Now THIS is better. If you ever played Thing-Thing Arena 1, then you might know that I really dislike it, but this one is different. This one I sure do like. Thing-Thing Arena 2 is, as it says, an Arena-style Thing-Thing game. There are no objectives, your goal is to kill as many before dying.

In terms of gameplay, it is way better than in Thing-Thing 1. Why? Well, the controls feel better, the movement is just like in Thing-Thing 3, the weaponry is, while not offering much variety, unique unlike in Thing-Thing 2, each being in one category. That is, the Pistol is only a Five-SeveN, the Magnum is only an Automag .44AMP, the SMG is only a P-90, the Assault Rifle is only a FN SCAR, the Shotgun is only a SPAS-12 and the Autoshotgun is only an Auto-12. What? Not enough or not interesting at all? Well, you also got a Grenade Launcher, a Laser Pistol, a Mini-Gun (called Mini-Vulcan) and holy damn, a Gauss Rifle! So, as you can see, the weapon variety is so small that it's just one type on each ammo type, but that's fine enough for me, it's pretty much quality over quantity.

What I hate about this weapons system is how that AK weapon that appears in the intro doesn't appear in the game. That sucks, it may look big and bulky but it also looks very badass, I wanna try it! (TINY SPOILER; it appears in Thing-Thing 4). Also, the grenade...Sure, we got a grenade launcher, but in the intro, you can see one SWAT or something guy throw a grenade. Why can't we have that? I guess the dev thought the grenade launcher is already fine enough. Well, I never liked this damn grenade launcher in here. Even in the first Thing-Thing Arena it's actually better.

The HP and Stamina system is exactly like in Thing-Thing 3; No regen, must pick up health packs from fallen enemies to regain health. And of course you can jump and run as long as you want.

The enemies are similar to Thing-Thing 3, but got a small difference; There are now three types and each got their own aspect. The first one is what appears to be a kevlar armoured and helmet SWAT-kind of guy, he's the weakest. The 2nd seems to be the same as the SWAT-kind of guy but with red visors, I'm actually not too sure if he's really a different unique type or just another model for the first SWAT guy. I do know that the 3rd one, those daemonic helmet-ed white armour wearing guys, are the strongest. They always spawn from the left or right and with a randomized weapon. Hell, whenever you pick up the slow powerup, you might find a buggy guy that can't seem to decide which random weapon he's gonna get.

Oh yeah, talking about that...This game has powerups. As I mentioned before, you got Slow, which is actually not even Slow it's "Stopwatch", it stops the time for around 4 seconds. The more you pick up, the more time it stops. You also got "Faster Speed" and "Higher Jump". What do they do? What they say they do. To be more specific, faster speed increases your BASE speed, not just sprint.

Now, let's talk about the game types, you got 6 of them, and they are;
1. Sentry Bomber Survival; In here, it's you against sentry bombers. The more time you play this, the stronger the sentry bombers get. This is the most boring one I know.
2. Stinky Bean Survival; I don't even get why the developer is so fond of these shitheads. It's you against Stinky Beans, they're like fast jumping little meleeists. This is the 2nd boring for me.
3. Zombie Survival; Good ol' zombie survival, you know what this is about, right? No? Well, it's you against zombies, simple as that. You apparently already start with a Spas-12, just like in the first Thing-Thing Arena, but without unlimited ammo. Also, in here, the zombies are more into the classic George A. Romero style, that is, they're slow as well, fucked up as well and hit so slowly but so hard. That's great! This is my favourite survival apparently. These zombies are way better than in Thing-Thing 3 and Thing-Thing Arena 1.
4. Super Survival; Similar to the regular Survival Mode in Thing-Thing 1, this is you against those SWAT guys I mentioned about. The more time you take, the more of these come out and the common the White Daemonic Guys get. In here, you're apparently armed with a P-90 already.
5. Ultimate Survival; This is the big one! This is you against EVERYTHING and EVERYONE! Yep, you got Sentry Bombers, SWAT guys, Stinky Beans and Zombies. Hardest survival apparently, but also the most fun.
6. Practice Mode; Well, this is nothing but what it says, a practice gamemode. In here, you start in a room and you got some unlimited respawnning weapons to obtain. You also got a mannequin to see how much of its pieces it removes. Yeah...Here's a hint; Kill the Cashier by getting very near him and crouching, make sure you got a lot of ammo from a good gun such as the SCAR-H or the Laser Pistol. When you kill him, you'll get an infinite respawning Mini-Vulcan. Cool! Huh?

Okay, this time, let's go into graphics. As I can see, they're similar to Thing-Thing 3, but improved a little. By that I mean the details of course. You can see that the guns are now somewhat more detailed, still being pure gray but also pure gray AND black so it does have SOME detail. Of course, some guns got their own colour, like the P90's magazine ;) Not just that, it seems that the animations got better as well, because you can see how the ejection ports move when shot (although strangely not in the SCAR FN)

What's strange is that the gore system has changed, now there's no chance that headshotting somebody will not exactly explode their head but break off some of their skin revealing a bloody skull. It will always explode. That's right. That kinda sucks, but it does have some cool stuff; Zombies are even more so extremely gory. Cool! You can see so many details from them, I think you can even see their guts despite being subtle.

Oh yeah talking about that, the animations for zombies has been so heavily improved, that's great! They now don't walk like in Thing-Thing 3, they just scramble around and can't even jump, walk straight or run. Hell, when they fall, they really fall clumsily, that's funnily cool, hah!

As for environment, it seems that it's similar to Thing-Thing 3 but improved by a lot. Unlike in the first Thing-Thing Arena, there's more than just one place (A city, a lab, some kind of daemonic arena, etc) and the details are way better, although that ain't shit, because...Well, remember how in Thing-Thing you couldn't move left to right, the camera was always fixed and shit? Well, luckily, in here, the camera follows you and you can move anywhere, from right to left, from up to down. That's great! A big improvement from Thing-Thing Arena.

Well, that's all to say about graphics, let's go with sounds. The sounds seem to have changed a lot, apparently you don't hear any dying or gore sounds anymore, that kinda sucks, you'll hear more shooting than anything else. Stinky Beans do make some noise...Even fart noises, but that's it. The rest pretty much don't, unless you think the Sentry Bomber's explosive sound is a sound. Oh wait, it is! So as you can see, sound is what makes the qualites in this game go low. I wish we could have better sound, with some gore, stuff, dying sounds, etc.

Funny thing is, in the intro and the main menu, you get to hear footsteps, from you and your enemies, but you don't hear them ingame. The hell?

Now, for music, well there isn't much to say except that you can now disable music, unlike in Thing-Thing Arena 1. Also, when you disable and re-enable, you get different songs, that's nice! A button that does two things. Each song seems to be different, no Newgrounds-sounding unlike in the first Thing-Thing Arena. Thing is, there are less songs than in the first Thing-Thing Arena, but I suppose this is more like Quality over Quantity. By that, I mean that we only got 4 songs. Yep, 4. It's 5 if you count the main menu song. All these songs seem to be Techno, maybe with some Electro-Industrial influence in it, more electronic than industrial, that's for sure.

So, as you can see, this is another of my favourite Thing-Thing Arena series games. This one might be the top favourite, I've got to try the 3rd one yet, but still, this is very nice, I love it. I highly recommend it to anyone that is into Arena and Thing-Thing itself.