Now Playing: Budget Cuts 2 (VR)

I played Budget Cuts in 2019 and I concluded my review by saying ‘I know a Budget Cuts 2 is due soon and it’s something I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on. If it can refine, build upon and expand the existing mechanics, whilst also introducing a few new twists of its own and a longer, more substantial campaign, I can see it being a must have VR experience.’

So here we are in 2022 and I’ve just finished Budget Cuts 2. So I guess the question is, does the sequel succeed in the ways that I hoped for? Sadly . . . no. Not even close. Budget Cuts 2 is a disappointing sequel and, overall, a pretty bad game.

It’s a sequel that doesn’t expand, evolve or refine any aspect of the original game. The campaign is short – I ran through it in less than 5 hours even searching out all of the collectibles. The levels are more linear, despite some being larger in terms of scale. The puzzle aspects are all but removed. Even the stealth aspect is all but gone.

The combat sees the only new ‘twist’ with the introduction of a bow which, aside from being irritatingly awkward to use (as you have to keep opening your inventory between every shot) makes combat largely trivial and easy as you can safely pick off enemy robots at range.

There’s no aspect of Budget Cuts 2 that I’d say is better than the original. Everything is either on par . . or worse, and that’s really not what I was hoping for. To be a little more positive, Budget Cuts 2 does at least share the good production value of the original with sharp visuals and decent VA. And the game has some genuinely pretty good moments just, sadly, not enough of them.

And that’s all that I can really say in favour of Budget Cuts 2. The last level is pretty tedious as the game forces you to teleport from one button to another for about 10 minutes in an environment full of robots that can kill you in one hit – and if you die, you have to restart the entire sequence. And once you get through that crap, you’re then faced with fighting multiple waves of the same one-hit robots. Thankfully, this section has a couple of checkpoints, but it’s still bloody annoying.

Annoying and kind of sad . . . because I feel like the game should have been smarter than a finale where you’re just firing grenades at everything. I referred to Budget Cuts 1 in my review as a ‘low budget Portal 2’. It wasn’t a straight puzzle game because it also featured stealth and combat, but the stealth, in a way, was a part of the puzzle.

I was hoping Budget Cuts 2 would lean more into the puzzle and stealth aspects and present a series of more clever and elaborate puzzle based levels. Instead, it does the opposite and focuses more on simple, linear levels and combat. Which wouldn’t be so bad if those levels and the combat were really well done but . . . they’re not.

The bow makes combat easy but it’s not at all fun to use. It’s awkward to ‘reload’ and awkward to line up a shot. Enemy AI is also pretty terrible and easy to abuse. And sometimes it just stops working and the robots just get stuck. In terms of story, Budget Cuts 2 continues on from the original, but it doesn’t really feel like it goes anywhere.

I mean, it does, but because the game is so short it feels incredibly rushed. Factor in that absolutely terrible final level and you really won’t care about what’s happening or why, you’ll just want it to be over.

So Budget Cuts 2 doesn’t succeed at being a good sequel to the original, and it doesn’t succeed at standing alone as its own game. I really see no reason to recommend it even if you’re a fan of the original game. There’s really nothing here that’s worth your time, even on sale.

4/10