Spitters and slashers and howlers – Oh my!
Electronic Arts has put out many great games in their time; they’ve repeatedly shown that they have a good eye for quality, even if some of their business practices have sometimes drawn the ire of gamers. But one of the most popular series they have is the Dead Space trilogy. Dead Space 2, developed by Visceral Games and released at the end of January 2011, stands as yet another classic in their stable.
Dead Space 2 is an amazing experience that remains as fun to play now as it did at the time of its original release. With plenty of scares and the intricate and confusing internal struggle of the main character, Isaac, Dead Space 2 will leave you questioning everything that has happened after your first playthrough, only to pull you back in over and over again.
Dead Space 2 is set three years after the events of the original Dead Space. But just as in the first game, Isaac still has the worst luck ever known to man. The last time we saw him, he was piloting a shuttle away from the doomed spaceship Ishimura, only to be suddenly attacked. Dead Space 2 starts out as Isaac awakens in a hospital situated inside a city named The Sprawl. Unfortunately for him, things go to hell almost instantly, in one of the most intense and gripping openings we’ve ever experienced.
We don’t want to give much away about Dead Space 2, other than that Isaac will spend a lot of time throughout the game trying to decide who he can and can’t trust, fight some intense internal struggles, and figure out how the hell the Necromorphs are in The Sprawl in the first place. Your mission? Find and destroy the religious idols – known as Markers – and don’t let the numerous internal conversations and hallucinations drive you crazier then you already are.
Though the internal struggles that Isaac goes through are some of the most memorable aspects in Dead Space 2, the combat comes very close to overshadowing them. It’s far more satisfying than it was in Dead Space, and offers some of the most bad-ass kills you’ve probably ever seen. The telekinetic grab that Isaac has is fluid and has a quick response time, allowing you to quickly lift up crates and hurl them at your enemies. On top of it all, you’re also armed with a wider variety of weapons than the first game, giving you plenty of ways to destroy the Necromorphs that stand in your way. It never gets old throwing something at a Necromorph, blowing off its arm, and then using the same arm to impale the ugly creature into a wall. It’s beautiful carnage, from beginning to end.
The threat level in Dead Space 2 has been turned up from the original Dead Space. Sure, in the first game you saw a lot of corpses. But Dead Space 2 uses the fact that you’re in a city - as opposed to a derelict mining vessel - to its advantage. It isn’t uncommon to find dead children in daycare centers and dead families in their homes. The tone is bleak throughout, as befits the genre, and the sense of despair and desolation never lets up. There are bodies everywhere in Dead Space 2, giving the environment a dark and twisted feeling every step of the way. Everywhere you look, there’s death and decay.
On top of the high body count, Dead Space 2 amps up the creep factor with new and more gruesome varieties of Necromorphs. The creepiest you’ll come across are infected children, transformed from vulnerable innocents into gray and misshapen monsters with razor-sharp teeth. Though they’re simple enough to dispatch by themselves, catch yourself being rushed at by a pack of them and you’ll find that they can easily outrun you. And if that wasn’t enough to haunt your dreams, wait until you see the Necromorph babies – complete with fully loaded diapers of doom that we can’t help but think makes them explode like they do when you kill them. Despite your arsenal of weapons, Dead Space 2 leaves you feeling as though you’re in constant danger.
All the new Necromorphs mesh together nicely with the returning types from the original Dead Space. There are a vast assortment of both long and short ranged Necromorphs around you, making them frightening and deadly at the same time. But just as it happened in the original Dead Space, that third person camera view can really make the fights even more challenging. If you find yourself backed up against a wall and the Necromorph gets too close to you, the camera won’t show you your assailant, and you may have to move around some to get a good enough angle to target the Necromorph. This can cause some very frustrating moments, especially when your health is quickly disappearing.
As with the first game, weapons can be upgraded by using nodes that you collect throughout the game, making them more effective at ripping off limbs and making the weapons. The Ripper returns, and is just as satisfying to use here as it was in the previous game. You will also run in to the Plasma Cutter and the Line Gun again. But despite the increased focus on combat, conserving your ammunition remains an important task.
Despite the increased focus on combat, Isaac still acts as a repairman - fixing elevators and aligning solar arrays. This isn’t terribly exciting, but the occasional puzzles and hacking mini-games provide a nice break from dismembering enemies. There are still times where puzzles require you to travel through zero-G environments, but this aspect of the game has changed slightly. Where you once had to look around for a surface to land on and then automatically jumped across the zero-G space, you can now hover in place and move freely.
Visually, Dead Space 2 is more appealing than its predecessor. Your health and stasis meters are still situated in the back of Isaac’s suit, once again saving you from a cluttered HUD on the screen. But the city of Dead Space 2 - and its size and diversity - presents a different atmosphere from the original game. You’ll travel through everything from schools, shopping malls and houses, and every place you go is packed with detail, lending your environment a sense of history.
Dead Space 2 also fixes the previous game’s issues of backtracking and disorientation. The result is a fast-paced game that’s suspenseful and frightening from beginning to end. While in the first game the tension was harmed by traipsing back through areas, safe in the knowledge that you weren’t under threat, Dead Space 2 has you rushing down halls from point A to point B as Necromorphs constantly jump out at you. It’s still just as scripted as the first game was, but the removal of the first game’s backtracking makes it feel more intense.
The game isn’t completely without its flaws however. As with its predecessor, the reliance on scripted sequences means that it begins to become predictable. You’ll soon learn to recognize when you’re about to be attacked and where it’s coming from. But Dead Space 2 uses that against you in some sections. At one point, you end up boarding the Ishimura from the previous game, revisiting familiar environments. You’ll pass through these areas expecting to be attacked - but Visceral leaves you guessing, allowing you safe passage through what feels like an obvious encounter point.
With the sadistic Hardcore mode, Dead Space 2 offers players more than one way to play. Select this difficulty setting and you’re in for a rough ride: enemies are even more lethal, and your supplies are more limited than before. On top of that, there are no checkpoints in hardcore mode. If you die, you’re forced to restart from your last save point. As if that wasn’t enough, Hardcore mode only allows you to save your game three times in total. Choose wisely, everyone.
Unfortunately, Dead Space 2 falls victim to the increasing trend of shoehorning multiplayer modes into games where they don’t belong. Players are broken into teams: The humans, who are given an objective point, or the Necromorphs - who have to stop the humans at all costs. Sadly, this isn’t as fun as it sounds. Humans run to an objective point and stand there until they are ultimately killed by the Necromorph players; Necromorphs run around, taking as little damage as possible, hoping to kill a weakened human or two before being blasted to pieces. The maps and modes aren’t particularly diverse, and the end result is that multiplayer feels like an afterthought, tacked on simply to tick a marketing box.
Ignore the multiplayer though, and it’s hard to find much fault here. Dead Space 2 successfully builds on the formula established by its predecessor to create a game that ranks among some of the most memorable horror experiences in gaming history. In retrospect, the plot is an obvious set-up for Dead Space 3; but rather than detracting from the experience, it makes you want to play other games in the franchise while still feeling accessible to newcomers. Dead Space 2 is an interesting, rich and rewarding experience. Combat is solid, its enemies are terrifying, and the atmosphere is oppressive - as all the best horror experiences are. Though we’d like to see Isaac be a little more than a galaxy repair-man, it doesn’t spoil the fun. As a game, Dead Space 2 is excellent and well worth your time and money.
Heather Williams
@Olaris_Rhea
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