Nintendo Okie

After the achievement of Dead Space, I was curious to see where Visceral was going to take the franchise. Isaac Clark had escaped the Ishimura but may or may not have been eaten by his zombie girlfriend. After his silence in the first game, Isaac was now granted the power of speech. Since you can’t have Dead Space without hideous monsters it seems obvious the Necromorphs would once again be roaming the shadows. With the release of a couple animated features and some smaller games of varying quality I was concerned Dead Space 2 would not live up to the expectations I had for it. Then I played the game.

What You Need To Know
As previously stated, Isaac Clark is back but he didn’t get the hero’s welcome he deserved. Instead, he was committed to an insane asylum after his escape ship was discovered three years earlier prior to the start of DS2. Being the universe of Dead Space you know things have to go bad. The game begins with Isaac awakening to his worst nightmare, Nicole (his late girlfriend) haunting him about her death. Isaac fights the illusion, telling himself she isn’t real but his guilt seems to powerful for his will to overcome. After struggling with these visions, a heavily medicated Isaac is awoken rather quickly by a man claiming to be rescuing him. Before anything can be explained, Necromorphs have slaying your fallen savior and are now bearing down on you. Isaac once again has to escape the horrific monsters while trying to discover what has happened during the last three years. The problem is, everybody says they want to help him but he has no idea who he can trust. The controls have been altered slightly, adding options for your waypoint system and improved controls for zero gravity. Unfortunately you may have to fight some muscle memory with the reassigning of the face buttons. All of the classic guns return with the addition of a few new toys. The developers also added a multiplayer, versus mode to add to your fun after you complete the campaign.

Even Spookyer Atmosphere
The first Dead Space was pretty scary; horrible monsters jumping out of ventilation shafts, crazy people cutting each other up, distant sounds of weeping that echo through the isolated ship. I figured since Dead Space 2 takes place in a metropolitan area the atmosphere wouldn’t be as scary. Well I was completely wrong. In fact, the game seem to thrive on taking everyday settings and making them as eerie as possible; a shopping mall, a church, a daycare center, etc. It was easy to feel lost on the Ishimura since it was a maze of hallways built out of cold steel. However, Visceral has managed to take inviting environments with warm colors and open spaces and turn them into a nightmare vision. How can an auditorium set up for a school play be more frightening than a spaceship? That’s even before you see the creepy monsters.

Fantastic Lighting Effects
Sunlight shining through colored glass and breaking into different hues, holographic displays providing an island of light to the surrounding darkness, laser traps rapidly pulsating; these are a few of the lighting displays that help bring the dying world of Dead Space 2 alive. It’s kind of ironic; a game that is best when hiding stuff in the dark has some of the best lighting I’ve even seen. I don’t think it was supposed to happen but often monsters would get the drop on me as I was too distracted by the lighting effects. The improved lighting mechanics the developers made are just another step that guides you further into the world of Isaac Clark; helping you forget it’s all a game.

Builds On First Game
Not only did Visceral step up their game with the atmosphere and lighting, but almost everything that made Dead Space a great game is done better with Dead Space 2. No longer was I able to anticipate the next sequence of the game from my surroundings. Open areas, while perfect for a boss encounter, seemed more natural to find while exploring through a populated area. Dead Space 2 uses a much wider color palette but somehow the warm colors still feel lifeless with the knowledge that crazy, death monster are roaming around you. Since you are not restricted to a single ship, I found it much easier to navigate Isaac through the world. I got stuck on corners a lot less and didn’t freak out the camera whenever I was trying to run away from a Necromorph. These fixes helped to maintain the immersion which Dead Space 2 works so hard to obtain. The bottom line here means I got scared more and had more fun.

Suspicious AI
My biggest problem with DS2 happened a couple of times. I would be exploring an area for several minutes, free of enemies, when with no warning I would see a claw poke into my screen. Once I would spin around to defend myself, I would see a monster (sometimes multiple) quickly change from an idle animation into ripping my face off mode. I have no problem with monsters sneaking up behind me; the game is built to scare me after all. Where it breaks for me are the cases when those Necromorphs had to be following me for upwards of 60 seconds. I’m not undead expert but I don’t think a Necromorph would patiently follow me around, waiting for me to face it before it attacked me. Normally they run at me full speed while screaming. As with the first game, I think this stands out as complaint simply because the game is so immersive. I think too much about stuff, so when things like this happen I start to think about the game as lines of code running scripts instead of how I should shoot monsters to stay alive.

Conclusion
The online mode was rather dead once I played it (pun intended). I had a limited amount of time due to having no online pass and relying on the free, 48 hour trial. What I did play was fun but didn’t seem like something I would want to play more than the single player. Even with a multiplayer mode you may never play, Dead Space 2 is everything the first game was but better. If you play both, you know exactly how true that statement is. It’s hard for games to be anything other than a collection of action sequences. Movies can be funny, scary, sad or actiony because all you have to do is look at a screen and pay attention. The audience is a simple observer watching through a magic window. Games aren’t movies since they have to be interactive and thus so much control is taken away from the creators. Thankfully, Visceral is able to achieve what fewer developers can each day; make a game grab your imagination and reward you with more than just explosions. Dead Space 2 is scary but it does more than just tease you with fear. The shooting is solid if you decide to fight the creepy monsters instead of run away. If you play Dead Space 2 with the lights on, you’re cheating yourself.

Final score –
Total play time – 15 hours
Completed the game on normal difficulty
Played approximately 2 hours of multiplayer
Game received as a gift from a friend