The Underground Man 2 - The humor in this game makes the walls turn black. Strictly 18+...

The Underground Man can be approached in many different ways, and opinions vary. If you're not familiar with this game at all, it's a kind of "Green Elephant" from the indie game world... If you're not familiar with "Green Elephant" - you're lucky...

On September 1, 2016 GameDev split into "before" and "after," the first The Underground Man came out. The community was divided into those who understood the message and those who took the game as an insult. But to explain what the game is all about, we need to start at the beginning.

"From the Particular to the General" or Who is Ilya Maddison

The Underground Man was developed by Mefsoft, a company founded by Ilya Sergeyevich Davydov, better known as Ilya Maddison. You can take Maddison any way you want, because Ilya has done a lot of damage in his life: he became famous, got over the star disease, became disappointed in everything, drank, conquered Twitch and even joined the political party LDPR, the party of Zhirinovsky.

Ilya Maddison's popularity peaked in 2008. Ilya was mainly engaged in video game reviews, on which he made his name. Ilya used to post his reviews on RuTube, where he later worked as an editor. Ilya Maddison's life story is full of flamboyance, and his whole life path can be described as follows: "from dirt to riches, from princes to riches. In the very first years of his career Maddison acquired such nicknames as "The King of gaming reviews" and "The King of Runet", and Lenta.ru dubbed him "the cult reviewer of computer games". But how did Ilya manage it?

Recall that it was 2008, game journalism at the time looked very different. To sell a game, the developers had to put much more effort, and the general trends dictated the rule: quality = sales. For example, in 2008 first-person shooters had to grow both in terms of graphics and mechanics and setting; there were no service model, loot boxes and skins, and the players were trying to entice not the grind, but the adjusted balance in virtual battles. In 2007 came Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which is still considered to be the most balanced multiplayer shooter.

In 2008 the game designers longed for the future, trying to imagine the industry of tomorrow. Reviews then were based on a system: "Introduction, plot, graphics, gameplay, sound," and in principle it was not customary to slam games with devastating criticism. It is here that Ilya distinguished himself...

Back in 2009 Ilya made it to TV, becoming one of the pioneers who dared to break the line between TV and the Internet. Maddison's show was on the regional channel TNT and was called "Takeaway Games. The show's main draw was Ilya's trademark sarcastic and sometimes black humor. Mocking the stars and making fun of the games themselves, which made it into the show. Not unlike other game reviewers, Maddison was a critical thinker and did not hesitate to call bullshit. By the way, he repeatedly said the word "shit" during TV shows, which was considered to be an impertinence at that time and smelled the spirit of free expression...

...And now for The Underground Man 2.

Glum over the liberal agenda instead of the plot

The Underground Man 2 begins similarly to the ancient Fallout, but through the lens of Maddison's sense of humor: a typical post-apocalyptic, 2134, the wastelands of Moscow. If in the first part we left the native refuge for the tribesmen in search of a cherished hot dog, in the second part the players will have the honor to play the role of a radical feminist, whose tribe was kicked out of the refuge by dirty men, and then even abused their flesh.

The nameless protagonist's native settlement despises men, so if the protagonist's views are not radical enough, and she dares to call men men instead of sperm-babies, and there are too few feminists in her speech, then the supreme sister will be disappointed and finish off her sister who is not ideologically loyal enough...

The tribe of radical feminists eventually developed a problem: the problem of reproduction. Only the Chosen One can save the tribe from extinction. Only the Chosen One can copulate (of course, solely for the purpose of reproduction) with a sperm slave. And this Chosen One will predictably become the protagonist of The Underground Man 2.

But there's one problem: it's not easy to find the right man for the repulsive ritual. By happy coincidence, a smartphone of one of the sperm-babies has fallen into the sewers of the asylum. After poking around in the phone, the sisters learned that his name is Yasosu Biba, and most importantly - judging by his records on the Tyndyr app, Yasos can satisfy a thousand women.

In an interview, Ilya Maddison confessed that his favorite game is Fallout 2. According to Ilya, the modern game industry is too keen on ingratiating itself to the casuals, so the story and the gameplay in Underground Man 2 was developed with a bias towards old-school, adult game design.

Mefsoft have leaped over the head in this sequel, Maddison has written an adult story with a ton of post-irony and black humor. The game's action takes place in an expanse of radioactive wasteland, where everyone is looking for their own gain and won't miss an opportunity to take advantage of the socially unadapted protagonist.

It is impossible to predict the actions of the NPCs encountered: one will make you dress up as a dancer and harness you to dance on stage. For a sluggish dance the manager of the institution will turn the protagonist into a free prostitute; another will not shy away from taking advantage of the main character's body and invite her to his jacuzzi, inclined to very perverted things.

And sometimes in the pursuit of Yasosu Biba you will meet characters completely detached from local realities - unnaturally elevated and brought up for the morally decayed society of the wastelands. I'm not going to spoil it, but Underground Man 2 is full of freaks, marginal characters and dozens of recognizable Russian celebrities, from Boretsky to Dmitry "Goblin" Puchkov, from VJLink to Anton Logvinov.

Maddison's sarcastic sense oozes blood at every turn. At its core, Underground Man 2's plot is an impressive array of references, memes, and black humor. Looking ahead, that's what the first Underground Man was loved for in its day...

Did it use to be better? Experience the pain of twentieth-century game design.

Ilya Maddison complained back in 2009 that games were being made too easy. If previously it was almost a feat to pass the game, now they can be snapped like sunflower seeds. Are there many here who have passed Contra 4?

So don't expect Underground Man 2 to be an unobtrusive leisure game with a cup of tea. The game is intentionally complicated to outrageousness. Recall, the game was handled by a game journalist with years of experience, who has eaten the dog on video games and knows how they work - it's going to hurt. Did you complain that checkpoints are too sparse in the game? - Underground Man 2 has none at all; did you complain about the dialog box and pseudo-variability? - In Underground Man 2, you can easily die by selecting the wrong answer choice in the dialog...

...Did you complain that the in-game map has fast-travel points too far apart from each other? - No problem, in Underground Man 2 you will be forced to walk for twenty minutes from left to right on the background of the same type of backdrops...

The entire gameplay of Underground Man 2 is designed with one goal - to annoy the player. So we are repeatedly forced to pass the mini-games with the forbidding difficulty, and any enemy we meet is able to humiliate our character, even if he will be armed by that moment. What are we talking about when only in Underground Man 2 the protagonist receives damage for jumping indoors and hitting the ceiling with his head? Before you start the game, prepare for the fact that the combat system, platforming and special levels will be phenomenally difficult.

Aside from the platforming, mini-games from the 1980s, and dialogue, sometimes Underground Man 2 offers Beat'em up elements like everything else in the game - made deliberately crooked and unfriendly to the player.

Conclusion

If you look at Steam, you can see that Underground Man 2 has extremely positive reviews, but don't take these words at face value. The praise of Underground Man 2 is a kind of flash mob; a mockery of the fact that in today's gaming journalism any game can be elevated, given a 12/10 and nominated for Game of the Year.

Underground Man 2 may only be of interest to fans of Elijah Maddison. But setting aside the mass craze around Ilya and looking at the game in isolation from his persona, Underground Man 2 is a humorous indie game with chiseling complexity and Cold War gameplay.