Okay, I'll admit it. When I first heard they were making a sequel of sorts to Shivers I thought, there is no way they are going to top such a cool game. But in many ways Sierra has done just that. The graphics are beautiful, the town is fun to explore and the music videos are MTV-style quality. When I first started playing the game, I thought, here we have some prayer sticks, we take them to the canyon and unlock some doors and that's it. Boy, was I wrong. The first thing I found out is that you can die early on in the game. There are quite a few death traps lying in wait. And taking your prayer stick to the canyon doesn't cut the mustard. You still stand there dying. So you could say I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was alot more to Shivers2 than finding prayer sticks. There is a mystery to be solved. And, of course, there are puzzles to play. And this game has atmosphere. The 360 degree panning actually enhances the gameplay. And the soundtrack is way cool. This game also has a Caption Feature for people who are hard of hearing or deaf. Did I mention the Internet Feature? No? Well, there is a totally interesting Internet Feature that let's you connect to the Internet and then connect your game with someone else's so you can chat while playing. It's pretty cool. However, I would have liked the ability to play a co-op game with someone. All this feature really does is allow you to use the game like a chat client. But it's fun in the respect that you can actually play it and chat with family or friends from all over the world at the same time. This game also allows you to modify some of the puzzles so you can send them to friends. I had alot of fun creating my own Egg Puzzle for Phil's Market.

Shivers2 comes on two cd's and the second cd has the soundtrack on it, so you can listen to it like a regular music cd. The only time I found I had to change disks was at the very end. So gameplay is pretty smooth. There are clues in the songs and clues in the music you hear in every part of the game. And the same goes for the videos, which had me feeling like I was watching really good MTV clips.

The plot is pretty straightforward. You are a friend of a band called Trip Cyclone. You arrive in town at night, only to find that not only can you not contact the band, but everyone in town seems to have disappeared. Then you get a creepy message from some weird guy called Darkcloud telling you he has your friends. So now you've got to figure out exactly what's going on and why it has happened. The plot is pretty interesting and the game has four endings. If you liked the first Shivers, then you'll really enjoy this game. As a sequel, it's a damn good one. Even as a stand alone game, Shivers2 rocks. Which brings me to the question everyone keeps asking: Is Shivers2 better than Shivers1? Well, yes and no. The 360 degree panning is better, the music videos are way cool, the backgrounds are incredible, however, when it comes to plot, Shivers1 is still better. It's the Ixupis. They were such fun little creatures, fun to hunt down. So in that one respect, Shivers2 fails to top Shivers1. Darkcloud just can't compete with the Ixupis. But as I've said, this game rocks, it's way cool. And I highly recommend it. There is a demo available at Shivers II: Harvest of Souls as well as other game sites such as Games Games Happy Puppy's Front Porch.

Requirements: I played this game on a 486/66, 16megs RAM, 2x CD Rom, with a real SB16 soundcard, Cirrus Logic video card with 1mb of VRAM, and 40 watt speakers, mouse, and Win95. The game ran pretty smooth, in fact, it ran better than I had expected. I could have used a 4x CD Rom for alittle better play, but all in all, Shivers2 runs very well on a low end system.

The requirements on the box are:

Minimum: 486dx2/66, 12 megs Ram, mouse, SVGA 256 colors, 2x cd rom, SB compatible soundcard with DAC

Maximum: Pentium, 16 megs Ram, 4 x cd rom, Win95, mouse, soundcard with DAC

Optional: 14400 Modem for Internet Feature, requires 32 bit IP

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