The second game feels very much like an attempt to fix the mistakes of the first one. Quite literally, in fact: it takes place in the same locations and reuses many of the same characters and assets. That inevitably makes it feel derivative, but it also seems to have freed the developers to focus on all the little things that used to be so irritating. The question is whether those fixes were enough.
The foundation is unchanged: this is still a linear isometric RPG with real-time combat and tactical pause. There is a new "Story" mode that effectively removes the need to develop your characters by giving them high stats from the start. I did not play in this mode, so I cannot judge its balance, but judging by other players' comments, it makes the early game much easier.
The linearity is less intrusive this time. In the first game, every new squad member was followed by a mandatory series of missions on the world map, while genuinely major choices were few and far between. The sequel has fewer large branching moments, but many individual quests allow at least some variation. Traveling across the world map is more interesting as well: battles are now something you usually choose to enter, maps and enemies are generated dynamically, and caravans travel between settlements for you to either rob or protect. There are still bugs, of course. Sometimes a loot chest is generated in a spot where it is physically impossible to open. It is rare, but still annoying.
The developers clearly tried to address the most irritating problems from the first game. Friendly fire within the squad can now simply be disabled. It is not an elegant solution - I would have preferred a proper system for positioning and combat behavior - but it is hard to argue with the result: fights are much less frustrating. It also seemed to me that the AI sometimes tries to reposition itself to avoid shooting through allies. Corpse pixel hunting was solved just as directly: while looting, you can now switch between bodies with the arrow buttons. Pathfinding is still just as bad, but NPCs at least no longer spend so much time blocking doorways. In other words, the underlying system was not really fixed, but its worst consequences were reduced.
The economy and weapon balance were reworked. For example, "Atas" and "Uragan" now have a much more sensible hierarchy than in the first game. The classic skill system was heavily redesigned as well. I will not go into every detail, but much of it is more logical and convenient now. This also made room for rechargeable active abilities, such as a sniper shot with a guaranteed critical hit. Healing was changed too: health is no longer restored instantly, but regenerates over time, so you have to be more careful during combat. There is also a new system for collecting unique parts that NPCs can turn into special weapons and armor, while your own characters can now modify equipment in addition to repairing it. Small changes, but together they make the game much more pleasant to play.
The squad structure is different too. There is now only one true protagonist, while everyone else is essentially a mercenary. They matter to the story mostly at the beginning of their personal quest lines, and after that it is largely up to you whether you want to keep them around.
The story continues directly from the first game, but the protagonist is very different. You play as Hartman, who was constantly mentioned in the original and believed to be dead. It turns out he had been held prisoner all along by a faction that barely appeared in the first game. Compared with the previous protagonists, Hartman is much smarter, more charismatic and more human. The marines from the first game were mostly stupid bastards for whom violence was the universal solution to almost everything. Hartman is capable of pity, mercy and even moments of genuine emotion, which would have been difficult to imagine from those characters.
This reflects a broader improvement in the writing. The first game almost never gave the player a choice and usually forced violence as the only solution. Here you can sometimes spare people, and some situations allow for a more humane outcome. The writing in general is smarter and subtler, and the amount of pure ugliness has been reduced to something close to tolerable. If the writers are the same, the improvement is obvious. That does not mean the excesses are gone. [spoiler]For example, I still have no idea what is supposed to be funny about a quest where you can hand Marta over to Academician so he can paralyze and rape her until rats eventually eat her.[/spoiler] This is exactly the kind of moment where the writers once again confuse provocation with humor.
The plot itself is very uneven. I liked the opening in the City of Policemen, and I also liked the Aryan quest line culminating in the assault on the Industrial Zone. The middle, however, sags badly. An investigation suddenly turns into mysticism or pseudo-mysticism, then the protagonist ends up in an asylum, then the antagonist finds him and the actual plot starts moving again. I never felt there was a convincing transition between these sections, so the whole episode feels artificially inserted. There is also a strange continuity issue from the first game. Hartman's wife, Warrant Officer Margaritka, was on the same planet, yet he never once asks what happened to her. I can believe he does not care much about Kaban and his group, but completely ignoring his own wife makes it feel as if the writers simply forgot she existed.
The ending raises another problem, this time less about plot construction and more about the story's morality. [spoiler]The implication seems to be that if the state betrays one of its own people, the proper response is to accept it and die rather than try to survive. Meanwhile even the Aryans do not abandon their own agent, the black man Shtyr, while the Empire ends up treating its people worse than the Reich does.[/spoiler]
I do not object to the idea that the interests of the state can sometimes take priority over those of an individual. But that idea only works if the state accepts responsibility for those individuals in return. Here the Empire is shown as something close to an embodiment of evil: it uses, maims and abandons its own citizens, yet faces no punishment and there is not even much suggestion that anything will ever change. So the broader moral still feels muddled to me.
The music is better too. Old themes were rearranged and brought up to at least an acceptable level.
In the end, Planet Alcatraz 2 really does fix a lot. It is derivative because it reuses the same places and many of the same characters, but almost every major gameplay system is more convenient, many of the most irritating mechanics were either fixed or worked around, and the writing is noticeably more intelligent and humane. There is more moral choice, less forced violence, better dialogue, and even better music.
It still was not enough for a positive review from me. The middle of the story is poorly connected to the rest of the plot, some episodes still fall back into ugliness for its own sake, and the broader moral remains questionable. This is clearly a better game than the first one, and the developers' progress is obvious. Even though the sequel improves on the first game in almost every respect, those improvements were still not enough for me to recommend it.
