What's improved: More tracks, more drivers, more weapons, tweaked weapons, the ability to carry two powerups at once, more customization, and a ton of graphical upgrades including night/day effects. There's also a Hot Wheels themed DLC with some of the best tracks yet.
What's infuriating: The enemy AI at higher levels is godlike to the point that the game is no longer fun. You know what? This is my blog, so of course it's time to ramble. Twenty years ago there was a Mortal Kombat 3 port for the Gameboy Advance. MKA was widely panned for having poor controls and limited characters, but one of the biggest criticisms it faced was insanely cheap AI.
Imagine playing rock/paper/scissors with against a computer. Except instead of making its choice randomly, the computer just waits to see what you pick, and instantly responds with whichever choice beats yours. Fun, right? Well, that's how MKA was programmed. You fire high, it ducks. You fire low, it jumps. You punch, it blocks. You let your guard down, it hits you. It was so good at executing the perfect counter to whatever you did, it was basically like your joypad was controlling both you and the opponent simultaneously.
Beach Buggy Racing 2 has four speeds: 100, 250, 500, and 1000. Because we played BBR1 for a couple of years on the 1000 speed, we have to select that speed now or the game feels like it's playing in slow motion. But here's the thing - under the default rules, BBR2 ties the AI to the speed. So in order to play at the speed we're used to, we have to play against the hardest AI.
And by "hardest AI", I mean cheapest. And by cheapest, I mean the computer is a cheating bastard. In any given Mario Kart game, it's always annoying when you spend 90% of the race at #1, then get taken out by a blue shell in the final stretch. But it doesn't happen every race, and it keeps one player from dominating the circuit, so it's all in good fun. But in BBR2, every single damn time I'm in the lead, I get hit by multiple weapons on the final stretch.
It would be one thing if these were weapons I could learn to avoid. I'd be perfectly happy if it was just a "git gud" kind of situation, where I had to develop the skills to dodge these weapons. But you can't. Sure, the weapons have a sound effect, but without the ability to see behind you, you can't effectively dodge them. Not to mention several of the weapons are homing, and some are just too fast to dodge.
And it's not just when you're about to win. One of the reasons racing games are so fun is the feeling of speed. But in BBR2 at the fastest setting, you don't get to feel the speed that much. Because you're constantly getting hit with items that slow you down, spin you out, knock you off cliffs, and so on. So instead of long stretches where you feel the wind going through your virtual hair, it's more like race, pause, race, pause, race, pause... and it really isn't fun.
Another problem I have is that, well, I just don't believe that the enemies have actually picked up the weapons they use. Like, I'll shoot at an enemy vehicle, and it immediately uses an invincibility powerup to counter it. They just happened to be carrying an invincibility powerup that they hadn't used yet. No, I don't believe it. It happens too often to be a coincidence - they really are using powerups they never picked up.
But! This is where customization saves the day. The game includes several optional rulesets, and the ability to save your own custom set of rules. I personally had to turn off the "link AI to speed" feature, then lower the AI all the way down to the lowest setting. That way I can race at the fastest setting without constantly fending off unstoppable murderbots. Unfortunately, doing so prevents you from unlocking a few cars, but them's the breaks.
So if you like kart racers, do buy this game, especially if you can get it on sale. But if you find the difficulty a bit off-putting, take the time to customize the rules to your liking. There is a wonderful gem of a game in here, but only if you take the time to fix it.
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