Dark Area 2

When it comes to watching a new TV series, I’m a relatively forgiving viewer.

Even if the first few episodes are sub-standard, I’m usually happy to persist a little longer if there’s an interesting premise and – most importantly – I can see signs of improvement.

Following from the disastrous first-person shooter Dark Area, developer Arkham Development needed to show signs of real improvement in the sequel. Such signs are not forthcoming.

Same old same old

Dark Area 2 offers a near-identical brand of dated first-person shooter design to the original. You move through bland, identikit corridors shooting bland, identikit enemies with bland, identikit guns.

There’s the same woefully unhelpful map that seems to be a zoomed out bird's-eye view of each muddy-textured level. This is a major problem, as many of the levels lack any kind of distinguishing features by which to navigate – just the same cliché sliding sci-fi doors and corridors.

Your enemies are of the suicidal-rush variety, though they do seem to spot you from a greater distance in this sequel. Unfortunately, that means you often start taking damage without knowing what the hell is going on, thanks to their tendency to blend in with the backgrounds.

Dark artless

The one notable improvement here is a general boost in the visuals department, with your view now unhindered by a tacky visor overlay.

You can also scale the quality of the graphics up, depending on the capabilities of your handset (or your willingness to accept slowdown). The loading times are still horrendous, though.

Elsewhere, the game’s even worse than the first one. While the free-aim control was poorly implemented in Dark Area, it at least offered some freedom over where you were firing, rather than relying solely on the still awful aim-assist. Now it’s been inexplicably replaced by some all-but-useless 'view up' and 'view down' controls.

Dark Area 2 shows a mind-boggling lack of progress - outside a few cosmetic details – over the original. That it still fails to acknowledge such shooter fundamentals as twin-virtual stick controls and proper sign-posting is hard to believe.