Dead Space 2

Warning. Neither this review, or this game should be read or even looked at by kids, seriously if you aren't at least 17 get out of here.

When Dead Space was initially released cross platform a few years back I immediately fell in love with it. It has a brilliant premise and it delivered on that premise in spades. It was intense, atmospheric, violent, intelligent, and above all else terrifying. You were placed in the shoes of one Isaac Clarke, a CEC engineer on a mission to repair a broken comm array aboard the USG Ishimura. The Ishimura is what is known as a planet cracker, which is exactly what it sounds like, a ship that flies around and literally breaks continent sized chunks off of planets in order to harvest their mineral resources. The cramped and claustrophobic corridors of this massive capitol ship are where the first game took place. Everything about this ship was terrifying, from the obvious bloody writing on the walls right down to the subtleties of the lighting and ambient music. But what roped me in was not the ship or the honestly horrifying Necromorphs, it was Isaac's struggle with his own sanity. Now I'm going to assume that since you're reading this you are at least somewhat familiar with the specifics of the Dead Space Universe so I'm not going to explain things further. If however you would like things explained please feel free to leave a comment and I will drop a summary with my next update.

The user interface is largely in tact

Dead Space 2 pulls absolutely no punches. It does not care who it offends, it does not care that you ruined your best pair of pants, it does not care about your dignity. What Dead Space 2 does care about, is creating by far the best action horror game that I, and most likely most of you, have ever played. When you were a little kid, did your mother ever throw you mercilessly into a pool filled with angry starving piranhas? If she did then you already know how you are going to feel at the start of this game, if she didn't, buckle the fuck up.  It will become immediately apparent to you that Dead Space 2 is NOT meant for newcomers, if you haven't played the original, that's just too bad because you aren't getting a tutorial. Dead Space 2 just throws you into the maelstrom and calmly says "swim". This is the case not only with the games controls (which are flawless) but also with the games content. The first thing Isaac sees upon regaining consciousness, is his rescuer being skewered through the chest and then mutated right before his eyes, but just like Visceral expects you to be, Isaac is ready for this and he head butts the Necromorph right in the fucking throat. The baddie drops like a sack of disgusting undead potatoes and Isaac is on his feet and you're in control. 

This does a good job of accenting one of the most significant changes between games. Isaac is not some scared, defenseless engineer anymore. Isaac has seen the very worst that the deepest bowels of hell have to offer, and he survived. He now is now calm, collected, and more than a little bit pissed, he knows how to kill these things, he WANTS to kill these things, and he will do whatever the fuck he has to, to make that happen. But at the same time Isaac is so obviously emotionally dead that it's hard not to feel bad for him, he could probably watch an orphanage burn down without blinking, and then go home and fix himself up a nice dinner before hopping into bed. But despite the new Isaac and his steely demeanor, you are still going to be consistently scared shitless. I mean Christ, the very first scene of the game features you running for your life, unarmed, and unarmored, through the cluttered hallways of an insane asylum while necromorphs flood from every vent and doorway, and every one of them wants you dead. It's also quite possibly more terrifying to play a strong character with one fatal weakness, than it is to play a consistently weak and scared character. Seeing a spartan like Isaac break down in all the chaos really has a way of hitting home, and making you ask yourself whether you really want to be playing this alone in the dark.

And it DOES get dark

The first scene isn't the only time that Isaac is stripped of his ability to defend himself. A short distance into the game you will find yourself crawling through maintenance shafts, which are basically the same vents that those pesky ol' necro's just love to pop out from to eat your face. While in the shaft you cannot shoot or defend yourself in any way. I found myself jumping at the slightest noise or movement while I was in these dark cramped tunnels, it helps a bit though to just pretend you're playing Splinter Cell.

I'm Sam Fisher I'm Sam Fisher I'm Sam Fisher I'm...

(SPOILERS)The story here is told on a much grander scale than that of the original. Where Isaac's insanity was once a side-note, it has now taken center stage, and its true nature is revealed bit by bit throughout the series of twists and turns that form the narrative of Dead Space 2. It is revealed early on that 3 years have passed since Isaac killed the hive mind and destroyed the original Marker. But Isaac remembers none of these 3 years because he is being kept at an EarthGov research facility oh Titan Station, a colony settled on one of the moons of Saturn, where they are regularly probing his brain for information on the Marker. And things only get worse from there as Isaac learns more and more about the part he unknowingly played in this new outbreak. And all the while his insanity is growing more and more severe. A hallucination of his dead girlfriend Nicole is now his constant companion, popping up for such fun things as trying to make you kill yourself, or convincing you to give up on destroying the new Marker. Isaac is thankfully capable of discerning reality from his hallucinations, though the same cannot be said for another character you meet along the way.

Nicole, what are you doing here? You are drunk. Go home.

This is another change for the series, not only do you have occasionally useful companions, they are actually, for the most part, quite likable and well developed. The two of these characters that really stand out are thankfully the two main helpers that you will meet, namely, Nolan Stross and Ellie Langford. Unlike the first game these two don't constantly bark orders at Isaac, it is made very clear from moment one that Isaac is the driving force behind their survival, if he were to leave them they would have no hope. But they do provide a support structure for Isaacs struggle and occasionally give you direction, or even save your life in a few instances.

And that brings me to the voice acting and writing. The writing is all top notch and the acting for the most part lives up to the writing with the exception of Ellie. Ellie has a few weak moments, once or twice her screams of terror in response to an almost certain death, sounded a bit more like she had just stubbed her toe after a really frustrating day in the office. Don't get me wrong, she isn't bad all the time, in fact she's really quite good whenever she isn't trying to scream, but those few moments are noticeable especially when displayed next to the other talents involved. When you compare Ellie to the psychotic ramblings of Nolan Stross she looks like a complete amateur. I absolutely believed Stross's character and sympathized with him because his broken mind was just a little bit too believable, so believable in fact that I was actually nervous leaving him alone with Ellie. I was always afraid that he would snap when I wasn't around to do anything about it. There are also two less benevolent characters involved here. One being Isaac's imaginary dead girlfriend who has limited lines but does deliver them well. Even when her words are kind, there is always something sinister beneath the surface. And then there's Hans Tiedemann, Tiedemann is the head of Marker research on this moon. And he is a DOUCHEBAG. Tiedemann sabotages your efforts at every turn, his voice acting isn't particularly noteworthy, but the writing of his character is enough that he would still be infuriating even if he didn't have a voice. And then there's Isaac. Isaac absolutely steals the show, his voice perfectly conveys every emotion, from anger at discovering a biting betrayal, to terrified (spoilers) at the prospect of marching headlong back into his own perfect Hell. But his shining moments truly come when he is in the midst of one of his several psychotic breaks, screaming angrily at his hallucinations, and once more in the most unexpected of places. When you repeatedly use the stomp move Isaac will start cursing and shouting all manner of random obscenities, clever little touches like these serve to immerse you so much more in the game that you'll occasionally forget that you're just sitting comfortably at your computer or TV.

Puker no puking! Puker no puking!

Graphics are another important factor in immersion, and to say that Dead Space 2 is beautiful would be almost as much of an understatement as calling Hitler a butthead. All things considered, Dead Space 2 is the most gorgeous game I have ever played. It is technically proficient and artistically masterful. Even some of the smaller touches can go a long way towards sucking you in, like the fact that every aspect of Dead Space 2's HUD is incorporated into Isaac's suit in the form of holographic projections. When you access a store or an upgrade bench or when you bring up his inventory, the game does not break away into an awkward and out of context menu, it instead shows Isaac a visual representation of what tools he has at his disposal, this is both awesome, and more believable than a sub-menu inventory.

Needs more bullets.

But the big stuff is just as important. Every single enemy has been carefully crafted to be as repulsive and intimidating as they can possibly be. And the ladies and gentlemen over at EA Visceral know when less is more. There are few things as disturbing as mowing down a pack of children with a pulse rifle, but you will find yourself doing just that, frequently, in your desperate bid at survival. The Pack, as they are called, are children who have been mutated into necromorphs, but unlike the clawed monstrosities present throughout the rest of the game, the children look almost human. Killing them would be disturbing enough with their appearance, but it is made even worse by the all to human screams that they make when you shoot off their arms and legs. Though it's hard to say what's more frightening, these all too human enemies, or the horrific exaggerated mutations present in more powerful opponents like the tripod and the tank.

Shit.

But a huge part of the scare factor here, is the sound track. And I don't mean just the noises that the necromorphs themselves make. I mean every distant clank and groan, the sound of survivors screaming for their lives, and the hair raising ambient soundtrack. Everything has been masterfully woven together in such a way that you will always be on edge. Was that thud just something falling off of a shelf? Or was it a puker dropping out of a vent? The sound effects are so well portrayed that I was occasionally looking over my shoulder to see what had fallen, only to realize that it had been in the game.

Like an incredibly violent and terrifying theme park ride.

The action has also been ramped up dramatically, giving you an occasional and much needed break from trying not to soil yourself. One scene in particular has Isaac dropping himself 100 feet down a garbage hatch to escape from a gunship full of people that want him dead for undisclosed reasons, only to look up into the face of a hell of a big necromorph. After narrowly escaping the beasts clutches Isaac runs up to another balcony where the gunship is waiting to shoot out the glass, sucking both Isaac and his new friend out into space. Both of them go careening into the side of the ship, which knocks its fuel tanks loose. Isaac, thinking quickly, pushes himself away from the ship and shoots the fuel tanks, destroying the gunship and vaporizing the necromorph, while launching Isaac through a window and back inside. Another scene (pictured above) has Isaac sliding down a crashing train, shooting necromorphs as he falls, only to be caught by his leg at the bottom. While hanging upside down just a few feet off the ground you must fend off waves of enemies trying to take advantage of your compromised position. After killing at least 10 of them and quickly taking the arm off of a tank Isaac falls and sprints away just in time to avoid the train crashing down and exploding on top of him. 

I know how you feel Isaac, elementary school was scary for me too.

These moments of sheer intensity and all out action do make you feel like a badass from time to time. But the feeling is quickly stripped away as soon as you stand up from the rubble and take a good hard look at your surroundings. These range from a peppy happy elementary school/day care gone horribly, horribly wrong, to a recently abandoned and oppressively bleak mine. But only one of these places can even come close to rivaling how I felt when I found the new marker. (Warning, there are spoilers pretty much from here on out, you have been warned)That place was the Ishimura. A little after the half way point of the game, Isaac returns to the Ishimura, and it speaks volumes of the effectiveness of the first game, that I genuinely did not want to go in. It was hard to cross that threshold knowing just what happened last time. But as this is one of the best parts of the game I'm not saying anything else about it. I don't want to spoil anything THAT much.

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

 Remember the old Marker? I remember the old Marker. And I want the old Marker back. The old Marker was a much more manageable 12 feet high. The old Marker could be destroyed through conventional means (read: dropping a continent on it). What the FUCK are you supposed to do about this big bastard? It just sits there taunting you. Because it knows. You. Can't. Do. Shit. And actually this is where the story all comes together. Isaac wasn't even insane, the Marker was just in his head, it manifested itself in Isaac's visions of Nicole. It got in his head and it exploited his greatest weakness, that he blames himself for Nicole's death. So it appeared to him as Nicolle to lure him to the Marker that he had unknowingly created using the signal that it had implanted in his brain. The one that the EarthGov doctors had worked so hard to extract. This whole time the Marker had convinced Isaac that he was being lead to it to destroy it, when in reality, it wanted to destroy him directly, through his own mind. And this is where the final confrontation takes place, but I won't spoil it for you. Oh by the way, remember that guy Tiedemann I mentioned earlier? Don't worry, he gets his.

Payback is two 4 foot long spears in the throat. And a bitch.

 The Breakdown.

Graphics: Flawless, everything is disgusting and beautiful, gorgeous and horrifying. And the best part is that (at least on the computer) it runs without the slightest hitch with the graphics maxed out as long as you have at least a reasonable machine to run it on. But you don't need the best of the best to experience this game the way it was meant to be experienced.

Gameplay: Nothing to complain about here, the control scheme is identical to the first game, and it worked just as perfectly then as it does now. It's worth mentioning that a large number of PC users claim to have problems with mouse lag when V-sync is enabled. This is stupid. Stop saying it. It's bullshit. I'm running the game on a computer that was amazing a year and a half ago, it's still good but it is far from top of the line. I have everything turned up all the way and V-sync enabled. I do not have the slightest bit of mouse lag, if you are having this problem your complaints should be directed towards your computer. Not the game. That said there are also some really great new features, the most noteworthy of which is zero-G flight. Rather than just jumping from point to point you can now fly freely.

Wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube necromorph! In SPACE!

Story/Plot: Engaging interesting and original throughout. This is another area where I feel like I should call out some dissenters. Especially with the release of the first game many comparisons were made to other works that just don't even begin to make sense. One in particular that I want to mention is Event Horizon. Here's the deal guys, Event Horizon is about a ship that is abandoned in space, with NO ONE, on it. They discover an object on the ship that acts as some sort of portal to hell and they all kill each other. There are no mutated alien zombies, there is no alien artifact causing said mutations, the only similarity is in the setting. Just because Dead Space takes place on a derelict space ship does not mean it ripped off a really shitty Sci Fi Horror movie that happened to take place in a similar location. (that said there was almost certainly some inspiration from The Thing and Aliens). But I'm getting off topic there. Dead Space 2 features an original, interesting story, that honestly managed to surprise me on a few occasions without resorting to Shyamalanesque twists. And it clocks in at a respectable 8 hours on normal difficulty (most people are saying it's actually 10-12 but I honestly can't figure how they took that long)

Sound/voice: The musical score, the ambient sounds, the semi-human groans of necromorphs stalking the Sprawl, everything is perfectly crafted to be as nerve-wracking as it can be. And the worst of the voice actors are competent, the best of them are amazingly talented, making their characters practically jump out of the game.

All in all Dead Space 2 is the single best survival horror shooter I have ever played and is essentially my perfect game. It's a rare thing that a sequel lives up to the expectations and standards set by its predecessor but Dead Space 2 is so good, making such dramatic improvements to both scares and action, that it almost makes Dead Space 1 look bad. I really do not scare easily, most of my nightmares crack me up but Dead Space 2 managed to get under my skin quite effectively. I give Dead Space 2 a 10/10 and await Dead Space 3 with bated breath. Please stick around Visceral Games. Because I think I may love you.

As always I hope to hear your thoughts and comments. Thanks for reading despite the recent delays. See you again soon.

Dead Space and Dead Space 2 including the title image and the final screenshot belong to EA Visceral.

All else including other screenshots are ©Alex Jenkins 2011