Beholder 2

Rechenkoenig already wrote a perfect and accurate review, no other is needed other than maybe a comparison with first Beholder game. Is it any similar? Too different? Would you like it if you liked.... etc. worth the buy kind of questions I'll answer. But first I need to emphasize what rechenkoenig said. Just because 15% of the game is played like Paper, please doesn't mean this game as whole is anywhere like Papers, please. It is very much like first Beholder was. You might be puzzled by the new 3D graphics and wondering whether it is not more of a burden than an improvement. The game still plays in 2D left-right scroll movement so you may be relieved. Therefore it is not burden. It may feel less cartoonish but ends up being more immersive compared. It is somewhat more point & click adventure but you could say the same about first Beholder. While first was played in real time and you were under time pressure this one is more of time management somewhat turn based. You have 9 hours a day to spend in work while special tasks will require specified amount of time from the pool. After you leave workplace you have 2 hours plus whatever you did not spend at workplace to spend until the day ends by sleeping. You spend that time in your apartment or in outgoing activities which are entirely dialogue based decision making choices. I prefer this style way much more. The story is intriguing and "nutritious" just as we were used first Beholder game + DLC. All in all... If you liked the first one you might like this one even more!

The game is a mixture of »Papers, Please« (where you play a border officer in run-down communist Arstotzka and have to decide on which papers of border-crossers to accept and which not) and its (somewhat) predecessor »Beholder« (in which you play a janitor blockwart spying on inhabitants of an apartment complex for the benefit of a merciless autocratic regime), of several rather text-based unethical-spy games such as, say, »Orwell« or »Need to Know« surveillance, and it mixes in a good deal of bureaucracy humour (which surprisingly does not diminish the great dark overall visual atmosphere). Plus, it is apparently almost an adventure game, albeit with not too many different locations. The main part takes place in a Ministry towering over the city, with a huge Leader statue in front (btw: Glory to His Saviourship!) Its major pros are: (1) The graphics. Rarely has a studio done such a nice job in creating the gloomy, though somewhat comical atmosphere of a reckless state machinery constantly in war. It will remind you of the usual depictions of North Korea or the Soviet Union in darkest colours with an element of Nazi Germany woven in. The atmosphere is really impressive. (2) The plots and texts. One of its greatest elements is that you will need to make sense out of the things your colleagues or citizens say and of gathered information (via spying, mostly), and to set the ball rolling for your march up the ranks, by good means or by bad. So information is sometimes only included in the subtext, but it is fairly well-designed. This leads to the major cons: (1) The speech sound. There are no real languages spoken in the game, but some phrases are played at random with every dialogue part. This is annoyingly disruptive for the sound samples are meagre in number, one and the same sentence in direct succession may easily sound exactly alike. (2) The controls. It gets highly repetitive and time-consuming to navigate through the game with time. Apart from that: Great!

Beholder 2 is a point and click adventure game set in the reality of an authoritarian state. It's about a man trying to figure out the story behind his father's (a prominant dignitary) death while advancing through the ranks of the government beurocracy. Although it tackles some heavy themes and has some graphic violence, it's often tongue-in-cheek and silly (more so than B1) and sometimes grotesque. B2 is it's own story and you can play it without having played B1 (though I'm not sure if I'd recommend it over B1), however certain plot elements of B1 are interwoven into B2 and B2 significantly spoils B1. I had mixed feelings about Beholder 1. I thought that it had great premise and style, but the game part was just poor. Beholder 2 does try to build on Beholder 1 and fix several of the weaker aspects of it's predecessor, however in my opinion it fell short in both regards. If you enjoyed the first part and didn't mind it's flaws, you'll probably enjoy this one too. B2 is certainly grander and has more stuff to do, but personaly I wasn't a fan of dropping the intimate, claustrophobic feeling of the first one and the additional stuff to do is mostly meaningless. B1 had a frustrating problem regarding implementing it's main gameplay loop into the story it tried to tell - B2 tries to fix this by introducing "jobs", which fit in well with the narrative while giving you a chance to earn money in a reliable way - thing is, these are incredibly boring and tedious. The game is not without redemable qulities though. The visual design is just as good as the first one. The setting and the premise are very interesting and enjoyable. The story and the writing are better than in the first part and are quite fine. I'd also point out, that the game is not exactly the genre it is advertised as on GOG. It's hardly a managerial game and there is definitely no strategy involved in this game. I'd say that this is a point and click adventure game with (terrible) minigames included.

I enjoyed most of my time in the game, but I was glad when it ended and it didn't live up to Beholder 1 for me. Moving around the 3D setting is not as fun as moving around the 2D world of Beholder 1. The lack of any time clock (your 'game time' only progresses when you perform actions, not when you move around) takes away the sense of urgency. The 'jobs' you need to do around the Ministry are tedious and not fun. The humor is silly and jarring. There's an attempt at a dramatic plot beyond just 'survive the state', but that plot has so many holes in it that it might have been better for it not to be there.