A look inside the Dead Space 2 (Game Review)

Hellow Fellaws! Our test team has made an analysis about the single player campaign of Dead Space 2 game, if you have any question about the Dead Space franchise (games, movies, etc) feel free to do so and post it on the comments! We hope that you enjoy the first review that we post OnThatPage! Have fun !

Well, Dead Space 2 is here, and I think that the question that arises on everyone’s mind is: “Is it better than the first one?” sadly, I would dare to say “No”. It isn’t better than the first Dead Space.

Dead Space 2 is the follow-up to the highly acclaimed game “Dead Space” from EA; it follows the footsteps of Engineer Isaac Clarke, and his fight against Necromorphs. In the first game, you took the role of the mightiest Engineer in all space and you were on your way to the USS Ishimura in order to fix some electric or mechanical kind of shit problem (yeah… right), when you arrived there you found that everything was dark and creepy similar to the moment when the guys in the movie “Alien” enter the Alien Spacecraft at the beginning of the movie.

What made that experience unique was that you didn’t know what the fuck was going on, I mean, you knew that something horrible happened there, but you didn’t know why it happened. Everything was new to you and there was this eager feeling of curiosity to find out what was happening, this is a feeling that I felt was lacking in the second game.

In Dead Space 2, you wake up in a Space Station on one of Saturn’s Moon called The Sprawl, in it you are inside a Mental Hospital due to the events of the first game that left you scarred (you are kind of schizophrenic). When the game starts there is a Necromorphs infection going on inside the station, in favor of the game I must say that the first 15 minutes of the game are very exciting and intense, and you feel that you are in for ride.

The first game established some basics regarding the gameplay and combat feeling of the character, you needed to dismember the enemies in order to kill them. I am happy to say that the same mechanic is present in the second game, but disappointed in the fact that I doesn’t have any major improvement, basically is the same thing. There is a vast array of weapons, but sadly most of them are the same weapons from the first game: Plasma Cutter, Flamethrower, Plasma Beam, Ripper and Pulse Rifle, are all back, nonetheless the introduction of the javelin is welcome.

Dismembering is back, and we thank the Lord for it!

The graphics are an improvement, the characters are way more detailed, and the environments look beautiful, you can notice this especially in the dead cut scenes that look amazing.

In terms of gameplay your character is not as stiff as in the first one, it has more maneuverability that allows you faster response times when the enemy is on you. Zero –G is back and this time you have these thrusters in the back of your suit that gives you this Iron Man kind of feeling that is good.  Also, the lacking of HUD is back which immerse you more into the atmosphere and the game. The Kinesis and Stasis are back too and are more useful this time.

Fuck yeah… I am the IRON MAN IN SPACE…Suck it War Machine

Now the bad things, the story is lame, I mean after the first game you would think that they will come out with something greater, but the reality is that they didn’t. In the first game you had this urge to understand what was going on around you, in addition, your girlfriend was on the Ishimura and you didn’t know if she was alive or dead, also, the rumors that you hear about this guy Altman and the unitologist cult, about the Marker, etc were actually interesting, at the end of the game you are left with more questions than answers but still the game ensures that you get this feeling of fulfillment in the way that you get the idea that you found and understood everything that you needed and that in the future the developers will divulge more about the universe of this amazing franchise. (Similar to what happened at the end of Half Life 2).

In the second game you don’t get the feeling or urge to understand what’s going on, because you already know that, you know that Necromorphs are back, but there is nothing new about them, they appear and “reproduce” themselves in the same ugly way that they did in the first game, in fact, the majority of the types of Necromorphs are back, with the addition of three or four more types. (NOT ENOUGH!), instead of introducing more questions, the game tries hard to answer the majority of them, and when you know why is everything happening you see that the answers are not as interesting as you thought they would be.

Now you have different kinds of suits, that have different attributes for you, they add improvements in the damage you do with your pulse rifle for example, another one gives you discounts at shops, etc, it is a welcome addition at first, but after a while you notice that it’s kind of useless. All you need is improvements in your damage reduction, and that’s it.  Workbench is also back, and it has exactly the same function that it had in the first game, no innovation, no new improvements to your weaponry, nothing. It’s the same thing.

One of the brand new things is that Isaac now talks, in contrast to the first one where he’s silent; sadly, he doesn’t have anything interesting to say. All he does say is “Shit” “What’s going on?” “Leave me alone” “You are not real” and that’s it, I personally loved the silent type of character that made you wonder what was going on inside Clarke mind, but now that you know, it’s boring. Imagine for a second that Half Life 3 comes out and Freeman now has dialogue lines. (OH MY GOD PLEASE DON’T LET THE VALVE DEV TEAM DO THIS PLZ!)

I liked you more with your helmet on! As Gwen Stefani says “Don’t Speak”

–(SPOILER ALERT IN THE FOLLOWING TEXT)–

The sense of guilt for the dead of Nicole (Isaac’s girl) in the first game is latent through the whole experience, his internal struggle is in what the game is based on, and is the fuel that drives the story, but as i said, is not interesting enough, because is not innovate, it isn’t something that we haven’t seen in games or movies or whatever, in fact, is cliché.

–(SPOILER ALERT ENDS HERE)–

In terms of scares the game doesn’t improve, sure there some situations that surprise you, but they are not very common, in Dead Space the fact that you were inside a spaceship with most of it electrical power down, running through dark and lone corridors and hearing the Necromorphs coming at you was chilling but not scary, also the feeling that you were the only person alive (besides your shipmates) inside the ship was dreadful enough, so you would think that being “scares” one of the key factors of success for the first game, they would improve this element in the second one. In Dead Space 2 corridors have light, and you can predict most of the times when something is going to jump at you out of the nowhere (jump-scares), there is no feeling of doom or loneliness you are constantly talking with different characters in different portions of the game, and that gives you the feeling that you are not alone, which sucks.

Dead Space 2 doesn’t feel like a sequel but an expansion, it doesn’t improve in terms of story, atmosphere, game mechanics, items, scares or anything; all it does is add elements to them. It’s true that it improves in terms of gameplay and graphics, but that is expected in a sequel, is not an innovation.

Dead Space 2 is not a bad game, but is not what fans of the franchise as myself expected, and it turned out to be an enjoyable disappointment.

Final Score: 7.5/10 – Good.

The Good : Improvements in gameplay and graphics, improvements in the Zero-G parts of the game, better use of Kinesis and Stasis features.

The Bad : Not an interesting story, short game, there are no improvements in mechanics, interface, using of workbenches, stores and weapons. Not sense of a chilling or scary atmosphere as good as in the first game.

 

Thanks to Hjcarrasquero for this very specific review.. wait for more of them to come! and keep looking good stuffs OnThatPage!