Parents' Guide to Monstrum 2

This monster-focused title's good, but it's not a great multiplayer-centric game, mainly because of the lack of combat tension. In Monstrum 2, when you're playing against some friends online, with the lights are off, you can fall into the groove and soak up the dark ambience and tense hide-and-seek setting. But the actual "payoff" isn't as memorable as the build up to these action sequences, since it doesn't have any real combat mechanics. That is, humans don't fight back against the monsters, but they can get away if quick enough or use something like a flashlight to blind them. But Monstrum 2 is still a fun game that won't break the bank, and has considerably more polish than when it entered its open beta last year.

All monsters can see the location of the prisoners, which gives them an edge, plus "Monster Rage" kicks in to make them even more vicious. They don't sustain damage from, say, a fall, as prisoners, too. But humans have safety in numbers, can hide in lockers and other areas, and can work together to outwit the monsters and increase the odds of escaping. Monstrum 2 carries on the procedurally generated rooms, items (and now puzzles) as Monstrum, so there's no benefit to memorizing the levels. The game offers decent -- but not extraordinary -- character models and locations, and with dynamic lighting, which adds to the ambience (and fear factor). After a few online playthroughs, there isn't much to bring you back to the game. It's a solid survival horror game, but don't expect much more than that.