Isaac returns and he’s losing his mind.
I loved the first game for its originality and fresh take on the survival horror genre, I thought it was solidly made, had an interesting tale and that Visceral Games had developed a brand new franchise that I could really get my teeth stuck into. This has proved correct in the sequel with non-stop action from start to finish.
Dead Space 2 puts us back in the boots of engineer Isaac Clarke who is now stuck on a space metropolis called the Sprawl built on a fragment of one of Saturn’s moons, Titan. Three years on from the original events on the Ishimura and with no memory of whats happened between then and now, Isaac Clarke finds the Sprawl has been overrun by his old friends the Necromorphs and once again he has to find and destroy the marker. Considering all that he’s gone through, it’s no surprise to find Isaac is losing his mind and is plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks throughout the entire game.
Combat in Dead Space 2 feels as satisfying as ever with the return of the stasis and telekinesis modules giving you a wide variety of methods of disposing the Necromorphs and will feel familiar to anyone that played the first game. There are some minor tweaks and changes making the combat overall a more enjoyable experience such as a button for refilling your stasis meter instead of having to go into the inventory which comes in very handy in some tight situations.
There is of course some new weapons such as the javelin gun which I found myself using a lot although the plasma cutter still seems to be the best all round weapon for cutting off limbs, the new weapons add to the gameplay and are a welcome addition. You can now impale Necromorphs with their own limbs using telekinesis which is something new as far as I know.
As well as the new weapons there’s some new enemies such as the stalker which live up to their name, sneaking up on you in packs until suddenly running out at you when I first came across these I didn’t have a clue what was going on and panicked somewhat.
The game is incredibly linear and other than how your going to upgrade your weapons and take down Necromorphs. Your not given any choice of where to go apart from completing your next objective, this however works well within a game of this type and I’m not complaining, sometimes I like knowing exactly what I have to do all the time in games.
The visuals are beautifully gory and dark adding to the atmosphere with plenty of flashing lights, blood splattered walls and corpses everywhere. This all adds to the atmosphere of what’s happening on the Sprawl. They don’t seem like a huge improvement over the first game but that’s no problem they still do the job well.
The sound is incredible and I recommend playing in the dark with headphones for the full experience. In fact whenever I played this in the day it just felt wrong. There’s monstrous screams and gurgles emanating from god knows where keeping you very aware of a new Necromorph that could be right around the next corner or perhaps about pounce on your head from one of the vents.
The only bad thing I have to say is it just didn’t feel as scary and intense as the first game. Perhaps that’s because I played the first game and knew what to expect but overall I do think it’s a better game and an excellent sequel.
There are several difficulty’s including a hardcore mode in which you have only three chances to save throughout the entire game and not a single checkpoint in sight.
In the multiplayer mode you play as either the humans or Necromorphs where the humans have to complete an objective and of course the necromorphs have to stop them. It works fine and I’m sure some people will like it but it’s not for me.
Closing comments
With the fast paced storyline and improved movement and controls Dead Space 2 will please people who weren’t sure about the clunky controls of the first game and will certainly please fans of the franchise. There’s a lot of replay value in the game with the different difficulty’s and the extremely challenging hardcore mode. The multiplayer is okay but I’m not interested in this game for the multiplayer it’s all about the single player and this it does very well indeed.
