Rebuild 2: A Much Less Frustrating Experience

Rebuild 2

I reviewedRebuild just last week, and this weekend I found its sequel.  Rebuild 2 is a lot more fun than the original.  It is also much easier, at least for someone well versed in the first game.  The gameplay is pretty similar, with only a few bells and whistles added. 

The character development is the main difference.  There are photo-realistic pictures for each survivor.  And each character can be customized so that they can become proficient in multiple disciplines, not just building, fighting, scavenging, and so on.  This adds a nice element of micro-management, and gives every mission purpose.  You’ll often find yourself adding characters to a mission simply to level them up, not because they are particularly necessary.  You can also scavenge for weapons and tools, giving that specialty a lot more usefulness. 

Noah here has a fanny pack which gives him +1 to science

There are several random events that lead to the different victory conditions.  Most of them are pretty clear, but occasionally the obvious choice is not the right one.  If you get the helicopter built, and you continue the game after you’ve won, you can fly the helicopter with 5 survivors to a new game.  This gives you a real leg up to start with.  It’s a fun way to keep the game going.  So far, I’ve done all of the victory conditions except whatever is supposed to happen with the scientist in the lab.  I’m looking forward to finishing it one last time to see the last victory.

Looks just like the original, huh?

This game is quite a bit less frustrating than the original.  I haven’t tried it on the “Impossible” level yet, but it was pretty easy to win on the second to last one.  In my original review, I put that the game was unwinnable even on the second to hardest level.  Your survivors die very rarely.  This is nice since you spend so long building them up.  You really get attached to them.

Overall, I’d say this is a good replacement for the original game.  The basic gameplay is the same, but the graphics are upgraded and the gameplay is more involved and less frustrating.   Check it out at Armor Games