In October of 2008, the world was hit with a game that changed the action/horror genre. Dead Space entered the mix and received very high praise, for the fresh new take on the horror genre, and just the all out scariness of the game. Now three years later, Dead Space 2 is upon us, can it stand up to the first ones legacy?
Presentation:
Dead Space 2 has a variety of things to do, first off you have the single player mode. The single player will span you about 8 hours of play time, depending on how thorough you are, once you beat the game a first time, a second playthrough option is unlocked which will allow you to start over with the equipment you had at the end of the game, with a few little extras lying around. A side from the moderately long campaign there is a full on multiplayer mode, which works well, but with all the great multiplayer games out there I don’t see this one sitting in your drive to play very often. As you know with most Electronic Arts games, this game does have an online pass, meaning if you buy it used, you will have to pay an extra $10 for the online feature.
Story:
The story of Dead Space 2 takes place three years after the event’s of the first game, It may be a little confusing for some people but there is a video showing what happened on the previous Dead Space, from start to finish, to try and help you understand what’s going on. In this game again you follow Isaac Clarke, he has just been woken up in a hospital on Titan Station. Which exists on Saturn’s largest moon.
There are plenty of cinematic moments that all reside inside the game engine, and so in the middle of a cinematic you may all of a sudden have to start shooting something. It’s done really well as far as fluidity goes, but you will more then likely die once due to the abrupt nature of the cinematic. Other then that the story has a little bit of a side story and a few characters then get developed really well, especially if you stop and listen/ read some of the text/audio logs scattered around the game world. Only a handful of times did I feel like they went for cheap jump scares, which is good.
Graphics:
Dead Space 2 looks fantastic, a lot of the lighting effects and character models and all around textures are really crisp, and clean. You get the strong feeling of the first game, when you first look at it, but there are vast improvements in the way the game looks. Some areas were extremely colorful which is rare for a game that essentially wants to keep you in the dark for as long as possible. I didn’t notice any sort of hitches as far as the game goes, and the framerate was smooth all the way through. The environments are quite different from one another, although the basic go to hallways begin to look the same after a while, most of the things in between vary greatly, from malls to daycare to these candle lit areas, to a library type area, even though the hallways tend to look the same the overall shifts in environments really help this game feel fresh from start to finish.
Sound:
The sound in this game very much resembles the sounds of the first Dead Space. All the in-game sounds feel like they’ve pretty much just been ripped off the first game, enemies sound the same except for the new enemy types, and there really isn’t much as far as background music is concerned, but when there is background music it’s very eery and creepy, the game does a really fantastic job and immersing you in this creepy messed up universe and the sounds accompany it well. The voice acting is phenomenal as well, all the voice casting is perfect and it’s very clear when people talk in the game and in recorded segments in the game.
Gameplay:
This is the part where Dead Space 2 becomes more of a hit of miss. The gameplay very much resembles that of the first game. The enemies you face are like bullet sponges unless you take off their limbs, in which you can easily take out something that would take 10 shots in like 2 or 3 shots. It’s an interesting idea, and aiming for the legs or arms is definitely a challenge and takes skill, after a while the whole game starts to feel repetitive.
” Luckily the game is broken up by some interesting puzzle sequences, that only once stumped me to the point where I had to take a break and think about it. Most of the game is fairly easy on the Normal difficulty, right up until you hit the ending, where there is a serious difficulty spike although I never felt like any of it was impossible, that being said, Dying did happen quite a bit.”
The variety of enemies is nice, there are quite a good number of enemy types in this game, most of them with distinctive qualities. Although at the end they kind of got un-original and took their enemies and made them dark, which made them harder to kill, it would have been nice to see harder enemies that weren’t just beefed up versions of enemies you’ve been killing the whole game. Even though I would consider this game repetitive almost every time I was just about to get fed up, they threw in a puzzle or a cinematic, which really helped break up the constant dismemberments that go on. There are a few instances that you will need a strong stomach to conquer, one part near the end feels like a scene right out of Saw, so be warned.
Final Thoughts:
Dead Space 2 is a clear success as far as a sequel is concerned, although I can’t help but feel like the developers didn’t want to take to many chances to strafe away from the original formula. This game can be scary, and the atmosphere is definitely eery and creepy, with a few cheap jump scares for good measure, this game turns out to be quite a wild ride. Although the story takes a while to really progress, the ending is well worth the time you put in to get there. The multi player won’t snag on for most people I don’t think. So overall I think this game is definitely worth a rental or a purchase for those who enjoyed the first game or love scary games.
Graphics : 9.0
Story : 8.5
Gameplay : 8.5
Replay Value : 8.5
Author: Taylor
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