Messed Up, But in a Good Way
There’s been a lot of talk regarding whether or not Dead Space 2 is an action game or a horror game. People have said how there isn’t a sense of suspension or dread, and that most of the startles consist of jump-scares and intermittent loud noises—and those claims aren’t unfounded. You aren’t going to have that sense of dread you would normally experience while strolling through Silent Hill or New Jersey. What you will experience, is a gritty, disgusting, limb-dismembering ride that you’ll want to continue immediately after the credits have rolled. Dead Space 2 won’t make you afraid of the dark—it will make you afraid of stopping.
The game starts off with Isaac Clarke waking up in the loony bin, three years after the events of the first Dead Space with no memory of what happened after his escape from Aegis 7 and the USG Ishimura. Unfortunately, Isaac’s time on the Ishimura didn’t do him any favors, as he now struggles to keep his grip on reality thanks to the “The Marker”—a mysterious man-made artifact that is somehow linked to the necromorph infection that transformed the Ishimura’s crew. You quickly realize the same infection is present on The Sprawl, a massive city built into Saturn’s largest moon and the game’s new setting. In the original Dead Space, you were stuck on a mining ship that always looked like a mining ship. The decks weren’t all carbon copies of each other, but they all had that “grimy-industrial” look that became a bit monotonous as time wore on. The Sprawl however contains a variety of locations including a medical bay, a Unitology church, an elementary school, and others that I won’t spoil for you.
Those who have played the first Dead Space will be quite familiar with the combat in Dead Space 2. Aiming is over the shoulder, all of the weapons have an alternate fire, and the best way to kill a necromorph is by amputating its limbs with mining equipment. Visceral didn’t make any major changes to the combat, but instead added onto what was present in the first Dead Space. All of your favorite rampaging necromorphs from the first game are back, but there are some new additions as well. There’s the Puker, which can launch a ball of vomit at long distances. The vomit doesn’t do any noticeable damage, but instead renders Isaac with the mobility similar to an arthritic 97-year old. Then there are children who have been transformed into necromorphs known as “The Pack” because well, they travel in packs. But my favorite new adversary is the Stalker, an agile beast that dashes in and out of view before charging at you while your back is turned. It may not sound scary, but these things have an annoying habit of dodging your attacks and will make you pay in blood if you make even the tiniest mistake.
Fortunately you have some additional weapons at your disposal to deal with these new adversaries, one of which is the aptly named “Javelin Gun” which can fire javelins capable of emitting an electric shock for those enemies that refuse to go down. Another newcomer is the Seeker Rifle, a powerful sniper rifle that can bring down necromorphs with a single shot. You might question why Visceral put a sniper rifle in a game whose enemies tend to get up close and personal, but the Seeker Rifle works because you never actually go into a “scope” view when you zoom in. Instead, the camera moves closer to Isaac’s shoulder when zooming in, allowing you to see farther ahead while keeping your sides from being blind spots. It would have been nice if there were a few more new weapons, but at least the ones that have been added are unique, powerful, and most importantly—fun to use.
While the combat is superb, the thing that kept me from putting the controller down was the presentation. Each room in Dead Space 2 contains subtle, but effective details that bring the game to life, giving the glowing blue symbols on the front of each door the same effect as the “Next Turn” button in Civilization V. But the sound design is what makes Dead Space 2 something truly special. From the foreboding echoes in seemingly vacant hallways, to the muffled screams in space, Dead Space 2 proves that it’s not what you see that scares you; it’s what you hear.
So what about the multiplayer? Well… it’s there. The game’s developers basically tried to mix a little bit Call of Duty’s “carrot on a stick” upgrade system with a whole lot of Left 4 Dead’s objective-based multiplayer. I say “tried to” because Dead Space 2 doesn’t use either of these systems very well. The “perks” in Dead Space 2 are downright boring, usually involving some insignificant percentage increase to weapon damage or stasis recharge that fails to give you any incentive to keep playing. The rest of the multiplayer is nearly identical to the multiplayer in the Left 4 Dead series, involving four humans trying to complete some objective while four necromorphs try to stop them (there are computer-controlled necromorphs although they are pretty much useless). This system is pretty fun for the first few hours but quickly becomes repetitive once you’ve played on all five maps. After that, the multiplayer doesn’t have much else to offer. Each map has a slightly different objective for the human players but other than that, there isn’t any other game mode. Due to these factors, Dead Space 2’s multiplayer fails to be fun for more than a couple of weeks.
Luckily Dead Space 2’s campaign is quite replayable thanks to its fixed new game plus mode. In the first Dead Space, you could carry over all of your weapons, credits, upgrades, and nodes into a new game…as long as it was on the same difficulty. It was a stupid mistake that is now rectified in Dead Space 2, allowing you to bring your save game over to any difficulty in the game except hard core; a difficulty that’s reserved solely for masochists. My first playthrough on normal took me about 10-12 hours to complete while the following playthrough took me about 8 so you can be confident that you will get your money’s worth out of this game.
Dead Space 2 is an incredible thrill ride with plenty of twists and turns, and a gratifying combat system that will keep you from putting the controller down. It may not be the scariest game in the world, but it’s a damn good one nonetheless.
