Slayaway Camp 2 Review

You are greeted at Slayaway Camp 2 with an awesome theme song that proclaims, "Only the strong survive; better run, better run, stay alive." This tune gives great advice for your potential victims, as you aren’t hiding from the killer; instead, you are the only one doing the hunting here. Get ready to stalk and slaughter in this comedy-horror puzzle game by Blue Wizard Digital. You find yourself trapped inside a retro horror movie catalogue, where you ensure that there are no survivors.

Three teenagers around a campfire decide to try to summon the killer known as Skullface. The one kid, with this brilliant idea, says that all they need to summon him is his diary, but if you don’t have the physical book, you can just read the PDF version on your phone. There is no downside here; the kid who reads the diary says that if things go wrong, all they need to do is read the passage backwards. The player takes on the role of Skullface, and your goal is to kill everyone here, so you take out the other two campers easily. But, just as you attack the main kid, he finishes reading the diary passage backwards, and you are pulled into the phone and into an app called Terror Tube.

This place is essentially Netflix and is home to a catalogue of retro horror movies. You will need to challenge each of these films and complete the associated challenge to earn stars to unlock more of the movie catalogue. The first movie you jump into is called Scary Camp 6. Each film is cut into multiple scenes, and you need to play them all to complete the movie. The beginning of this movie is called First Day at Camp, and it acts as a tutorial to show you how to pull off all this killing. It can’t get much easier than just running into the campers; all you need to do is move around using the left thumbstick or D-pad if you want more precision. If you are worried about the amount of gore in this title, it does have a tonne of blood, but it’s very cartoony and over the top; it is definitely not realistic looking at all. Once everyone is dead and that section is cleared, then you move on to the next stage called See How They Run. If you scare one camper, and if it's lined up right, they will run into another camper, causing a chain reaction. In this case, the person at the end ran into the water and drowned. These victims aren’t very smart, which makes it more satisfying to see their comedic over-the-top reaction when they realise the killer is stalking them!

The movie Crates of Wrath has you pushing boxes into the water so that you can get to the spots where the campers are hiding. These crates have multiple uses; besides just helping you get across the water, they can also be pushed into campers to kill them, or if you are being strategic, you can use them to block any potential escape routes. Each category movies introduces a new mechanic to use to your advantage; some have mines that are silently waiting for someone to step on them, crates, or boulders that can roll through multiple victims and right off the stage if there isn't an object in the way to stop them. But, no matter the stage, you need to make sure that none of these campers escape. If they manage to, you will need to restart the stage again, or if you would rather, you can rewind to go back before this happens.

Slayaway Camp 2 is incredibly helpful; it wants you to succeed. If you are unsure of the correct steps to take in the stage to be successful, hit Y (top face button) to get a hint. This little drawing will give you an idea of the main things you need to do. If you still can't figure it out, you can watch a preview that shows a recording of a successful attempt at that puzzle. The game doesn’t penalise you for using the hints or videos; they just want you to be able to move on to the next challenge. Once you clear all the one-star challenges in the film, extra missions are unlocked for you to attempt. These are very different from the first challenges you played, so have the stage transform into a winter level where the ground is pure ice and you are sliding around; this makes the level so much harder!

The visual style in Slayaway Camp 2 is cartoony and very exaggerated, with the character design looking like Funko Pops. With vibrant colours, this game doesn’t look like the dark and creepy setting you would expect from a game with a serial killer and a large amount of death. The music here fits the look of Slayaway Camp 2 very well, and the inclusion of that awesome theme song puts it over the top. It reminds me of the Alice Cooper song He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask) that was used in the film Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.

There are over 60 different movies to challenge! With each row of films costing more stars to unlock, you will want to complete all three-star missions for each stage you play to access all these other spoof movies. Plus, you can unlock other killers to play as, so you won’t always have to be Skullface; you can unlock his mom (like in the Friday the 13th series), Killer Fridge, or my personal favourite, SharkPerson. The description is perfect: “Half shark. Half person. All SharkPerson.” The monster killers have a Beast Roar ability that will freeze victims and enemies on the screen with fear. Picture the shark from Jaws with human teeth, and the ability to bounce on land.

Slayaway Camp 2 is the perfect mix of comedy and puzzle. It is very challenging and will get your brain working, and I really appreciate how the game is ready to give you help at any time without penalising you! Sometimes you really need to think outside the box to figure out the solution. With over 60 different horror titles to challenge, this game will keep you busy for a long time, but there is also a high-score mode you can try out. This mode is called Endless Slaughter and invokes you running through the woods, killing as many campers as possible. Once you have killed enough people to fill the bloodlust bar, you can unleash a multi-kill and increase your multiplier to try to get the highest score possible.

If you are a fan of challenging puzzle games and campy horror movies, Slayaway Camp 2 is a must-play game! I’ve had such a great time with this game, I will be recommending it to everyone I know, and the fact that it is cartoony and silly makes it fun for people who aren’t a big fan of gore and graphic games. Now excuse me as I get back to stalking those campers who have the bad fortune of being trapped in the same location as me…