or dramatic skybox. Talk about a missed opportunity.

Red Matter 2 is a story-centric, atmospheric, puzzle-based sci-fi game with some combat elements. If this sounds like the kind of game you’ve been begging for ever since Oculus was still Oculus and not Meta, then you’re in good company. But hold up a second. RM2 is that kind of game—but is it good? I guess that depends on your standards. I spent most of my time being bored.

For starters, the game completely wastes its setting. There’s no real reason for it to be sci-fi. It could be set in any time period—past, present, or future. The only game mechanics justified by a sci-fi explanation are the jetpack and slow fall speed.

Next, most of the puzzles are obscenely easy and feel like time-wasters. That’s a shame because there are two puzzles that I thought were novel in their premise and mechanics—but even they boiled down to “press a single button to proceed.” The final puzzle had me raging because the devs suddenly introduced misdirection (for the first time in the game), calling attention to art when, in fact, it was a toy that needed closer inspection. Toys are not art. Don’t be jerks.

The story of RM2 further demonstrates how it misunderstands its strengths. The writers seem to think players are interested in Red Matter itself. We aren’t. Red Matter is like the Force in that it does whatever the writers want it to do, lacking coherent logic. Everything about it is something we’ve seen before in better stories. Where the game did have me interested was in its central chase. You spend the game pursuing a particular person with whom you have a personal connection, and he is chasing someone else to whom you both have a connection. Never minding that the guy you’re chasing seems unbothered by all the obstacles hindering your progress, I found the motivation to catch up to him compelling enough. And to the game’s credit, it never forgot to dangle a carrot every so often to keep the player going. That is, until the end. The resolution of the chase shall go down in gaming history as one of the most unfulfilling. Nothing is resolved for anyone.

The voice acting and writing aren’t bad. The music is pretty great, and the sound effects are appropriate.

The combat, however, is terrible. For starters, the gun sights don’t line up with the trajectory of your shots. In addition, the gun jerks to another position when you transition from stationary to moving. There’s very little feedback indicating whether your shots are harming enemies. There’s also very little feedback when you’re being shot (though, to be fair, there is feedback for your health status). On the plus side, the game does provide good feedback to indicate when you’ve been spotted and when combat has begun or ended. Combat generally takes place in logical locations that are telegraphed in advance. However, there’s only one weapon, and honestly, the game would have been better without combat at all.

The level design might be the worst aspect of this game. The layout of nearly everything feels unconvincing and empty. Take, for example, a memorable moment when you ride a tram across the landscape of a frozen moon to a chamber acting as a turntable. It’s an impressive-looking cavity, to be sure—but the control station for turning the tracks is located 100 meters up the walls for no reason whatsoever, and there’s nothing else in the room. The devs just wanted to put you in a high place so you could appreciate the scale of the chamber. Cool—but why would anyone put the button there? Why not place it next to the tracks? Or in the tram itself? Design decisions like this are everywhere, constantly reminding me that I’m in a place that doesn’t exist and wouldn’t exist. Taking the time to make the setting more plausible would have added so much more to the experience.

In summary, RM2 is a game that doesn’t know how to be its best self. I recommend giving it a try if you can grab it for less than $10. I hope the devs continue to refine their craft so they can bless us with the game we all want.