Genre: First Person Shooter
Publisher: Reef Entertainment
Developer: Parallax Art Studio
Release Date: TBA

Inexplicably, both Hollywood and the gaming industry have long upheld the belief that experiments with teleportation technology always end badly. From Cronenberg’s The Fly to Stargate, through to Doom and Half-Life, the lesson is always the same: Don’t mess with relative physics, or bad things will happen! Not content with leaving this important facet of speculative science fiction untouched, the Russian development team known as the Parallax Art Studio have decided to code together a first-person shooter they call Liquidator 2. This looks to be another blood-sweat-and-demons foray into the perils of particle manipulation and the inevitable infernal retribution that follows. Tired of shooting virtual Nazis? This could pique your interest.

The basic story breaks down somewhat like this: At some point in the future, the gadget-savvy mankind advances to a point where breaking down walls between realities seems like a novel idea. In doing so, three other planes of existence that more or less coincide with our own are discovered, and permanent gates are opened up that link all four worlds. The natives of these other planets aren’t quite as advanced, but whatever jealousy they may harbor towards humanity is lost in the ocean of new consumer goods that flow in. Incidentally, all of the fuels required to power these warp gates have to be provided by the industrious humans. A policy of stockpiling tanks of this liquid energy on the other planes is adopted, so as to have a ready supply on hand. All seems well and good for some time; tourism has been given a massive boost in revenue, new life has been breathed into the idea of cheap immigrant labor, and the economy of earth swells, bolstered by the friendly exploitation of alien peoples who are happy to oblige. However, that pesky rule about warp technology going wrong still applies; you knew this was all going to end, right?

The first sign comes from a curious lack of information coming from the other worlds. Even their answering machines weren’t picking up. Then, a single person (it's never clearly explained whether the inhabitants of the other worlds are people or just amorphic alien blobs; you also never see any of these people in the game itself) teleports in from one of these worlds claiming all manner of hostile alien creatures had materialized out of nowhere, banishing everyone to an “unknown place,” leaving just him to tell the tale. Considering the warm reception you receive when you’re wandering around these realities, I’m inclined to believe that “banish” is a euphemism for “brutally murder.” I’m getting ahead of myself, however. The reaction to this story is swift: the Virtual Teleportation Agency establishes tactical strike teams to go in and eliminate all the fuel stockpiles to ensure that none of these hostile, unwilling-to-work-for-cheap aliens manage to use the warp gates to spill over into earth. Always willing to cut costs, the Agency decides to send out only one soldier for each world at first. Why risk an entire team when you can roll them bones on the hope that a single tattooed grunt can do all the work on his own?

Needless to say, you play that warrior. That’s right, the fate of all mankind’s commerce lies in your hands, and your hands alone. Suspension of disbelief is a must with Liquidator 2, because in all honesty, the concept of sending a single unit to cover an entire world is silly at best. However, we soldier on in the face of adversity. In this case, “adversity” really means, “wizards, ghosts, skeletons, executioners in natty hoods, and other such medieval-flavoring.” How or why the aggressors in this game are hellish and from Earth's 11th century is never really explained, at least not in this preview build.

However, for every digital ammunition readout and tactical guided missile you can muster, there’s at least one hirsute and bipedal goat-horned thing charging at you with love in its eyes and fire in its hands, or even 10 imp-like demons hurling fireballs at you. It’s a strange mix of high technology versus fantasy glitter, winner take all. There is only one enemy that doesn’t look as though it were ripped straight from the pages of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, and it looks like the Skynet T-1000 model terminator. Originality is in short supply where the monsters are concerned, although the implementation of said clichés has a certain inventiveness that can be amusing. The skeleton creatures, who sport skulls that sprout spider-like legs and skitter towards you after their bodies have been shattered, is a perfect example of this. They're reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing, yet still both creepy and funny.

Speaking of tried and true, Liquidator 2 boasts a full arsenal of weaponry; all the standards from games like Doom, Quake, Unreal, and Serious Sam are all here in spades. Each weapon has two firing modes, spreading diversity around a little bit, although not as heavily as you see in Painkiller. The basic weapon is a hatchet, followed by a laser-sighted pistol, a shotgun (double-barreled blast as the secondary fire), fully automatic assault rifle complete with a grenade launcher, flame-thrower, rocket launcher, and sniper rifle. Nothing terribly new, but the variety is nice.

Ammunition for all of these is apparently peppered throughout the para-worlds in hidden Agency depots. I say “apparently” because the entrances to these dumps are hidden, marked only with the logo of the VTA. As of yet, I haven’t been able to find even one of them, but I give kudos to Parallax for not having weapons and munitions lying all over the place; that is one thing I’ve never thought made much sense in a FPS. How often do you see boxes of .30 cal bullets lying on the ground when you’re on your way to the local Krispy Kreme? Why then should it be any different in a game? Again, I digress.

While there might not be rockets and grenades and flame-thrower fuel lying about, there are bottles everywhere all over the three worlds. These come in three colors: red, blue, and green. These usually replenish health and armor, but they also occasionally deplete health and armor. It’s a gamble as to which effect these containers will have, and in all honesty, it can get to the point where it’s not worth the chance. There are also the standard red-cross marked health upgrades, and big blue energy crystals that instantly cure what ails you.

I’m not sure which 3D graphics engine Liquidator 2 is built on, but its textures and models remind me of earlier Unreal Warfare works; in places, this game looks like Postal 2 without the sophomoric potty humor. What this means is that the eye candy isn’t 100% cutting edge, but the environments and detail is still quite easy on the eyes. From a design perspective, there are moments of subtle beauty peppered throughout; digital ammunition read-outs that color-code the lower you get, visual distortion through the curved glass of your pressure helmet when you’re underwater, and the aforementioned tribal tattooing visible only when you reload and your forearm shows.

The single greatest challenge Parallax Art Studio and their publisher, Reef Entertainment, has ahead of them is convincing the gaming world that Liquidator 2 has anything to offer fans of the FPS that’s in any way different from Doom, Quake 2, and Painkiller. It does look good, and it performs smoothly, but as of this stage in the game's development, there is just about nothing new or innovative on display. We’ve already been to decaying hell worlds, we’ve already battled armies of demons, and we’ve already done it with high-tech futuristic weapons. However, for fans of the infernally arcane, Liquidator 2 is a welcome addition to the available pantheon of nightmarishly violent FPS titles.