Death Jr. 2: Root of Evil
The original Death Jr [DJ1] had everything going for it: great story, great characters and a game world akin to something you'd expect to find in a Tim Burton animated film. Where the game failed us was in its rather uninspired level design and sloppy control scheme. We so wanted to love this game to death – pun intended – but well, the game just got in the way. Luckily for us Chris Charla and his gang at Backbone Entertainment didn't let the lukewarm reaction to their title get in the way of their enthusiasm for some of the most original characters we've seen in a great while – thank goodness for small favors! Righting the Wrongs "One of the other things people really asked about was co-op play," says Chris. "We're going to have full co-op through the entire game. You can play the whole game as Pandora or DJ or both simultaneously." Excellent! So You're Wondering Why I've Gathered You All Here Today The quest to right the wrongs will lead our characters, among other places, to an abandoned military base in search of Agent Orange to use against our evil nymph. Of course most abandoned military bases, as we know, are hidden below abandoned llama bars!? [ED: Is Jeff Minter on the dev team, or something?] In the course of searching the base, our heroes are gassed and wind up at, you guessed it, a waffle house called World of Waffles (also a military front) though, as you can imagine, the world looks quite a bit different to our hopped up friends as is present in the very surreal look of the platform heavy level. Before they can escape the base, Agent Orange in tow, the guys will have to face one of the games three bosses, Mecca Llama, who counts among his weapons waffles covered in acid syrup. Who think this stuff up!? Verdict?
Enter Death Jr 2: Root of Evil. As Chris himself admits, "People liked the characters and they liked the settings but the biggest request we received was to address the camera and control scheme." From what we've seen of the game so far, Backbone is on track to fix many of these issues. As in DJ1, the camera still follows our characters around the world, however when firing your character would always flip to fire into the direction of the camera's orientation which was very disorienting. The only way to get a good bead on your enemies was to switch to first-person mode. This has been resolved in DJ2 with the character now firing in the expected direction. Of course you can stillmove the camera around the world at any time using the shoulder buttons to enter into a free-look mode and tapping the shoulder buttons adds the ability for your character to strafe/side-step which is useful when taking on legions of enemies.
So what's the story, morning glory? This time around, DJ and Pandora are out collecting cocoons for a science project when they trip over a humanoid-sized chrysalis. Of course curiosity kills the cat and our heroes smash it open to find a tiny little wood nymph inside. Upset at the intrusion, and interruption of her apparently evil plans, the nymph wreaks havoc to the game world leaving DJ and Pandora yet another mess to clean up before Dad finds out! "One of the other things people asked for after DJ1 was more story," explains Chris, and the gang has delivered with more than 24 minutes of storyline; all of which can be skipped if you can't be bothered of course. 
Not to worry friends – as mentioned above the game won't be all platform jumping puzzles as Chris promises lots of combat as well. DJ and Pandora each have four unique weapons and four shared weapons, giving them access to eight weapons throughout the game. Some fun examples are DJ's flaming toilet paper launcher (where was this in highschool?) and a segmented whip that Pandora can use not only to lay the smack down but to swing from elements within the levels as well. The gang will need every bit of this arsenal to conquer the 18 levels that traverse this nightmarish yet gorgeous landscape.
Death Jr 2: Root of Evil is looking every bit as quirky and fun as the original Death Junior and I'm happy to see the Backbone gang have listened to their fans and dedicated themselves to resolving many of the original's gameplay issues. Adding in co-op play is pure genius and should definitely help to bump up the replay value. Overall things are looking up for DJ and the gang. If Backbone can deliver a consistent and engaging experience across all 18 levels we'll be in for a treat. If not… it may just be curtains for little DJ!
Pachoey-
 | Read our review of the original Death Jr. HERE! |
