Righteous Kill 2: Revenge of the Poet Killer – PC Review

To be honest with you, I have never played the first Righteous Kill, since I heard that it’s short and has nothing to do with the movie, but somehow I decided to go for Righteous Kill 2: Revenge of the Poet Killer and give it a try, especially since it’s been a long time since I last played a new “Hidden object” game.

Righteous Kill 2: Revenge of the Poet Killer begins in style and at first seems like an amazing done – a new and better Mystery Case Files or Women’s Murder Club, for example, and you get really excited. The hidden objects are actually quite naturally blended with the environment, yet pretty easy to find, so don’t expect to have terrible pains for staying two inches in front of the screen, scanning the area pixel by pixel.

Still, it will be enough of a challenge to find all the items and it will get more difficult as the game progresses (and your eyes get tired). There is also a hint system that recharges pretty quick (so no more “3 hints only” system), which is both a Pro from obvious reasons, and a Con for simplifying the game even more. The hint system can also get pretty annoying every now and then since, instead of highlighting a hidden object, it highlights hotspots, which isn’t helping at all.

Righteous Kill 2: Revenge of the Poet Killer does come with some extra mini-games (which can be skipped, once again proving that “challenge” is not really a word in the developers’ vocabulary), two of which I enjoyed the most: a logical puzzle in which you have to “block” a hacker by anticipating his moves and using a bit of strategy; and an original spot the difference minigame that comes with four screens and different angles instead of the classic two screens, same picture. Really nice!

But most of the good things start fading away a couple of hours after starting the game. You will visit the same locales over and over and over again, collecting new items that the team “missed” during the previous investigations, basically wiping away all the credibility and realism: such lousy investigators would certainly be fired from any police department! But at least this repetitiveness means a longer gameplay experience, so we can say that it’s all for the best.

It’s also nice that sometimes you have to use various items in order to activate others: such as a cotton swab for collecting blod samples, crowbars for forcing things open and so on. These things, overall, add some extra and welcomed variety in an otherwise pretty boring game.

Conclusion
Righteous Kill 2: Revenge of the Poet Killer is not, in the end, a better Mystery Case Files or Women’s Murder Club – it can be considered a regular, above-average Hidden Object game that doesn’t deliver the utmost entertainment. The several locations in the game will be visited over and over again, becoming quite boring (and eventually, in most of them, you’ll know the locations of many items as soon as the level starts) and the story is just an excuse for the game to exist. I liked the most the few minigames which are indeed nice but I didn’t like that there is absolutely no challenge whatsoever: you have unlimited hints, you can’t “irremediably miss” and have to start over, there are no penalties, no time limits, nothing. I would’ve loved the game to be more complex and challenging, but it’s not. Maybe next time.

Final rating:

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Tempted to try the game? Go over to Big Fish Games and download a demo or buy it!