Buggy Run 2

As I've written before, I'm a big fan of "tilty" games - 2D titles that have you drive a vehicle across a bumpy terrain as quickly as possible, doing your best to keep your balance throughout. It's a simple concept, and maybe that's why I enjoy them so much; in order to screw up a tilty game, you need to be really dense.

Enter Buggy Run 2: Operation Blizzard. This is an "exclusive" to Flash247.com, and it's not hard to see why. God knows I'd be embarrassed to put this on my site (unless, of course, it was only to say how crap it was, which I am, so that's all right.)



Apparently the creator of Buggy Run 2 thought the game needed more of a plot than "Drive over there" so we're granted a story of espionage, intrigue and dropping small thermonuclear devices out of your car before driving away very quickly. All right, so it's not Final Fantasy, but then what is? And besides, isn't a story sort of superfluous to a game like this? People don't play tilty games for the exciting cut scenes; they play them because they're cheap and cheerful time wasters.



But then, Buggy Run 2 might be compensating for something, as it's neither cheap nor cheerful, and while most games of this type allow you to drive, this one feels you'd have a lot more fun if your vehicle spent most of its time lying on its roof with its wheels spinning in the air like some metal tortoise. I can't tell if the controls are too sensitive or not enough, as I never really got a chance to check, usually flipping head over arse if I bumped into anything more than three inches high. Of course, you have the ability to jump and right yourself, which comes in handy, but not if you use it at the wrong place or at the wrong time. I actually managed to flip 360 degrees three times in a row before my buggy finally exploded.



To help you get through the levels there are power-ups scattered throughout. These floating wrenches will replenish some of your health. And that's certainly a good thing, because they're usually preceded by a big red mine that you can't avoid, no matter what you do. Oh, and the mines are pretty much everywhere.



When you're not trying to avoid running over mines, you're trying to avoid getting blown up by Apache helicopters dropping bombs. As is often the case, they'll show up just as you're stuck between two tanks and can't escape.

Why the hell am I driving over tanks, anyway? How can my buggy charge over nuclear warheads (curiously half buried in the snow, as if people had forgotten they were there)? Wouldn't it make more sense to drive around these things?

That's one of the elements of tilty games that I've never been able to figure out - why throw other vehicles in the way when bridges, holes and bumps in the road do just fine? Unless I'm driving a monster truck, how much sense do these obstacles make?



Anyway, back from that aside and into Buggy Run 2, which clearly doesn't like me, as the developer saw fit to place a bloody mine at the very start of level four. So I've been playing for precisely two seconds when I lose a third of my health - gee, thanks.

To get through these levels requires reflexes far surpassing that of the average human being. Or you can go slowly over the terrain, which kind of defeats the purpose. So, because I'm a stubborn son of a bitch I endeavoured to do my very best and get through the game as quickly as possible.



And the results, as you can see, speak for themselves. If you play Buggy Run 2, expect to blow up. A lot. You have infinite lives, so you get to endure the frustration of crashing on the same spot again and again and again without the benefit of a Quit button. Yes, there's a "Stop" button, but that just pauses the game. Fool - you can't stop Buggy Run 2 from ruining your coffee break!