Steam review code provided by Devolver Digital
Sludge Life 2 is a wild vandalism simulator developed by Terri Vellmann and DOSEONE, and published by Devolver Digital. Sludge Life 2 comes equipped with plenty of small interactions and exploring with some crazy visuals, let’s see how much all this adds to the game.
Story
In Sludge Life 2 you play as Ghost, the manager to a rapping Frog named Big Mud. After a rager, you wake up in a bathtub clearly hungover with the hotel room trashed. Your memory from last night isn’t the only thing missing, Big Mud is nowhere to be found. With fans storming the front door and a record deal going down, you need to find Big Mud.
You will explore Ciggy City in search of Big Mud, encountering plenty of fun characters, from other taggers to weirdos just hanging out in their own apartments. As you platform your way around Ciggy City you’ll find clues and talk to people to lead you to find Big Mud. During your search, you may get distracted by all the little things to find in the city like finding Big Mud’s co-star Uzzi in a jail cell because he got caught for tagging.
While you explore you meet other taggers and start to learn their callsigns which helps you navigate your way around, eventually putting you onto a scent trail. After you finally pick up on where your long lost friend is you’ll find him in a sort of underwhelming way and happily ever after, Big Mud will film his music video, which you watch by the way. Then you have the opportunity to continue exploring if you’d like.
Gameplay
You’ll search for Big Mud all throughout Ciggy City, you’ll explore the bottom where the Sludge is and you’ll explore the top where the suites are. You encounter tons of citizens that will pique your interest with their weird quirky dialog. As you explore the world you’ll find weirdos, other vandals, upcoming rappers, and businessmen. You can talk to each and every one of them to learn their stories.
The controls I found were very simple, with standard WASD keys to move and a space bar to jump around. As you find items like Vandal eyes that show you the nearest tagging spot, or a camera for you guessed it pictures, or some JJ shoes that help you sprint faster. You’ll learn little things along the way to make getting around easier but other than that you can expect to walk jump and click on a lot of things.
Along the way, you’ll find many spots that have spray cans, parkour your way up to those spots if needed or take the plunge to the sludge and tag up these many locations. On top of that, you can collect cigarettes and find small yellow slugs hidden around the map to eat. Most of the slug locations are marked by a large spray-painted slug on a wall nearby.
Explore the map as much as you want by doing ridiculous skyscraper scaling or just trek on in the sludge. Most of the game is kind of just a walking sim with some platforming as you jump around to try to reach higher heights. One thing that I did notice is that the more you tag in the game the more that it will show in the music video at the end and you’ll gain a reputation for it, so get your vandalism urges out and tag your little heart out.
Audio and Visual
Sludge Life 2 has some really out-there graphics, and some beats to vibe with. The whole game is designed to look like some psychedelic VHS world. You have humanoid bugs and animals, mixed with “normal” people. You have real animals, like pigeons in the weird pigeon cult room you might find. There are some cool tagging spots that make some funky images, all the tagging is pretty cool.
Replayability
There is potential for replayability here, it’s just a matter of finding it. There are collectibles and plenty of areas to explore. You can even get a “job” as a freelance photographer, at no pay of course. While exploring there are plenty of little fun things to notice and just play around with. You can even get a computer game in the game that is actually quite addicting.
What It Could Have Done Better
The atmosphere and the vibe are great, there’s no complaint there. I think that the story should be a little bit more linear, that would add to the open-world aspect and the replayability. They kind of just throw you in and leave you be as you play, this leads to a lot of mindless exploration which is good to some extent because you get to see the map, but it also takes away the reason to play the game once you finish.
Verdict
Sludge Life 2 is a hilarious trip of a game! The gameplay isn’t very intense or engaging but exploring and hearing from the wacky characters is fun. I enjoyed my time while playing for a little while, but after I lost my way and felt like I was walking in circles the joy faded away. If it were a little more linear it would be a whole lot better because I wouldn’t have to worry so much about finding where I’m going and I could just soak in the world a little more.
Sludge Life 2 is available now on PC via Steam.
