If you're like me, you get sick of games that seem to pull the same old tricks, no matter what genre they fall into. One of the many reasons to love MDK 2 Armageddon is how fresh and inventive it is on every front. Even through rough spots in the first game, people agreed that the creative character design, including Kurt's wild Coil Suit with its sniper mode, made MDK worth checking out. After a big console upgrade to Dreamcast, MDK 2 was looking awesome, and moving to PlayStation 2 sure hasn't hurt anything. Surprisingly, I still noticed slowdown in some places, mostly in the middle of firefights. It's a shame this wasn't ironed out for PS2, but it's a minor glitch compared to all that's good here. The first thing you'll notice is how bright and detailed the backgrounds are. Rayman 2 still has my vote for most eye-candy per screen, but MDK 2 sometimes comes close. It's everything Oni wasn't, proving that spacious settings don't mean a thing if they aren't filled with cool stuff and splashed with color. Weapon effects are cool, and little touches like the screen-in-screen views that appear when you're in sniper mode to show Kurt strafing and also show where the bullet/missile is headed really define what it means to design a great interface. Luckily, BioWare didn't stop at cool features.

The sound is great, mixing up moody electronica and ambient sounds during exploration with thumping techno and guitar-driven rock for battle scenes and boss fights. The sound effects really shine, also. Enemies groan and grunt when you hit them, and each has no less than 2-3 unique associated sounds. This makes it easy to know what's around the corner, and also gives a lot of character to battles. No spoilers from me, but one of the big bosses has this Barry White vibe that never fails to amuse. The whole presentation screams STYLE, and it points out how many games seem to lack just that.

The storyline up to now, including the first game, reads like a tabloid headline. Dr. Hawkins, an eccentric scientist, decides to build a spaceship and split the whole scene on Earth rather than continue to suffer the ridicule of his peers. Taking only Kurt the janitor, Hawkins also decides to build a canine robotic companion. The result is a 6-legged, cigar-smoking canine with a personality like Bruce Willis in a Summer blockbuster. Once happily settled in space, these 3 oddballs end up saving the Earth from an alien menace. When the curtain raises on MDK 2, we find the heroes ready to settle back and relax. But of course, that wouldn't make a very exciting game, so enter a second wave of aliens.

If you're coming to Max, Dr. Hawkins and Kurt's world for the first time, I envy you. There's no question MDK 2 is an action game, but unlike the trend of action games with puzzles no more complex than finding buttons to open doors or collecting key-cards, you'll need to bring your thinking cap to finish this one. Max, with his ability to tote 4 guns at once, is by far the most typical action character here. Hawkins is the complete opposite, with no fighting ability or standard weapons. Where Max is assured of an almost constant supply of Uzis, shotguns and pistols, Hawkins uses items in combination to combat aliens, and handles most of the involved puzzles. Kurt is a mix of the two, using guns and fighting constantly but working out plenty of puzzles. Using a mix of characters isn't a new tactic, but switching from Max to Hawkins is really like playing a different game. Level design changes to suit your abilities, so Kurt ends up solving a number of puzzles that let him use the hovering Coil Suit, as well as plenty of puzzles and enemies that can only be defeated by sniping. Playing as The Doctor almost reminds me of the old text-based adventure games where you'd never do much more than 'get tea, get cup, put tea in cup.' Each major level switches characters, and I found the pacing and size to be just about right. After Max's constant blasting and sometimes-platforming action, it felt nice to solve more puzzles and finesse through battles with Kurt or The Doctor.

MDK 2 requires some ramp-up time to adjust for a control scheme that is anything but typical. Luckily, once you make the adjustment, each character uses consistent controls for basic movement, so you're not stuck memorizing 3 completely different schemes. An auto-save system, not unlike Oni, means never having to manually save. When you run over a checkpoint, it gets added as the latest in a long list of saves you can return to at any time. The best thing about this system is not having to pause for loading or saving, and another nice side effect is being able to go back and visit secret areas you might have missed the first time around. Levels tend to be fairly linear, without the kind of exploration you'd expect from Tomb Raider, again supporting the idea that MDK 2 is more action than adventure. The boss fights at the end of each major level are awesome, and usually take a mix of straight shooting and puzzle solving. It tends to be relative to the character, since it's not like Hawkins gets a gun just because it's time to fight a boss.

Probably the biggest hurdle a game like MDK 2 has to overcome is how it gets defined and pitched in the stores. Buy this as a pure action game, and you may be surprised or frustrated at how in-depth the puzzles are. As a puzzle fan and especially if you loved BioWare for games like Baldur's Gate and come expecting an adventure game with some action, you'll find the action is at times very intense. The answer is probably to adjust the difficulty level to match your abilities and deal with the puzzles as best you can. Most puzzles are solved by using some combination of each character's skills, and items collected before a puzzle room can be a tip-off to the solution. There's a good balance provided, but my call is that MDK 2 has less action and platforming than a Rayman, but more action than a Tomb Raider. If you're a fan of either game and the genres they fall into, MDK 2 may be an adjustment, but you'll enjoy the change of pace.

The engine running MDK 2 is notable for things like the sniper-scope GUI Kurt uses, enemy AI and character controls. The interaction difficulties present in all 3D games come up very rarely, and that makes me very, very happy. Controls can be configured by choosing one of no less than 10 presets, including a custom preset for the MadCatz Panther PX joystick. In the beginning of MDK 2, each character gets a brief tutorial, and it helps to have the default control setup. But, MDK 2 is smart enough to recognize when you've changed controls, and not tell you the wrong button for an action. Full analog is not part of the default controls, but I like the way analog works in the scheme that supports it. Right-stick strafes and controls camera up-down, while left-stick does movement in all directions. It's fair to say there's a control scheme to match any gamer's preference. Consistency in design means that the button used to move a weapon from Kurt's inventory also serves to select a gun for Max and choose items for The Doctor. Jumping, shooting and movement work the same way.

Items in the game have unique uses, but all work intuitively. Kurt has some cool weapons, like different varieties of sniper bullets and a cloaking device. Hawkins can combine items to create everything from radioactive toast to a leaf blower for fighting aliens, and the manual is quick to point out that it pays to try any combination possible. Hawkins' responses when you try to combine weird stuff are especially funny. Max is very straightforward, but uses a jet-pack in several places to spice up his platforming activities. The enemies pack some heady weapons and tactics themselves. MDK 2 chose to make opponents smart and well armed, instead of just artificially inflating their abilities or filling levels with legions of bad-guys. Some enemies do come in droves, and even regenerate, but because there are only a few basic enemy types, it's easy to adjust strategy. The fun comes in learning different ways for your characters to handle enemies, based on the strong and weak point of each enemy character. More than just good AI, enemies tend to have some real character. The best example is one point in a Max level where you have to jump on floating platforms, moving higher and higher following a hovercraft full of aliens. They're behind bulletproof glass, and every time you jump, they rise out of their seats with an 'Aaaaaahh....' sound and a groan when you make it. If you don't make it, they laugh. This kind of interactive behavior really makes the game more fun and gives it personality other action games can't touch.

MDK 2 is a game that constantly entertains, and where most companies seem content to recycle the same butt-bouncing, vine-swinging, crate-pushing action we got over years ago, BioWare/Interplay pushes the envelope. Sure, it's still about shooting, solving puzzles and platforming. But, you know how James Bond just looks cooler in scuba gear than everyone else, who just appear to be stuffed into a rubber suit? MDK 2 is kinda like that... ;)