Party Hard 2

Review

You have been in hiding for the past decade. Police departments everywhere have been trying to catch you at each venue you attend, without success. They’ve tagged you as the Party Hard Killer, as you were more than happy to ruin every single party you went to. Now the stakes are higher than ever, as you re-surface and go after your ex-pharmaceutical boss. The Party Hard killer is back, and this time they will pay very hard!

Party Hard 2 is a pixel/action/stealth game, developed by Pinokle Games and published by tinyBuild, where you play a psychopath killer who runs parties down.

In this sequel, Darius (the party killer), will be attending 12 different parties, from intimate to large, and two boss fights. There are two modes of play in this game, which are the Story and Local Coop, where you and a friend can brainstorm how to eliminate your next party-goer, which is really fun! This mode can be a bit stressful due to the fact that you will finally find out who is the brain and who is . . . well, let’s say the follower!

The story mode, on the other hand, only involves your bad self, and there are only two levels of difficulty to choose from, medium and hard.  There is the option to play as the real party killer or the wannabe, which has extra health and stamina. There are an additional two characters, but they have to be unlocked as you progress through the game.

Before each of the events, you’ll be treated with cut scenes, which tell the story and explain why you need to attend each of the parties. Then you’ll be given a few specific objectives, including hidden ones, which you have to find by yourself or eliminate all the people within the party to win the stage.

As your reputation preceeds you, you’ll only have a knife at your disposal at the start of each level. From here it is all up to you to discover within each of the venues how to eliminate partygoers. Bear in mind that you can only hold four different items or weapons at any given time. As the party killer, you’ll have to wander around and discover which objects, substances and vehicles you can use to achieve your darkest score! It won’t be easy, and if you played the previous game, just like I did, you might find this game slightly more difficult.

To help you achieve your goal, Darius will have a couple of interesting abilities up his sleeve. The multi-kill ability will kill all enemies, which are highlighted inside a red circle that surrounds Darius (he is in the centre of the circle). This is great when he needs to defend himself from incoming hoods, or can be used against a guard that is standing on one side of a corner while Darius is on the other side. He will be able to eliminate the guard without being seen (well, hopefully). However, you can only use this skill once per level, so make good use of it. The other ability is the instinct vision. This ability will highlight enemies and items you can interact with throughout the level for about five seconds. Fortunately for Darius, this ability will recharge itself and can therefore be re-used more than once per party. Darius will be able to craft terrifying weapons if he holds the correct objects. For example, a can of oil and booze will create a Molotov cocktail - absolutely marvellous for cooking any type of shrimp on a barbie!   

The trick is to be able to eliminate more than one partygoer at a time. How are you going to get your best kill streak? Personally, I like to transform people into bright Xmas trees! A simple method really, but extremely effective. All you have to do is to use water as a conductor. Spill water from any device (a large one if you can) and a zigzag pattern. Then break the device - it will probably start sparks, and voila, a chain of Xmas trees will appear before you! Just make sure not to step on the paddle or you’ll become one of them. Not funny, I did that more than once! (that’s why I don’t want to play local COOP!)

The re-playability is pretty high for this game, as you can play with a friend in the CCOP mode, and each time you replay the same stage (and you will), the levels are semi-randomly regenerated, which is great.

Great Pixel artwork. Guys, I am not a duff duff type of music person. Personally, I’d rather listen to Acid Jazz, but the soundtrack is just marvellous.  Plenty of options, and you can use a keyboard or gamepad. It can become a bit frustrating at times. Apart from that, it’s a great game!