I got this for coop first and singleplayer second. We spent a couple of minutes trying to finish the first level but struggled with the physics and controls of the characters. Everything felt just a bit too floaty and unresponsive, the acceleration and inertia caught us off guard more than once and after repeatedly dying to a bunch of spikes on the floor which we did not manage to jump over (due to sliding, inertia etc.) we gave up on it. YMMV but this isn't a snappy, responsive platformer.
Unfortunately to play split screen you must play/finish the campaign first because almost everything is locked - even in split screen.
I had to put nostalgia and fond memories aside for this one. There are too many technical issues that prevented me from going back. The game started in fullscreen with some slight black borders all around it, but no sound. Once I changed the resolution to 800x600 (the maximum - and only thanks to the JJ2+ mod), I had sound back but the game was literally just an 800x600 area with massive black bars on all four sides on my full HD screen. Almost too small to see anything. Running it in a window kinda works, as I can resize it to twice the size, but I have to resize it every time it loads a level. Split screen is kind of broken as well: Race softlocks after the first lap, Coop kind of works (you only have the 3 lives, no continues - so in the worst case your partner has to continue playing through the episode with half of the screen stuck in game over). I'm running Windows 10, large TV on a receiver. I cannot enable GPU scaling in my drivers for some reason, which is a fix that some suggested. And now audio doesn't even work in 800x600. YMMV but I'm quite disappointed.
In its core, the game is great. You plan your exploration through increasingly difficult maps, the gameplay is fun and engaging - however, after playing coop (locally) the fun soon turns into frustration. This is not because of the difficulty, but because of bugs that have never been fixed. In single player, you can look further, scout ahead and snipe enemies. This is not possible in coop, you cannot move your cursor as far. This makes exploration very slow and methodical - something we enjoyed, but it made it impossible to play any kind of sniper-loadouts. In coop, you share health, items and ammo. This could make for an interesting challenge and actually balances the game somewhat, but this is offset by having everything take place on the same screen and making it even more difficult to doge incoming enemy and friendly fire (grenades do friendly fire). This gets so far as that both players cannot look ahead/behind because they are on opposite sides of the screen… The biggest issue though, by far, is that the game seems to be programmed with only one player in mind. Many tools, such as shields, teleport etc. simply do not work for the second player. This restricts what suits you can effectively bring and make use of. Examples: - Gunhead's shield does not work for player two - Intruder's teleport beacon does not work for player two. - Hushpuppy cannot be made good use of because of the restrictions on how far away you can aim (related: players cannot explore independently because it's same-screen-coop) - Doors sometimes only work for P1 or P2 - Both players must leave the ship through the same airlock (being controlled only by P1) - Cloak does not work for player two Add to that that coop is even more difficult because you see less in all of that action and have to deal with even more stuff happening. I cannot recommend this game for coop play. I do like the low detail option though, that helps in coop…
Science fiction, fitting soundtrack, nice art and design - this game should have everything for me to fall in love with it. Yet all it leaves me with is exhaustion, frustration and a huge time sink. It might be somewhat addictive in its roguelike mechanics, but this comes at the price of seemingly very random encounters and needing a big portion of luck to progress through the game. It doesn't "click" with me. I don't have the level of micromanagement skills to do well in later battles, nor have I developed any sense for the economics behind it. For me, every run is just a string of interesting, random and often brutal encounters until I have to start again from the beginning. This means that this game, to me, is not fun - it's bullying, torturing me, leaving me with less energy and in a bad mood. Kind of a Stockholm syndrome - I know that it doesn't do me good, but there is still the urge to continue. Not only could I have spent the time I've sunk into this game doing something entertaining, it also leaves me totally beaten down. YMMV, maybe this is just what you like in a game. I myself however must force myself to never play it again - for my own mental health.
If you are using a modern gaming-mouse with a high polling rate, you might not be able to use the mouse for this game. Since I originally played this game, back in the days, with a mouse and keyboard, this is a pretty severe deal breaker for me. There doesn't seem to be a fix available for this issue. YMMV I'm also not able to map the shoulder buttons or sticks on my Xbox 360 controller (essentially: not being able to map any axis).
