Dead Space 2

Dead Space was a serious surprise hit back in 2008. Despite being more or less Resident Evil 4 in space, it really felt fresh due to its execution. There were some flaws, namely with pacing and some frustrating elements, but it was overall an incredible action experience.
 
Dead Space 2 follows incredibly closely in the first game's footsteps to a fault. It expands the story elements, giving protagonist Isaac Clark a voice and fleshing out the world a bit, and adding more characters and more at stake. There's some great set pieces and a few modified gameplay elements that work nicely. Unfortunately, there is a slew of holdovers from the first game that really hold back what could have been another great title, and overall I just have to shrug my shoulders. It's good, even extremely solid, but not better than the first, much less a masterpiece.
 
First, I want to talk about what I enjoyed. I liked the increased focus on Isaac as a character, going through his apparent insanity and frustrations. Giving him a voice was a great decision because it allows us to get into his psyche better. The controls have been mildly changed too, allowing for reloading without aiming the gun, better zero-gravity controls, and some tighter aiming overall. For the most part, though, this sure is Dead Space.
 
I have a long list of grievances I found while playing through the game. The first game had some mild pacing problems, especially near the end when it ran out of ideas. I was totally ready to be done with it an hour before the credits rolled. Dead Space 2 actually does a WORSE job at this, dragging on some sequences far too long and spawning enemies seemingly endlessly in various parts. It's a bit much at times, and it's a real bummer.
 
A big problem I found was something that was done well in the first game but not here. In the first game you had clear-cut breaks in the chapters and sections where you could use shops and save points without being bothered. There was maybe one or two surprise sections where you'd assume you were safe, but you'd get ambushed in the middle of shopping. I thought that was cool. Now the game never lets you up for air. I found very, very few points where I actually felt like I could sort through my stuff and buy things. It ended up being annoying rather than scary, and made me rather angry at the game.
 
Another problem is what I refer to as "Rare Syndrome." Rareware frequently did this in their games, especially during the N64 era, where they'd have a good idea, execute it well, then proceed to repeat it a billion times over the course of the game until you were sick and tired of the same freaking thing all over again. There are several examples of this in Dead Space 2. One I can think of specifically is with some pachycephalosaurus-esque necromorphs that hide around corners, peek out at you frequently, then charge at random when you're not expecting it. There's a cool section with a bunch of crates in a storehouse where the tension is high because you're not sure how many there are, and they come out of nowhere. It's actually a little scary. But this same pattern is done at least four or five more times before the game's through, in the same kind of environment, to the point that I was rolling my eyes and screaming for it to stop because it was so played out and boring, not to mention frustrating.
 
I don't like the change in the controls overall. I played a ton of the first game, and I maybe had a problem with reloading once or twice due to the fact that you had to aim to do so. Now they've fixed that but caused two more problems. The same button you use to fire kinesis shots now auto heals, even when you have little need of it. This wasted precious health supplies on countless occasions. The stasis shot also moved and added the ability to auto refill with those useless stasis packs that might as well just be money. The game now automatically recharges stasis after a short period of time anyway, so I have no idea why this feature was here, and it ends up wasting money.
 
In the list of small tweaks and upgrades, there's several bad things that weren't changed or were changed with little or no impact. The two most frustratingly pointless enemies in the last game - the tentacle wall dudes that spit out little annoying things and decapitate you instantly if you come near AND take a million shots to kill, and the little swarms of crawly dudes that are somehow the strongest and most deadly enemies in the game and hard to get rid of - are both here in force, in addition to several more annoying enemy types. Most standard necromorphs can now spit a debilitating ball of whatsit at you from forever away, there's irritating little toddler things with claws, there's babies that explode...but mostly the enemies are unchanged. Worst of all, they seem to all have the ability to follow you into rooms and wherever you go, so if you run out of ammo or are low in health, you can't just run for it.
 
I don't like the added swearing. Like Assassin's Creed II, it just feels forced in a way to make the sequel seem more gritty or something. The first game had a few scattered instances of profanity, but the swearing is near-constant in this game. It's kinda pointless. Then again, the game's super messy and gory, so it's not like it stands out too much.
 
Add this to a few control bugs where guns won't fire for no reason or miss when it's painfully obvious you hit the guy right where you intended, and the game just isn't as good as the last one.  I was frustrated with the difficulty level too. I beat the first game with some effort on Normal. It was challenging in a good way, but it was satisfying. I started this game in Normal and started dying dozens of cheap, pointless deaths over and over. I'd walk around a corner and get ambushed by a billion dudes after I already dealt with a group of guys and was out of ammo and health. Enemies are placed in random places that don't even make sense, and just spring out of the walls when you take any obviously story-driven action, making the whole experience feel extremely gamey. I just got so much "murder fatigue" from this game, kind of like the first game but worse. It got way boring and predictable. I ended up switching it to Casual a little after halfway through, and it was STILL annoying and frustrating, but less so. The difficulty is badly balanced.
 
In short, Dead Space 2 is frustrating, makes a lot of pointless changes and fails to move the whole experience forward, which is disappointing considering the good things it does. I definitely do not want to play Dead Space 3 after this. In all this complaining, though, I have to say it's still a solidly built third-person action game that should be checked out if you're into that kind of thing. Game of the Year material? Heck no. A good rental? Yes. That's all.