➤ The night shift 🎮

It's literally impossible to understand the success of Five Nights at Freddy's without opening YouTube and doing a quick search. Softly released on Desura, this chair jump generator owes everything, including the sudden landing on Steam, to the coarse screams of some tube celebrities, which in a certain sense magnified its basic banality (often it is enough to combine banality with stupidity to obtain a winning product). From this point of view Scott Cawthon, the developer, was truly brilliant, managing to give the general public what they want without getting involved in refinements and without looking for some kind of elaborate horror formula.

In reality, in retrospect it is possible to make some reasoning about the game, but the starting point is still of a disarming simplicity. The sequel does nothing to complicate the bread, to put it to Samuele Bersani, and limits itself to re-proposing the original mechanics with some changes that we will talk about shortly. The game is always the same: in the role of Jeremy Fitzgerald, fresh employee of the night shift at Freddy Fazbear Pizza, classic American fast food with animatronic puppets used to entertain the children, you have to control the place for six nights, avoiding being killed by the animatrons themselves, possessed by who knows what evil force. There are several theories around the possession of animatrons, even these found on YouTube, with the good Cawthon who took great care to give a complete explanation on the matter (is there really a need?), Limiting himself to providing some elements of the past of the local, including a rather macabre story which, however, does not resolve all doubts. However Fitzgerald, like Mike Schmidt before him (the protagonist of the first episode), is not very interested in the history of Freddy Fazbear Pizza, as far as do not be taken by surprise by the evil puppets who can attack him by passing through three steps (two side, one front). To do this he has to turn between CCTV cameras to monitor their movements, using a flashlight to illuminate them and wearing an animatron mask to deceive them (in the first chapter you had to close the security door to keep them out). Obviously we must avoid running out of electricity. On pain of certain death.

Who knows if the salary is adequate for the risk

That's all? Yes, that's all. There is not much else in the game in Five Nights at Freddy's 2, which basically requires you to switch from one camera to another obsessively, turning on lights as needed, without exaggerating, despite the continuous mounting of tension due to the increasingly frequent disturbing noises. and as music grows.

Compared to the first chapter there are more animatrons, but the gameplay itself has remained the same, including the presence of recordings on the answering machine that serve to give some information on the mysteries surrounding the place and to increase the sense of disquiet. If you want to, having to wear the mask instead of locking yourself in the vault vaguely increases the tension, because it allows the animatrons to get closer, but at the same time impoverishes the narrative texture, making them lose some credibility. Effectively fooling such ruthless creatures for six nights with such a cheap trick gives them an inopportune trait of dullness. For the rest, the jumps on the chair are still there, guaranteed by the creatures that jump at us from the dark without at that point anything can be done to stop them, as well as the basic repetitiveness, fortunately dampened by the short duration of the entire game experience, which can be finished in less than three hours, despite the extra day added by the developer and some unlockable extras that will make completists happy.

We reviewed Five Nights at Freddy's 2 and found it scary in more ways than one

Some technical information

From a technological point of view, the chapter at the end of 2014 has remained identical to the chapter at the beginning of 2014 (yes, both chapters were published during this year), with the fixed resolution of 1024x768 not configurable.

Put simply it takes what is found, including deformed image to fit screens with side ratios other than 4: 3. Speaking of details, let's say that some work has been done on the animatrons, with those of the first chapter revised in harmony with the facts narrated in the past, and the new ones particularly disturbing (we especially liked the kid with the balloon, but let's imagine that each have their own nightmare animatron). On the other hand, the various areas of the restaurant are not reported for who knows what qualitative improvement. Indeed, some are quite poor, despite the details that serve to elaborate theories on the background of the game. However, it must be said that this is a small production, sold at a very low price (7,99 euros), so it doesn't make much sense to ask too much more, even if the resolution problem can be annoying and can cause some instability. On the other hand, the excellent work done on the interface should be commended. Of course, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 doesn't have who knows how many features, as the player only has to turn on lights, navigate the cameras and put on the mask. The fact remains that the various commands have been distributed in an intelligent way and that the interface never hinders the gameplay, making it perfect for its intended purpose.

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

The editorial team uses the ASUS CG8250 Personal Computer
Intel Core i7 2600 processor
8 GB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti video card
Windows 7 operating system

Minimum requirements

Operating system: XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8
Processor: 2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon or equivalent
RAM: 1 GB
Video card: 1 GB
Disk space: 250 MB

Comment

Tested version PC Windows Digital Delivery Steam, App Store, Google Play Price 7,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

5.5

Readers (17)

6.3

Your vote

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 is the perfect game for the youtuber who never has to ask. In fact, it seems knowingly built to allow the making of screaming movies. For the rest it is a mediocre horror with a very limited gameplay: in search of the zero degree of fear, it ends up wrapping up on itself. Let's say that as a cult object it is fine, to Slender to be clear, but if you are eager for a deeper and more structured experience, you can also leave it alone and look elsewhere.