Dead Space 2 Review

Check out this review of Dead Space 2 done by Corvianking. 

When Dead Space was released in 2008, I was one of the many people who’d heard nothing about it and didn’t even notice it on the shelves of my local game store. When, nearly a year later, I decided to pick it up on a whim (it was cheap and I needed a new game), I spent the next five playthroughs kicking myself for not picking it up when it was released. Armed with this knowledge, you can guess who was at Gamestop picking up his pre-order of Dead Space 2 the moment he left work on the day of the release. For the next twelve hours or so after that, I was dead to the world. Friends knew not to even bother trying to get in touch with me (half of them were playing it too) and productivity ground to a halt.

Let me begin with my conclusion; it was worth it, though not as worth it as I would have liked. Maybe it was all the hype, something the first game didn’t have, or maybe it was the fact that I played well into the wee hours of the morning, but something about Dead Space 2 just didn’t strike the same chord that the original did. That’s not to say it wasn’t an excellent game, it certainly was and it has all the replay value of the original; I suppose that I would say that the thing that made it not quite as good as the original was that it simply wasn’t the original. It didn’t have the same “wow, this is new and different” charm that the first game did simply because it was a sequel. As I said though, that makes it no less of an awesome game.

First off, for those new to the Dead Space universe, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you go and pick up Dead Space before attempting to play Dead Space 2. Dead Space 2 has a helpful “previously on Dead Space” style recap video that explains the events of Dead Space and the basic story before it, then connecting it to Dead Space 2, but it just doesn’t lend the same effect as if you’d played the game yourself. Regardless, Dead Space 2 kicks off with a conversation between Isaac Clarke and his girlfriend Nicole Brennan, still alive and loving it aboard the USG Ishimura, a post that Isaac encouraged her to take since the first planet cracker was about to be decommissioned. It is during this conversation that it is made clear, Isaac is no longer the voiceless hero he was in the first game. From there, we are taken to an interrogation style therapy session where the events of the original Dead Space are again, if very briefly, explained.

After that, you’re thrown right into it. You’re pulled out of stasis by Franco Delyle who, in the middle of his insistence that he’ll explain everything, is infected and transformed right in front of your eyes. Cue the chase music as Isaac, still in a strait jacket, is forced to flee through a hospital ward of the newly transformed, dodging necromorphs and station security alike as the station director Tiedemann’s transmissions instruct all personnel to eliminate the remaining subjects. The same man who was interrogating you during the first scene eventually frees you from your bonds, and directly after assisting you, also providing you with a health pack and a flashlight, he cuts his own throat.

The first weapon you acquire is the significantly useful kinesis module. As players of the first game may remember, the kinesis module was sorely limited despite the potential it had, but no more. Your first introduction to the new kinesis module has you picking up three-foot long spikes and pinning necromorphs to the wall with them, an immensely satisfying feeling. Continuing on with your new weapon, you soon come across a plasma cutter, which you acquire at the sacrifice of a fellow patient, torn to pieces by a necromorph before you can finish attaching the cutter to your flashlight. With the plasma cutter now in your possession, there’s only one more weapon needed to make the trifecta from the first game complete, the stasis module, which you pick up a room or so after the cutter.

After picking up those three items and eventually reclaiming your engineering suit at a store, the story begins in earnest. Dana Delyle, the instigator of your rescue, explains that you were found adrift in space by an EarthGov patrol three years earlier, and you have no recollection of the space in between because of a form of viral dementia triggered by contact with the Marker, a condition that is sparking hallucinations of a ghoulish, blood-soaked Nicole, and one shared by fellow patient/escapee Nolan Stross, someone that Dana informs you is psychotic, explaining that “he murdered his wife and son.”

Nevertheless, following Dana’s sudden but inevitable betrayal, delivered along with the revelations that she is a Unitologist, Isaac and Stross built a new Marker, and that the two patients have the power to destroy the new Marker, Nolan Stross is the one that Isaac turns to for direction. Fighting a losing battle in his attempts to keep Stross from losing his mind to the dementia and hallucinations of his murdered wife and child, Isaac is desperate to meet with the elusive madman and have him reveal “the steps” to him, along with their meanings, convinced that they are the key to destroying the Marker and ending the nightmare. Along the way, Isaac encounters a fellow survivor and CEC employee, Ellie Langford, forced to cut the limbs off her own fallen friends to ensure that they wouldn’t rise as infected. The three eventually join forces to make their way to the government sector, where the Marker is being kept and the inevitable face-off between the sentient alien artifact and Isaac will be held.

Overall, the gameplay was in direct line with the original game, retaining its tense atmosphere, involving story, and its third person status, once again throwing traditional shooter HUD conventions out the window in favor of the rig health indicator, pop-up inventory and ammo display, and the holographic locator in place of a compass/radar. As was mentioned before, significant improvements have been made to a variety of key elements from the first game, including a charge function for the stasis module. While the first game had you scrambling for a stasis recharge station, or using up valuable inventory slots carrying stasis packs, Dead Space 2 has the stasis function recharging, if very slowly, after time spent without use. There’s a trade-off though, as stasis starts out with only a single charge, and the maximum number of charges you can hold, after upgrading fully, is four; not to mention, the duration of stasis has been reduced. So don’t expect to wildly fling stasis everywhere and pick your opponents off one by one at your leisure.

Another new addition to the game, without even touching the new weapons, is the “special” upgrade of several of the guns. In the first game, power nodes could be applied to upgrade the weapons in your arsenal in a variety of ways, including magazine size, damage, and reload speed. With Dead Space 2, that remains, but several guns have a special node, at the end of a long chain, that grants the weapon an additional power-up. In the case of the plasma cutter for instance, shots ignite your enemies, dealing continuous extra damage, and in the case of the javelin gun, a new addition to your already significant arsenal, the alternate fire, which originally arced lightning from the last shot fired, has an explosive effect added on when the alternate firing mode is ended.

Finally, in terms of gameplay improvements, zero-g movements have retaken the spotlight and been given a significant upgrade. Instead of being forced to leap from surface to surface as in the first game’s regrettably sparse zero-g environments, Isaac now has been granted flight capabilities by a series of boosters set into his suit. Predictably, zero-g environments play a much more significant role in Dead Space 2 than in the original.

On to the multiplayer mode, I have little to say about it besides that it is engaging and fun, though obviously not my reason for buying the game. After playing it for an hour or so I reached the conclusion that, while it was a nice addition, and most certainly an excellent way to take the game into the multiplayer arena, it was unnecessary. Dead Space 2 could have stood on its own with just the single player mode and it would have been fine. That said, I’m not complaining. The ability to play as a necromorph is great, and, though the realization is slow to come to some players, if you don’t work as a team, on either side, victory is quickly called into question. There isn’t a lot of diversity to the multiplayer, but that’s to be expected with a game like this. On the human side, you’re given an objective that you must complete before the time limit expires, and the necromorphs of course must stop that from happening. Simply put, if they release new maps for the multiplayer I’d download them, but if Dead Space 3 doesn’t include multiplayer I won’t complain very loudly, if at all.

In conclusion, Dead Space 2 is an excellent game that loses none of the features that made the original such a tremendous sleeper hit. Its only flaw, as I mentioned at the very beginning, is that it was a sequel. If you were to take the game alone, never having played the first game, I have no doubt that the effect would be the same as if you’d picked up the first game. As someone who’s combed every inch of the Ishimura though, I recognize that there’s just no way to capture the break-away charm the first game had in any sequel, and I appreciate that the team at Visceral didn’t try to change a formula that worked incredibly well. You can bet that once Dead Space 3 is announced, which I’m sure (read: desperately hoping) it will be, I’ll have my pre-order out on it, paid in full up front.