As something of a horror film fanatic, I can tell you that it’s an unfortunately regular occurrence for a truly exceptional flick in the genre to receive a flat, ineffective sequel that fails to capture any of, or even understand, its predecessor’s magic. Candyman had Farewell to the Flesh (plus its other two sequels). A Nightmare on Elm Street had Freddy’s Revenge. Heck, even Silent Hill’s own cinematic adaptation had Revelation 3D! Despite inexplicably featuring an entirely different subtitle this is the follow-up to the surprisingly solid Orphan, and it sadly suffers from many of the same problems as its fellow disappointments listed above.
Mobile 2 is the second chapter in a trilogy supposedly telling one complete story. This middle entry however follows a pair of new protagonists and largely does its own separate thing. There are a few details connecting this back to Orphan like the occasional reference or one of its characters returning in an oddly somewhat villainous role, but for whatever reason it does not pick up from where the first title’s compelling cliffhanger ending left off at all which only serves to confuse. It’s also just hard to decipher what’s going on here in general thanks to the poor writing. The plotting is a mess of vague, cryptic conversations painfully lacking in the information you seek. Honestly, I got more out of a random interpretation I stumbled across in a wiki while doing some research for this review than I did any of the dialogue, that if correct would imply the devs engaged in a little creative environmental storytelling with the stuff littering the backgrounds. Given the source though, it’s impossible to tell if it’s only a fan theory or not, and even if it does provide an accurate what for that portion of the events it’s still missing the very crucial why.
Normally, I tend to frown upon those who criticize games solely for their narrative shortcomings and ignore every other aspect they get right. I guess that makes me a bit of a hypocrite now because that’s exactly what I’m doing here as it’s hard to fault the actual gameplay much. Sure, it tries to simulate 3D movement by giving you the option to rotate a full 360 degrees on the spot and combat has you chasing rapidly moving weak points on enemies with your reticle, both of which can be disorienting and take some getting used to when it would have made more sense to leave things as they were, but the puzzles are satisfyingly more complex, occasionally require out of the box thinking in order to figure out the inventive new methods of solving them, and had me believing I was terribly clever at points for completing. I feel like my disdain is justified however. Considering the overall short length and extremely limited replayability, the biggest reason fans would have to check something of this nature out would be to see what it adds to the franchise’s lore and mythos. So when it fails to bring anything worthwhile to the table its value decreases immensely.
If Orphan was that underappreciated horror movie that wasn’t able to find an audience outside of a small cult following, then Mobile 2 is its straight-to-DVD successor that’s so far removed from the original you have to wonder why it shares the same name at all. Rather than addressing or further exploring the mysteries of its precursor, it only serves to leave you with even more questions. Perhaps the third and final release in this trio of cellphone spin-offs will tie these seemingly disparate prior threads together into a coherent and fulfilling conclusion. Yet, with the amount of complications introduced here that’s a tall order.
5/10
Mobile 2 is the second chapter in a trilogy supposedly telling one complete story. This middle entry however follows a pair of new protagonists and largely does its own separate thing. There are a few details connecting this back to Orphan like the occasional reference or one of its characters returning in an oddly somewhat villainous role, but for whatever reason it does not pick up from where the first title’s compelling cliffhanger ending left off at all which only serves to confuse. It’s also just hard to decipher what’s going on here in general thanks to the poor writing. The plotting is a mess of vague, cryptic conversations painfully lacking in the information you seek. Honestly, I got more out of a random interpretation I stumbled across in a wiki while doing some research for this review than I did any of the dialogue, that if correct would imply the devs engaged in a little creative environmental storytelling with the stuff littering the backgrounds. Given the source though, it’s impossible to tell if it’s only a fan theory or not, and even if it does provide an accurate what for that portion of the events it’s still missing the very crucial why.
Normally, I tend to frown upon those who criticize games solely for their narrative shortcomings and ignore every other aspect they get right. I guess that makes me a bit of a hypocrite now because that’s exactly what I’m doing here as it’s hard to fault the actual gameplay much. Sure, it tries to simulate 3D movement by giving you the option to rotate a full 360 degrees on the spot and combat has you chasing rapidly moving weak points on enemies with your reticle, both of which can be disorienting and take some getting used to when it would have made more sense to leave things as they were, but the puzzles are satisfyingly more complex, occasionally require out of the box thinking in order to figure out the inventive new methods of solving them, and had me believing I was terribly clever at points for completing. I feel like my disdain is justified however. Considering the overall short length and extremely limited replayability, the biggest reason fans would have to check something of this nature out would be to see what it adds to the franchise’s lore and mythos. So when it fails to bring anything worthwhile to the table its value decreases immensely.
If Orphan was that underappreciated horror movie that wasn’t able to find an audience outside of a small cult following, then Mobile 2 is its straight-to-DVD successor that’s so far removed from the original you have to wonder why it shares the same name at all. Rather than addressing or further exploring the mysteries of its precursor, it only serves to leave you with even more questions. Perhaps the third and final release in this trio of cellphone spin-offs will tie these seemingly disparate prior threads together into a coherent and fulfilling conclusion. Yet, with the amount of complications introduced here that’s a tall order.
5/10