The only other sequel to the 1997 PlayStation/Nintendo 64/PC game Fighting Force, this game is set in a cyberpunk future of 2009-2010 where the world is ruled by powerful corporations. Not only that, human cloning is possible but has been banned by an international treaty. As one of the first game‘s protagonists, Hawk Manson, you are sent in by SI-COPS to destroy the Knackmiche Corporation, which has been suspected of developing a bio-weapon based on human DNA. What's wrong with this game, you ask? I still find it acceptably decent nonetheless. Unlike the first game, which is far more silly and humorous by comparison, this one takes itself way too seriously, possibly due to the storyline. In fact it has barely anything to do with the first game other than a recurring character, Hawk himself. Dr. Zheng, the first game‘s villain, was only mentioned in passing. The game had some good ideas but are poorly executed. The gameplay is boring and repetitive which involves fighting the same enemy types over and over again until one of them drops a keycard. Combined with the sluggish movement controls, absurd camera placement, and even a tedious and stiff first-person shooter mode which can be toggled if you use a gun, and all this is the exact result. The graphics seem blocky. While this is somewhat tolerable in the PlayStation, it‘s downright outdated by Dreamcast standards, although the graphics were improved in the Dreamcast version, but still, that isn't any exception. The soundtrack is even lackluster. It is longer than the first game, lasting 5 hours; however, the levels are overly long by beat ‘em up standards, and checkpoints are extremely scarce; if you die, you go back to the beginning of a level unless you find one, and you can only save whenever you beat a level. One of the levels, which involves fighting mutants and zombies, doesn‘t really make much sense in the game‘s storyline. It should also be pointed out that speaking of those and the other enemies, the enemy AI is braindead. Oftentimes they fail to see you even if you‘re right in front of them, or noticing a live grenade getting thrown next to them. In addition, the boss battles are disappointingly easy; in fact most of the levels have no bosses. The item placement is absurdly nonsensical; for instance, while it makes sense you can heal yourself with whatever is in the vending machines, you can find guns, knives, and grenades in computer monitors, chairs, and security cameras for some reason. Also, practically every object in the game (including wooden boxes and chairs) explodes when attacked. There's no cooperative multiplayer support, as the back cover says, "You're all alone. Live with the pressure." Instead, we have a scoring system which is pointless due to a lack of high score rankings. Simply nothing more than a disappointment from the first game, according to most critics, but I still agree with others that it's acceptable. Another sequel was in development for the PlayStation 2, GameCube & Xbox, but it was cancelled, and it killed the franchise, leaving it short-lived and somewhat obscure.
