With a subtitle that probably references a famous first-person shooter (though, less likely, references a not quite as famous Kinect and Wii U fitness title), “Meep 2 – Jumping Evolved” brings forced climbers into a new, more… evolved, level. But what’s evolved about it? A fair bit, actually.
For one, the game has hand-crafted levels. While I’m all for procedurally/randomly-generated levels in a lot of genres, platformers is one where hand-crafted levels make more sense. Can you imagine Super Mario Bros if every play through had the warp zones, the blocks to destroy, the turtles to senselessly kill, etc., in different places each time? Though one could argue that the best would be hand-crafted levels, and a procedurally-generated survival mode. Perhaps Meep 3: Jumping Final Conflict will have that.
Other points in the Meep 2‘s favour include racing ghosts of the best times times in each level, and two player (offline) play where you race each other to the top. I can’t say that I’ve never seen these features in a forced-climber before, but I’m (fairly) confident in saying that I can’t think of a single game that incorporates all of them. For 80 Microsoft Points, it’s definitely worth a look for fans of this kind of game (or former fans looking for something a little different to tempt them back).
Here’s what the developer (Andreas Heydeck) has to say about the game:
“Meep 2 – Jumping Evolved offers different gameplay from what you’ve seen before in platform jumpers. Beat the clock in time trial in 20 different levels! Help yourself to be the best by viewing the ghostplayer from the best times for each level! You can also enjoy some splitscreen multiplayer action against a buddy in tournaments!”
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