Enter the hospital
Endless Nightmare 2: Hospital, which is available on Google Play, is a game that will surely grab the attention of any Resident Evil fanatic. The game begins with a dream sequence in which the player futilely attempts to outrun a gruesome monster. You then wake up and start your journey through the claustrophobia inducing hospital. Find weapons, kill enemies, and solve puzzles to survive your journey. However, does the gameplay keep the player enticed throughout the entire game?
Punishing Yet Rewarding
Endless Nightmare: Hospital sticks to the tried-and-true method of the survival horror genre. Little ammo is available to the player, so they must sneak around and assassinate their enemies since going in gun blazing is sure to end badly. This means the player must think through their actions. Sneaking around the map to the bare background sounds of leaky pipes and your own footsteps is sure to make your heart race. Overall, the gunplay doesn’t feel too clunky and the mix between slow and fast paced enemies really challenges your aiming skills. That said, some guns have unrealistic recoils that make them almost unusable. This, though, is a minor setback for a game that properly captures the stealth and gunplay of the genre.
Sadly, the puzzles in Endless Nightmare 2: Hospital, if you can even call them that, are poorly executed. Many of the obstacles players face in game have simple one step solutions. Keycards, Standard keys, and codes are the game’s bread and butter. Now, running into enemies along the way can keep the tension up, but fetching the 20th key to open a similar looking door certainly does extract from the enjoyment the game provides. Another issue is enemies walking through obstacles that hinder the character’s ability to continue down a corridor. For example, I needed to get an insulted object to move a live wire out of the puddle of water, but the enemy walked through that puddle without even a little shock. While Endless Nightmare: Hospital is successful in its stealth mechanics the poorly constructed puzzles and nonsensical blockades make it difficult to stay invested.
Paywall substituted for Ad walls
Checkpoints are a standard game mechanic. However, 707 Interactive doesn’t seem to know about them, and it clearly shows throughout this game. Not only does Endless Nightmare 2: Hospital forgo checkpoints mid-level, it also punishes you for dying in the worst ways. First, after every death you must watch an ad. After you regenerate, you’ll find you’ve lost items and only have a quarter of your health left, making death even more likely this time around.
You can also watch an ad when you regen to fully restore your health. That’s two, 30 seconds ads that must be watched if one wants to have a chance at surviving the level.
Need extra ammo? Watch as many Ads as you want, there’s no cap on how much ammo you can get by doing this. Need weapon upgrades? Well unless you watch the ads to multiply how much material you get, you won’t ever afford more than two. Not to mention temporary buffs all require you to watch ads. So, while there is no paywall, know that you will spend just as much time watching ads as you will playing the game.
The True Horror is The Enemy Design
Endless Nightmare 2: Hospital labels itself as a horror game. Well, if that’s the case, then where is the scare factor? Mobile games have always struggled in the horror department, and although we have games with potential to change that narrative, this game certainly does not. The enemies are basic and don’t correlate with one another well. You have men with burlap sacks over their heads, generic nurses, and legless, long-haired women crawling around. The male enemies are no threat at all, usually facing a wall so the player can stealth kill them quickly. Even if they do spot you, a single shot to the head will do the trick. The nurses are more difficult as a stealth attack kills them. Nurses require three to four shots to be brought down. The legless woman can’t take punishment like the nurse but moves at a much faster pace than any other enemy. None of these enemies’ strike fear into the player in terms of difficulty nor design. In fact, the first time one sees the legless woman attack the characters it’s more comical than scary.
Solid gameplay, mechanics, an area that keeps the player boxed in, and a solid soundtrack to build suspense, all make the game a well created effort. With small tweaks that increase the variety of enemies and cut back on the ads, we could see a successful series for fans of this genre.
