I made a small thread about this before the relaunch, but that's gone now and I figured I would, now that I've actually finished the game, flesh out my feelings about Dead Space 2. I have owned the game since it came out but was never able to get past the opening sequence because it freaked me the fuck out. Now that 3 is out I manned up, and finished this game on hard my first playthrough. Many in the previous thread said this game wasn't survival horror, and of you that said that every single user had a different personal definition for what that term actually meant and feeling about the game. For me I played it on hard the first playthrough and I was constantly scraping by. Nothing about it struck as horrific or scary except for that opening sequence but throughout the entire game it had an ambiance that I really haven't had since a game like Half Life 2.

In many respects Dead Space 2 for me felt incredibly similar to Half Life 2. This game as opposed to the original has much more variety in it's environments and the new enemies types felt heavily inspired by some that I remember for Half Life 2. On the note of enemy types, it felt much like Half Life in that some were meant to speed up the action or slow it down as is the case with the Barnacle(Half Life)/Cyst(Dead Space) or Lurker in zero gravity/scanner(Half Life). The enemies I mentioned were used as a change of pace in the same ways in both games to the rest of the enemies which were primarily action, and it works quite well to evenly pace the game. That accompanied by the fact that Ellie has a very Alyx Vance quality to her. She's constantly used as a reward mechanism for the player, much like in Half Life 2, her segments are used to break up the action and she's presented in a respectable manner. Lastly, I felt like I went somewhere. I can't think of many games that have accomplished this, fewer than I can count fingers on one hand probably. To think I started this game trapped in a straight jacket, went through a Unitologist church, did a bunch of stuff in betweensomehow got back onto the USG Ishimura, and then finally the government sector? The last game to deliver this feeling of adventure was Half Life 2 for me and it's a testament to it's pacing that it was able to deliver this.

The expectation that this game was going to be that which replaced Resident Evil for the ever narrowing and changing definition of Survival Horror genre seems ridiculous to me. This game was never going to be that and of that same note, for me I was fighting to survive this entire game. I barely got through each encounter, low health low ammo the entire game and it was incredible. To me I was surviving but I was never horrified. It's a grody experience but rarely scary. In many respects it accomplished what Alien series for me was trying to accomplish in that it doesn't scare but it does something just as impressive. It sets a mood that is just teeth clinching the entire time. On the last note if you're still reading I would highly recommend if you liked this game, Richard Russo's Ship of Fools. While not captivating, the attempt at character development in Dead Space 2 was a vast improvement over the rest of the series that I've played so far(I've read all the books, seen the film and played all the games except 3 so far) and reminded me a lot of Russo's novel in that respect. The catholic church in that book reminded me a lot of Dead Space's Unitologists and the ambiance of Dead Space 2 felt directly inspired by it. At this point I'm really looking forward to getting Dead Space 3 during the next sale. Until now, despite being heavily invested in this universe I was quite ambivalent to the entire thing, but Dead Space 2 really makes an argument for this series existence. While Brad did not particularly enjoy most of his time with Dead Space 3, from reading his review it sounds like EA are going for more of what I talked about here with the sequel so I'm all on board. Looks like I'll be shooting Necromorphs with Carver next sale, who's with me?

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