Dead Space 2 Review

The first Dead Space is in my personal top tier of games. The atmospheric and moody game breathed new life into a struggling survival horror genre that has been fighting to stay relevant in todays game market. It's HUDless game structure mixed with astounding audio design, great controls, amazing mood lighting, cramped corridors, believable game world, mysterious story and the awesome "Cut off their limbs" shooting strategy all mixed together perfectly and was polished to perfection.

I love Dead Space.

Dead Space 2 was the game I was most looking forward to in all of 2011. Even over Elder Scrolls V and Mass Effect 3 I wanted to take up the mantle of Isaac Clarke again and cut up some bitches! Below is my official review.

Liked:

Isaac Clarke: I love this guy. In today's gaming world it's very common to have a faceless and voiceless protagonist that comes off lazy and half assed to me. In the first game Isaac wasn't faceless, but he was voiceless. He does come off as a 3 dimensional character in the first game though when you come to realize why he is where he is and especially at the end of the game. In DS2 Isaac has a voice. He talks a lot and I'm happy to say he has a normal man's voice. He's not super gruff or super anything. He's a normal guy. In DS1 he seemed like an engineer just doing anything he can to stay alive, but in DS2 he's a veteran. He knows what he's up against and he's the most likely to survive. You still never feel overly badass, but you do feel competent.

Audio: It's still top notch.

Weapons: One of the most interesting things about Isaac is that he IS NOT a soldier. He's an engineer and most all of his guns are tools for mining. This leads to some interesting weapons with some really interesting alternate firing modes. There were actually almost too many new weapons in DS2, but they're still awesome.

Enemies: Necromorphs are some of the coolest bad guys in any game ever.....period. They're scary and tough and fearless. In DS2 they're are numerous additions to their ranks and they're some of the harder ones in the series....damn you Stalkers and Spitters....damn you.

Difficulty: The first DS wasn't very tough. It would run you through your paces at times, but never really threw more at you than you could handle. I've beat Impossible mode 2 times and as long as you know what you're doing and keep yourself backed against a wall you could handle just about anything. That's not the case in DS2. This game will rail you every which way from Tuesday if you aren't on your toes. Even my tried and true strategies were worthless when the game threw the amount and variation of enemies all at once.

Set pieces: There wasn't a lot of amazing stuff in the game, but the train sequence and the mirror sections were really neat. Always seeing Jupiter on the horizon was pretty good looking as well.

Zero G: DS1 was the first game I'd ever played that made no gravity not only fun, but scary and disorientating. DS2 actually gives you the ability to fly around in Zero G and it was always really fun to me just how badly disoriented you could get. I don't think it's a fault of the game, but more of an acknowledgement of how hard it is to keep your bearings when you can float or move in any which way you want. Where the hell is the ground?! Luckily they put in a button to reorient yourself to the ground.

Story: I love the story in this game. I love that it's kind of X Files in the way that they give you enough meat to chew on, but never reveal the wizard behind the curtain.

Tension: The game isn't a very scary one, but I'd be lying if it didn't keep you on the edge of your seat.

The Ishimura Level: My love for DS1 is huge and when I realized that I'd be getting to go back onto the Ishimura (the giant ship the first game takes place in) 3 years after the first game I almost shit my pants. It was all there. Seeing everything a little more run down and broken was really neat. Also, getting to see where the tram would drop you off in the 1st game in the 2nd was really neat.

No Loading: In DS1 after every level you would go to a loading screen and they did a good job of explaining the load because it was you traveling by tram to another part of the ship for another level, but here the game was seamless. The only loads that happened were when you started your game from the main menu.

The Controls: I'm actually glad they made them more "action game" friendly because you get your ass handed to you at times.

The Intro: It was awesome. Who doesn't love running away from Necromorphs totally helpless wearing a straight jacket?

Disliked:

The levels: Apparently a lot of people bitched about the level design of the first game. That you did too much backtracking and that you were just an errand boy. I never had that problem and I really loved getting to know each level intimately. You would revisit the medical area 2 different times and there were new things. New evidence that people were there trying to impede your progress or other people just trying to survive. It's nothing that the game even pointed out, but something you gathered from observation. I loved that the more you played the more the levels opened up for you. It had a very Metroid/Castlevania feel to it. Locked off areas that you could access later once you had taken the proper steps. That's simply not the case in DS2 at all. It's all just keep moving forward and it really hurt the progression of the game as well as totally cheapened the atmosphere. While the levels did look good they felt a lot more static and cheap than DS1.

Pacing: I think this goes back to level design, but DS1 just really had it together better here. You always knew what you were working for and what your next task was. In DS2 I didn't really know what was going on a lot of the time....I was just...ya know....walking forwards still.

Puzzles: Or lack of them. The first game didn't really have a lot of puzzles, but it did have some puzzle elements that helped break up the action and tension.

Too much shooting: I love shooting games and I love DS1 and even DS2, but this was too much at times. Especially towards the end when you walk into a room and wait to get attacked by about 15 guys. You knew it was coming because that's what the whole game was like. DS1 did a better job mixing it up and keeping you guessing, but here you knew you'd always be fighting. Also, you would get your ass handed to you at times because you would just get overrun with the sheer amount of enemies. That's not a bad thing and I'm not saying I couldn't handle it, but it is slightly annoying to trying and fight off 6 guys from 3 directions when you handle how you do. Not that the controls are bad at all because honestly I don't think they could be any better, but Isaac is not fit to fight well in some of those circumstances.

Length: Salad and I talked about this a bit, but it wasn't as long as the first. I had under 10 hours into it and in DS1 my first playthrough was 14 hours.

Suits: Don't get me wrong the outfits in this game are great, but I really loved the organic feel of the 1st game's suits and leveling it up one bit at a time. It was a lot more cohesive.

Overall:

I really liked DS2, but it doesn't beat DS1. DS1 was the complete package and while it wasn't a perfect game I think that they changed the formula a little too much and hurt the overall experience. It's a great game and one I'll enjoy playing again and again, but DS1 is still king.

Bottom line is if you love all that is great about video games then you should be playing this series. Def play the original first and then give this one a spin.

Dead Space series is king.

Altman be praised.