Dead Space 2

Sequels always leave me a little unsettled. I talked before about the difficulties that must face developers of a sequel, considering what to change, if those changes will be well received by the gamers, and so on. Though I mostly hate that sequels make for longer reviews, because it's usually important to have played the first game, thus I ultimately end up covering a bit of both. Dead Space 2 is but one example where it is important to understand the significance and the style of the original game in order to fully appreciate, or disapprove of, the changes brought forth in the next iteration of the series.

I found the first Dead Space to be a great game, though not without it's fair share of issues, particularly on the PC. One of the key things that made the game so good was the atmosphere - that creepy/paranoid feeling you'd get since enemies could suddenly burst out of the numerous vents scattered throughout every room, thus requiring you to always be on guard. Additionally, the game moved along at a slower clip than most other games in the action category, thereby building the suspense of waiting for the next guy that wants to eat your face to jump out at you, and could be best compared to some of the classic Resident Evil games.

Actually Resident Evil is a pretty good comparison, with the generally slower pace of the game, and levels that largely involved you starting at one point, solving puzzles, killing enemies, and so forth, until you make it to the deepest part of the level, and then coming all the way back to the start, usually encountering some new enemies in areas you thought you already cleared, or being punished for not taking the proper precaution with bodies. They also share a "save at certain points in the game only" system and an inventory system for managing your arsenal of weapons and general lack of ammo. Heck, you could even call the mutated corpses that are the Necromorphs of Dead Space zombies, and you wouldn't be too far off.

 

If I had any talent whatsoever in Photoshop or another graphics program, I might try and merge that with the Resident Evil 2 title screen.

Perhaps what the series is most known for though, is the strategic dismemberment system, where the best way to kill enemies is to cut off their appendages. This of course flies in the face of every instinct I've developed from years of playing FPS games, which is to shoot it in the head, and makes Dead Space pretty unique. Usually I'll aim for the legs on an enemy first, using a weapon that fires a horizontal beam to main them to the point they collapse on the ground, dragging their bodies towards me with their remaining limbs. This will buy you critical breathing room when dealing with multiple enemies at once, and then you use a vertical firing weapon to pick of the arm or two needed to finish them off. Interestingly enough, this all generally requires a fair amount of accuracy, so those head shot skills still come in handy.

The final bit of background on Dead Space worth mentioning before moving onto the sequel involves the story. Dead Space was set on a space ship, the USG Ishimura, which became a ghost ship after a strange artifact known as the marker, the center piece of a religion called Unitology that the devs swear is in no way based on Scientology, that apparently reanimates dead flesh into these bizarre monsters that proceed to kill everything in sight. You play Isaac Clarke, an engineer sent on a repair team to find out why the Ishimura has dropped out of contact, but with the ulterior motive of finding his girlfriend Nicole, who is aboard that same ship. The trailer, which provides you with this same background, makes for good watching, and it seems like, in the right hands, the game could make a great movie (one is currently in development).

Nicole, sometime before things get really, really bad in the first game.

The rest of the story is just as good. You get separated from your team, and everything gets really bad, really fast. I won't go into details, but when you start learning the motives behind different characters' actions, who lives and who dies, and just what is really real, you'll see why I enjoyed the game. Oddly enough, Isaac suffers from that whole mute and no face syndrome that many other protagonists have throughout gaming history, like Samus Aran. This does seem a bit strange, particularly when people are going into a  monologue about what you need to do, letting you know you'll be headed into a dangerous area, and you never once speak out and say that's a bad idea, or you'll get right on it, or give any reply to indicate you are, in fact, human.

To one extent or another, all these things are changed in the sequel. Sometimes the result is better, while at others, it is worse.

Take the atmosphere of the game as one example. Dead Space 2 does not have the same slow, paranoia building feel to it that the first game does. New enemies that, while attacking in hordes, allow you to be far less meticulous with your shot placement, new weapons that even include a sniper rifle, and an environment that rarely requires you to back track into areas you've already visited, and are either rewarded or punished for properly disposed of bodies or not, all change the pace of the game, and allow you to play it much more as an action game than a survival/horror experience, as with the first one. Actually, there were only a handful of fear inducing moments in this game, but there were all "jumpy," usually involving a body falling out of the ceiling in an otherwise deserted room.

My personal favorite for creepy game moments: A washing machine that has a crying sound coming from inside of it.

Some of these more action oriented changes make for improvements, such as the ability to free float in zero-g situations, rather than the slow jump from point to point of the original. Others, like the addition of the new javelin weapon, which is essentially a spear launcher, are fun, but unnecessary, as I just used my trustworthy weapon set from the first game, which consists of the Plasma Cutter, Riffle, Flamethrower, and Line Gun, to handle anything the game threw at me. New enemies, like the stalkers that like to hide behind walls or crates, and generally work as a group to attack you, that is, when they finally charge around the corner from wherever they are hiding, are interesting, but not groundbreaking.

The story in the sequel simply is not as good. Isaac wakes up three years after the events of the first game, with no memory of the time that has past in between. Things have started going to hell on the Sprawl, a gigantic space station, which you must escape, just like you did the Ishimura. Thankfully, over the course of three years, Isaac has learned how to talk. Admittedly, that does do some damage to the horror aspect of the game, but the trade off is it does wonders for the character development, since he can actually develop relationships with other character in the game, making attempts to keep people calm, or express concern about the plan a mysterious benefactor has outlined for his survival, all of which make Isaac more relatable, but do place his emotions in place of what the player might naturally experience, and at times, you wonder if the voice actors had the proper motivation, or where in the right emotional state, to really sell the whole "I'm being attacked by mutated corpses that come back to life and want to kill me when I just want to get off this ship" vibe.

One of the more colorful characters you'll meet in Dead Space 2.

There are two ways to look at the changes in Dead Space 2. Either you consider them in light of the original, which you are like to do if you've played both, or you look at it as it's own separate game. If you held the previous game in high regards, unfortunately, Dead Space 2 is not that game, though Dead Space 3 looks like it will fall much further into the solidly action category. While all the mechanics of the original are there, from upgrading your equipment to combat techniques, the feel just isn't the same. In the first game, for example, you weren't in danger of being sucked out a broken window into the vacuum of space unless you shot the close window switch in time. The game is just more of an action game than survival/horror, and so while I'd still advise trying it out, don't expect the same thing as before.

If you look at the game separately, or potentially with the passage of enough time between playing 1 and 2, then this is a pretty good game. The shift towards action suits my style more, and I definitely approve of the quicker pace of the game. I really enjoyed the greater character development found in this game, and while it didn't have the same number of twists as the last game did, there are still a few curve balls in the story I hadn't seen coming. I do miss some of the puzzles found in the first game, and am very disappointed that PC gamers get zero DLCs for this game, as I was particularly looking forward to one that follows some of the characters from Dead Space Extraction, which I've also played, but at least you can rebind keys this time, and don't need a 360 controller to play. The game is good enough that I would even consider playing through it again at some point, though not on the hard core difficulty, which only grants you three saves and you revert to your last save on death, because I don't want to divvy up the 13 hours I put into this game into three saves. Either way, both Dead Space games seem to come up on sale pretty often, usually around $5. That is a good deal for a good game - 7 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:

Score: 7/10

Suggested Price: $5