Dead Space 2 is Brilliant
Dead Space 2 is a lot like Bioshock and I am perfectly fine with that, actually I’m more than happy with the direction this franchise seems to be going in. Back when Dead Space 1 came out I was excited to play it, until about the time I began to play it. The game was competent enough, it looked great, sounded great, and moved really well. I just felt like something was missing. Maybe it was the fact that the rooms all looked alike or the story while interesting fell short. I felt like it never came together for me as a whole.
So with that in mind I played Dead Space 2 and I am left very impressed and excited about what might happen next in the series. The game’s pace moves just as brilliantly as the first game, it looks gorgeous, and the sound is sublime. Just like the first game, so what makes me like this game so much? Well, for starters Isaac Clarke finally learned to talk and with that, comes a good amount of well acted cut scenes and well done exchanges. Most importantly though is the world in which Dead Space 2 creates for the user is utterly engrossing. The combination of the two create this authentic game space that as horrible as the situation is, is still a joy to live in.
I feel like the guys at Visceral Games had a lot more confidence in their game design this time around, it’s as if they were not sure if a world like Dead Space was right for gamers and now with some reassurance in sales of the first game and reviews they really let their wheels turn and show off quite a bit of creativity. There are some really amazing set pieces in the game, some that really left my mouth agape with amusement. One in particular having to do with a train sequence that is one of the most fun things I ever did in gaming, almost besting if not right up there with the train squence in Uncharted 2.
The world is fully realized through voice recordings and text logs, both of which help each section of the world you visit feel more real as if people existed here before you. Making your way through the Sprawl, the space station on Titan is well thought out, and in this lighting, under these conditions, it’s truly a sight to behold.
The gameplay in Dead Space 2 holds up as well, having to remove the limbs off your enemies lends a good amount of strategy and really makes you think about which guns to use and which don’t work well for your style of play. Personally, I’m a precision guy so sniping heads and arms off was really fun with the Seeker Rifle. Other guns like the Line gun come back and the trusty Plasma cutter makes a return too. It all adds up to already solid mechanics married to an exceptionally moody world characters that both terrifies and entertains at once.
The only really bad things I can say about the game are that there are one too many cheap scares, which I am noticing more on my second play through than I did on my first, and the last few chapters can feel a bit cheap sometimes with the amount of monsters that spawn behind you while you are in combat already.
But those are just nit pickings for a game that really is engrossing and fun. On a side note the way achievements are handled in this game is an example of a game that cares about what they do. I loved being able to track each one, and see which I can unlock for playing the game a little different in certain places. But that’s just one reason why this game is so good. The rest, is in The Sprawl.
