Years ago, we used to run a weekly series on this channel called Game Over, where we would recap the story of a classic game and then spoil the ending. Believe it or not, this series lasted more than 180 episodes and covered an impressive amount of games. One of my favorite story breakdowns was the original Flashback, which has recently seen a big uptick in views thanks to the release of the brand-new sequel from Microids. If you watched my review, then you already know that I wasn't a huge fan of clunky way it played and how broken the whole thing was, but I did commend the game on having an interesting story. Seeing as a lot of longtime fans will likely be scared off by the negative reviews but still interested in the story, I thought that this would be the perfect time to resurrect the Game Over franchise and give the fans what they want. Brace yourself for a lot of spoilers, because this is a full story breakdown of Flashback 2.


Before we can talk about Flashback 2, we first need to address what happened in original game. The year is 2140 and Conrad Hart crash-landed his hover bike on Titan. If that wasn't bad enough, he doesn't remember what happened, but he finds a holocube containing a recorded message from himself telling the amnesiac to meet a friend in New Washington. Once there, Hart fights off a bunch of cops and discovers that his friend Ian has a special memory chair. And that's not all, because it turns out that Conrad had created a very special pair of sunglasses that can identify a species of shape-shifting aliens called Morph that are secretly living among us and trying to take over the government.

So, now that he has his memories back, Hart realizes that he needs to return to Earth. Unfortunately, he doesn't exactly have the money, so Ian suggests going on a Running Man-style game show called Death Tower. Of course, the problem is that he doesn't even have enough money to get the forged documents to get on the game show, so he's forced to take on a bunch of boring odd jobs in order to fight to the death on television.

Long story short, he wins Death Tower and boards a ship that will take him back to Earth. Now, in that first game, he gets to Earth, infiltrates the Paradise Club and saves the day by blowing up the alien planet. This leads to a surprisingly downbeat ending where our hero gets in a sleep pod and presumably goes somewhere far away from the morphs. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

So, let's back up a little and go to that part where Conrad boards a ship that takes him to Earth. Instead of safely making it to his final destination, Flashback 2 starts with that ship crashing back on Titan, seemingly changing the story. Normally, this is the point where you would be asking a bunch of questions, but there's no time for that, because Conrad is badly hurt and in need of a health pack.

Fearing that the entire building might collapse, Hart races around looking for an exit. He finds one, but not before picking up this weird triangle-shaped card. What does it mean? What could it be? Well, it turns out that it's connected to the local Triangle mafia, which is controlled by Mike Corleoni. Conrad is convinced that his friend, Ian, is being held by these gangsters, and Corleoni agrees to cough up the details if our hero helps him win a mech boxing match.

There's only one problem – Conrad doesn't have enough money to buy a mech. Not even an old, junky one. So, much like the first game, he takes on a bunch of odd jobs to earn the cash and win the fight. Thankfully, Conrad is a natural at fighting mechs and easily wins. This results in Corleoni revealing that Ian is being held captive in a factory in Atlantica.

While that information was technically true, what Corleoni did not mention is that Ian is not alone. He's being held in a cell right next to a red-headed woman named Joanna, who tells us that she's part of a movement that fights against the exploitation of the jungle. It's worth noting that this is not the only woman Conrad runs into in this heavily-guarded warehouse. He also spies on a woman named Lazarus, who has been torturing the prisoners in order to extract information and, more importantly, new bodies for the aliens to morph into. It's here where we learn that the aliens are planning on overthrowing the government by killing and replacing President Frost with an exact double.

Having helped the two prisoners escape, Conrad and Ian are welcomed into Joanna's political group, which gives them a place to rest and ready up for the next fight. The top priority right now is to warn the President, but they'll need to make sure that they are talking to real humans, not shape-shifting aliens. The good news is that Conrad has a pair of glasses that would be perfect for this specific job. Unfortunately, the bad news is that the glasses are back on New Tokyo, which is more than just a hoverbike ride away.

Before we take the flight to New Tokyo, this is probably a good time to address one of the story's lingering questions – what the hell is going on with this game's timeline? As it turns out, Ian has a theory on what's going on. You see, he thinks that this Conrad is a clone that was created by his old mentor, Professor Clark. Knowing how important Conrad would be to this mission, the professor essentially photocopied our hero. In other words, if that was Conrad B. Hart in the original Flashback, then this is Conrad C. Hart.

Regardless of whether you buy into Ian's theory or not, you're probably thinking that it's going to be tough to sneak past security and catch a flight to New Tokyo. As it turns out, Joanna's group is really good at making fake IDs, so it's no trouble at all. In fact, things go so well, that our hero ends up running into Helen Clark, an old friend from school who is also the niece of Professor Clark. What are the odds of that happening? Nothing suspicious about that at all.

Actually, there isn't. The game wants you to think that maybe Conrad is being played by this new character, but he's not. However, Professor Clark is in real danger. According to one of his colleagues, Kenya Lynch, the Professor was captured by the aliens. What's more, many of her professor colleagues have been rounded up by the police. Something is clearly up. And if you didn't believe that before, you will after Helen and Professor Lynch are arrested and taken aboard the menacing ship.

Not willing to be left behind, Conrad leaps into action and boards the enemy ship. It's here where he makes a huge discovery – Joanna has been a double-agent this entire time, revealing the protest group's plans to none other than General Lazarus. Conrad shoots his way through the ship until he finds Helen, who believes she was captured in order to be used to blackmail her uncle. Conrad knows that he needs to get back to Titan and warn the others, so he hatches a plan to use one of the escape pods to fly back to Titan and get the information to President Frost. Little does he know that a mysterious figure has latched itself onto the escape pod. And that isn't even the most pressing issue, because a masked person with a bazooka takes blows up the pod with just one hit.

If you're having a weird sense of déjà vu, then you're not alone, because Conrad once again crash lands in the jungles on Titan. Thankfully, he still has his memories, so it's not a complete repeat of what happened in the first game. There's more good news, because Halen also managed to survive the crash landing, though she dies about ten seconds later when a plant creature gobbles her up. Conrad wants to mourn, but there's no time. You remember that mysterious figure that caught a ride on the escape pod? Well, it also survived, and now it's looking for a one-on-one fight.

That proves to be a big mistake, because Conrad quickly defeats the boss ... and then immediately passes out when he breathes in some of the jungle's toxins. When he awakes, he ... um ... well ... he has a conversation with a tree. To be fair, it's the Great Tree, who talks about how aliens enslaved the forest and looted its resources. Yeah, that sucks, but wait, there's more. As it turns out, Professor Clark is able to speak to Conrad, but it's not the Professor Clark that we know. Instead it's an alternate dimension Clark, who pulled Conrad into his multiverse in order to defeat the alien's Master-Brain.

More than anything else, this confirms that Conrad isn't a clone at all, but rather that he's dealing with two different parallel dimensions. In one dimension, he made it to Earth safely and the events of Flashback 1 took place. However, in this game, his ship crashed and, well, you know the rest. In order to successfully defeat the aliens, both Conrads are going to need to work together across dimensions, which is every bit as challenging as it sounds.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves, because we still have to get out of the jungle and warn the President. The good news is that the first part is surprisingly easy. A scout shows Conrad the secret entrance to the Village of the Banished, where Shaa'man reveals that they too have a beef with General Lazarus. Better still, they have an underground passage that will take Conrad straight to New Washington. And if that wasn't enough, they have a mech he can use to get there. Oh yeah, they also mention that Helen is alive and recuperating in the village. But that's not important right now, because did you hear that we get a mech?

Now, I won't bore you with the details of assembling the mech, but it involves collecting a battery and finding a bunch of different mech parts. The important part is that once you put the mech back together, General Lazarus and her army invade the Village of the Banished in a cinema that has completely unacceptable frame rate. Shaa-man agrees to stay behind and hold the army back, because it's vital that Conrad is able to get to New Washington and complete his task.

Back in the city, Conrad tells his fellow freedom fighters that Joanna is a traitor, but they already suspected as much. The group is going to scramble the President's defenses, which should give our hero enough time to sneak in and show him the holocube of what's really going on. Of course, getting to the President is going to be a herculean task that will probably take ... oh wait, his office is in the nearby mall? Okay, this is going to be a piece of cake. Once Conrad crashes into the 22nd century's Oval Office, he runs into the single most predictable problem you could possibly have – there are two Presidents. That's right, one is the real deal and the other is the morph. Good thing Hart has those morph-detecting glasses from the first game, which allows him to safely take out the imposter and get the important news to the real President Frost. Phew, crisis averted.

Now, in order to defeat the alien invasion once and for all, Conrad is going to need to fight his way onto the alien's ship, not unlike what happens in the first game. In fact, Professor Clark tells our hero that he's going to need to wait for the exact moment of the Conjunction, when the Conrad in Flashback 1 terminates the Master-Brain in the other dimension. Of course, before he can do that, he needs to have a final confrontation with General Lazarus, who ditches her, and I quote, “weak female form” and shows us her alien side. She also reveals that Conrad may also be a morph, which seems to be more like a psychological play than a real twist. That's left open-ended in the game, but we're just going to table that for right now.

After the fight with alien formerly known as General Lazarus, we are treated to a 3D recreation of the first Flashback's final stage. This is where the game shifts the camera perspective to look more like a third-person shooter, more than resembling the look and feel of Fade to Black. Despite the fact that you can't change the controls, this is a pretty cool section that even shows us what's happening in the other Flashback game in the upper right corner. As instructed, the goal is to trigger the Conjunction simultaneously with our 16-bit counterpart in order to destroy the Master-Brain once and for all. Conrad is able to get the timing down and blows everything up, and this is what happens next.

Like I said in my review, this story isn't nearly as complicated as what you might find in Mass Effect or Starfield, but it does make sense in the Flashback universe. I like the way the final bit pays tribute to both of the first two games, and that ending certainly sets up the possibility of a sequel that doesn't specifically follow the events of Fade to Black. Honestly, as a big fan of that first Flashback game, I was curious where they could take the story and have it still make sense, and I feel like they came up with something unexpected. Sure, I suppose the multiverse thing is a bit played out now, but I didn't see it coming, and the game does a good job of sending you down the wrong path thinking that you're a clone. All of this silly sci-fi stuff completely worked on me. Too bad the game around it is so broken and clunky. Oh well, I guess you can't have everything.