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The original CT Special Forces tried desperately to be Metal Slug, and it fell a little short. Hip Interactive has come back into the fray with a second offering of Special Forces goodness, and with it comes a whole new review full of Metal Slug comparisons. Thankfully though, Hip has spiced things up this time, so not only do we have a game that looks and plays like Metal Slug for the most part, we have a fun one!

Like its predecessor, CT 2 is a deliberate clone of Metal Slug: You take a generic commando with some big guns, and you shoot at armies of oncoming enemies. Just like in Metal Slug, you’ll be able to make use of numerous vehicles during your missions, from tanks to jeeps. Something CT does though, that Metal Slug hasn’t, is spiced up it’s gameplay with a bit of variety. Along side your typical run and gun missions, there will be times that require you to parachute, snipe enemies from afar, and pilot a helicopter. These little side distractions help to make sure that the core gameplay of CT doesn’t end up stale within the first few missions.

This isn’t to say that the gameplay doesn’t have its flaws, because it does. The biggest issue you’ll find is that the AI in the game is fairly mindless and simple. Too often you’ll have enemy soldiers who try to run up at you while you riddle them with bullets until they die. Enemies also have a problem shooting at you when you duck, since they’ll just continue to shoot straight on, like you were standing in front of them. This will lead to you flying through the majority of the games levels with minimal re-tries. When you finally do die, it'll often be from a stray grenade, or because you may not have been paying full attention to the game at the time. Rarely will you die because you lacked the skill to get through a specific part of the game. 

The game has about 20 missions, and they are all broken up pretty well. Just as you feel like you want to stop playing a certain type of mission, the game seems to switch over to the next type as if it was fulfilling your request. I’m not sure if this was a deliberate developing decision on Hips part, or if it happens to be a fluke. Either way, you won’t find yourself moaning about how long a stretch there is between the different level types. On the flip side, though, some people may not like the helicopter missions as much as the on-foot missions, especially since the on-foot missions have more variety in them. This could lead to some gripes about too many copter missions, but in the end it's all a matter of preference.

The helicopter missions are a bit repetitive, since all you really do during them is move your chopper around on the screen (that self-scrolls) and shoot air and ground units until you make it to the end. You will face tanks and helicopters along with gun turrets, but little else during the helicopter missions. If you're quick enough, you'll almost never get hit by the turrets or tanks, but you'll likely end up taking a few hits from the opposing air forces. You could argue the fact that this is basically all you do during the on-foot missions, but the on-foot missions just seem a bit more fun than the helicopter ones.

One of my biggest gripes with CT 2, which is something that has been carried over from the original, is the password system. Whenever you finish a level in the game, you will have to CT 2 looks pretty nice. The characters, both playable and NPC are big, and brightly colored. Everything is decently detailed and has a pretty clean look to it. The environments you’ll play through all look pretty good, and are usually laid out pretty well. Enemy types are varied and overall pretty interesting looking, ranging from a run-of-the-mill soldier to a knife wielding maniac and beyond. Some of the boss characters look pretty cool too, though there’s a few (like the first boss) which are pretty uninspired.

The games audio is nothing to cheer about, but it gets the job done competently. Explosions, gun shots, and the loud cries of dying enemies riddle every level, and all sound pretty good. The arcade-like rock music is an expected addition that helps to solidify the game as a true Metal Slug clone. When you look back at the first title, the sounds don’t differ too much from each other, but hey, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it, right?

Overall I’d have to say that CT Special Forces 2 is a pretty competent action game that will keep trigger happy gamers on the go happy until Metal Slug Advance is released later this summer. Some solid gameplay and 20 levels of fun outweigh the fact that you have to write down your passwords. A good purchase for fans of old school arcade shooters, but if you’re looking for something as good as Metal Slug, CT 2 falls a tad short.