There's a fire in a skyscraper. Who are you going to call for assistance? The fire brigade? No, you're not thinking straight. That'd make sense. No, what you need is an Escape Contractor, someone employed to get you out of trouble by grabbing you by the scruff of your neck and telling you what to do.
Don't know what an Escape Contractor does? It's time you looked into Exit 2, originally for the PlayStation Portable, a stylish action-puzzler with a clear goal:
Ready?
Fun Times
Exit 2 stars Mr ESC, a silhouetted escape contractor in this 2D puzzler that sees you rescue and guide folks to the level exit. Simple as that.
The many, many levels will see you navigate the environments with a fair few methods of traversal and restrictions and challenges to overcome. Mr ESC can run and jump, climb and descend, but a single misplaced step into the fire will result in a game over.
I found that out twice. He's not the most comfortable of characters to control, especially emulated with an Xbox controller. I've got Exit 2 on my Vita somewhere, but I don't know which memory card and I don't think it's charged and ready for use. What kind of portable gamer am I?
He can find and make use of several items, including the obvious fire extinguisher. With a press of the square button, that particular threat is no more, and we can get back to working out how to get through to the exit. Pushing blocks uses the circle button, but Mr ESC can't push everything, as we'll get to later.
Walking into someone rescues them, and they'll join you, providing an extra set of hands and unique skills to help you solve puzzles. You can tell them to stop or follow, as well as point them to specific places and order them to do certain things using the analogue nub - meaning you need to control Mr ESC with the D-pad. Alright on the PSP, not so alright on the Xbox controller.
Bring everyone to the exit before the timer runs out and you've done your job and can progress to the next stage.
Each survivor can offer their own skills to aid your puzzle-solving. This big fella is stronger than me, so can push bigger blocks. However, he weighs twice as much as the slimmer folks, and so can't cross certain sections of the level without falling through the floor and require a couple of people to lift up out of the hole.
Frustrations
Whether you're big, or a kid, or a muscley man, there will come a point where you're just too stupid. Survivors will follow you as best they can if they've been told to do so, but if you get separated you can use the analogue nub to select them and point them to where you want them.
You'd think this was easy, but these guys and girls can't seem to work out what you want them to do if there are things in the way. This child can't come upstairs because he hasn't been told to climb the stairs first. He can't work it out for himself. Come down the stairs and tell him to follow you and you're fine, though.
Everyone in Exit 2 whines and they use the same lines again and again until you find a way to shut them up. Kids who can't drop down from high ledges will moan. Big guys who are stuck in holes will moan. The only character that I haven't heard moan is the dog. Good dog.
As levels go on, you'll be using the skills of the survivors more and more. Puzzles just won't be completable on your own. Mr ESC can't climb ropes, but the muscle men can. If you tell them, step by step, to climb the damn rope, pick up the pickaxe, smash the wall... I do wish these folks were smarter. Just a little bit.
The time limits have been nice and generous so far. I'm not sure how the score is affected by them, but from these early levels, I can tell that I'd dread the timer if things got tighter and tighter, owing to the amount of fumbling you do.
Mr ESC is slow to move, so you press R1 and he runs, which is better, but more prone to running into hazards, so you try not to use it unless you need a running jump, which you miss because you didn't get enough of a run-up, and now you have to climb up a few ledges, which takes time because Mr ESC doesn't do parkour.
The controls are awkward. It's very stop and start - there's no real fluidity to the game especially when you have to stop to look at a puzzle and work out what to do next.
When it all clicks, the solutions can feel pretty good. Dogs and kids working together to open doors and collect keys, gathering items for you to use to get them to safety. The sheer amount of actions each survivor can and can't do leads to so many puzzles. Dogs can leap far, but can't jump high. Kids can crawl, but not drop. Working out what order to do things in is the key the success. Think Fast. Move Faster.
When it doesn't click, it's almost tedious. Trial and error is not my favourite way to play games. It's not even close. When you make a mistake in Exit 2, that's you done. You're going to need to restart the level, and do it all over again, where you get to learn that survivors can be killed if you drop crates on their head. Time for another restart...
The final straw for me was this level. Mr ESC can crawl, but can't pick things up when he does, so I need to grab a pickaxe and free a dog to pick up the key for me.
I can then free some more survivors, who can be asked to take the key from the dog to open the locked door. Only this woman doesn't want to crawl and the big fella won't try either, so I've got to go around and create a new path for both of them.
And now I've closed off the only path for the bloody dog because it can't jump up and none of us is capable of lifting it like a child. To be fair, I didn't actually try to lift the dog like a child, I just gave up, because I couldn't be bothered to do it all over again.
Final Word
Exit 2 isn't a bad game. Its puzzles are well crafted and make full use of different character skills. There are so many things you can do, and with a hundred-odd levels at least, it looks like they've all been done.
But with so many things you can do, there are so many ways you can fail, and failure means restarting an entire level. Even when they take minutes to complete - so far, at least - the controls and animations make it feel like they drag on so much longer. If you miss a jump, it feels like twenty seconds have gone down the drain getting back to where you were, not the five it may have actually taken.
There's one level that straight-up trolls you, putting a fire extinguisher in front of a fire. Use it on that fire and there's no way to rescue someone at the other end of the level. Thankfully, it's the first thing you see in the level, so restarting that one isn't a hassle, but it still sucks to find out.
Some people like that, of course. Solving puzzles is the focus, not weird feeling controls or whining survivors. If that's you, Exit 2 is a stylish, different looking puzzler that expands on the first Exit. If that's not you, I'd suggest trying Exit 2 nonetheless. It's clearly not my favourite game of late, but maybe if I do ever find the memory card with it saved on for my Vita, I might dive into a level or two to see how it plays more directly in my hands.
It shouldn't be completely ignored by any means, that's easy to say. That it's a must-play is a little harder.
Fun Facts
Not all survivors are useful to puzzle solving. Injured survivors need carrying through the level, as though they were one cumbersome item.
Exit 2, developed by Taito, first released in 2006.
Version played: PlayStation Portable, 2007, via emulation.