Review of I Expect You to Die 2 Rating ****
If you liked the first I Expect You to Die, you will also like this one. I bought the bundle. The first time I loaded I Expect You to Die 2 I got a message saying that my headset was not supported. I have an HP G2 Reverb. When Steam wouldn’t give me a refund, I tried launching the game from Steam and it worked with no issues.
I enjoyed both games, but I felt this one was better thanks to a cohesive story. Each mission plays off the previous mission, with the character Juniper appearing in each. Like the first title, there is no motion. All of your puzzle-solving is done from a sitting position.
I wouldn’t say that the puzzles are easy, but they’re also not so difficult that they are unsolvable. The whole idea behind this series is that each puzzle has about seven to eight steps. You’re not going to figure out each step the first time through. Instead, like in the Tom Cruise movie, you learn from your mistakes and get better each time.
Since you are in a sitting position, the answer to every puzzle is in your field of vision. I solved every puzzle without resorting to going online, which leads me to another topic – hints. I have to say that I am conflicted on this issue. On the one hand, I think every game should have a progressive hint feature that doesn’t give you the answer but leads you in the right direction. One game that has done this very well is the game The Room VR. This game, however, would not be a good candidate for progressive hints. Hints would take away from the satisfaction you get from solving the puzzles.
As for graphics and sound, both are well done but a little on the cartoonish side. One thing I noticed with this version was that there seemed to be a lot of red herrings. More than a couple of times I ended up spending too much time on items that didn’t help me in solving a puzzle.
The one puzzle that took me the longest was the wine cellar puzzle. It took me three tries to get this one. I will say that once I figured it out, I raised my arms in a victory celebration, which probably looked ridiculous.
This version seemed to have one or two fewer puzzles to solve than the first one, which is not a bad thing. I know when I solved the last puzzle I was surprised to see the end credits.