The Collider 2 (PC) Review

By Athanasios 21.04.2016

Review for The Collider 2 on PC

The Collider 2 is a somewhat weird choice for a name, when its gameplay revolves around flying a small spaceship inside the bowels of an alien mothership to destroy it from within. Notice the '2' in the title, though, because this is the sequel to Polish developer Shortbreak Studios' The Collider, where players had to fly at breakneck speeds inside a Large Hadron Collider, and try to avoid crushing as long as possible; simple and entertaining, yet, in the end, forgettable. Can the same be said about the game at hand when it actually upgrades the original recipe?

An alien warship is looming over earth, and a small starfighter is all that stands between it and total annihilation, but don't expect any story mode, cut-scenes or whatever… which is a good thing because precious resources would be wasted, when this is, for all intents and purposes, nothing more than a pure arcade endless runner of sorts, like the magnificent Race the Sun (which Cubed3 reviewed both for PC and Wii U) - only it's even faster than that, which is certainly an impressive thing to say about it. Despite being rendered with the Unreal Engine 4, the visuals aren't impressive, but just… there. Is that a problem? Not really, because there won't exactly be any time to admire the scenery while flying inside the trap-filled, narrow tunnels of the alien ship at Mach… err, a lot!

Screenshot for The Collider 2 on PC

The only thing that matters is being able to discern what's up ahead in the few milliseconds that it will be in view, and, fortunately, the graphics will never lead to any cheap deaths, and the same can be said about the perfect controls. Just note that the mouse is considerably better than the analogue stick or the D-pad. One of the two modes available is the Mission mode, which is a series of 54 levels, divided in six sectors; with each sector twisting the knife even deeper in terms of difficulty.

Missions range between Scouting, which requires flying through all obstacles as fast as possible; Infiltration, where a bunch of floating artefacts must be collected; and Sabotage, where the starfighter will have to shoot down some enemies - enemies that don't pose any threat - not to mention that the shooting is automatic, since all it takes to do so is aligning the crosshair with them. Finally, each sector's finale introduces a boss battle, which requires shooting the core of a small drone, and avoiding its attacks - with each subsequent boss being a slightly more aggressive variation of the previous one.

Screenshot for The Collider 2 on PC

Of course, the core of the gameplay is flying as fast as possible, while trying not to crush on trapdoors, lasers, rotating metal plates, and many more. All missions are pleasantly tiny, with most taking about 30 seconds to complete, and it's a joy to perfect each run in order to collect all three medals for each stage (something that will need much effort in the sixth sector), and thus, collect more money - which leads to The Collider 2's first big flaw.

The Mission mode is just a time-stretcher; a place to waste time, while learning the basics, and getting money to upgrade power-ups or buy new jets, before eventually going to Survival. In other words, missions will become obsolete in a matter of days, and, even worse, some of the updates will do so, too. Why? Because once one buys the best spaceship there is, there won't be any reason to use another one. Despite all this, the thrill of supersonic speeds and sense of achievement that the Survival mode is capable of providing is simply fantastic - and a perfect chance to plug in those HTC Vine and Oculus Rift VR headsets.

Screenshot for The Collider 2 on PC

The great thing about this is that it's no grind-to-win. Money can be used here to get some minor benefits (double coins, or add more power-ups), but this is truly a game of skill. The best example is the boost button, which makes things even faster, but also increases the score multiplier, creating a nice risk/reward situation, requiring knowing when to use it, when to stop, and, most importantly, when the spaceship will blow up due to overheat - and, since the controls are so good, you will always get a bit better with each playthrough.

Sadly, besides some bugs (which, fortunately, can only be found in menus), The Collider 2's main problem is that there's not much to do here. There's basically only one mode, which, while fun, can get very repetitive, there aren't enough power-ups, and, finally, there aren't even enough traps, which means skilled players will get to see the same few hazards over and over again (and while hearing the same freaking overly pompous Star Wars-esque theme).

Screenshot for The Collider 2 on PC

Cubed3 Rating

6/10
Rated 6 out of 10

Good

The Collider 2 is, undoubtedly, superior to its predecessor in all ways, yet those willing to get it should know what it is, and what it isn't. It's a super-fast, reflex-based endless runner that is as simple as it is enjoyable, as well as easy to learn, hard to master, and even harder to stop going back to the fray for "one more try," and yet, it's also disappointingly low in content (even for an indie title), something that severely hurts the replay value, no matter how fun playing this can be at times.

Developer

Shortbreak

Publisher

Shortbreak

Genre

Driving

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  6/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

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