Review by Nathan Hardisty
UK Certification 18 | UK RRP £49.99 | Region PAL | Developer Visceral Games | Publisher Electronic Arts
Dead Space 2 is often associated with survival horror, which is odd, as there’s not even a whisper of survival when it comes to how the player interacts with the world. I feel that perhaps it’s afraid of what it really is: action-horror, which is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. With the last generation we had the likes of Silent Hill 2, showing how survival horror was the king of horror as a genre, but nowadays we have a whole new generic phase: action-horror, which should be utterly embraced.
From his experience on the Ishimura (the mining ship), Isaac contracted dementia and become Crazy McCrazyson of Crazyson, West Crazyside. Throughout the game, he and the player are subjected to bouts of his madness coming out of his shell and playing with perceived reality. The plot this time revolves around this inner-demon dilemma after he wakes up from a three-year coma on The Sprawl, a metropolis built on a shard of Jupiter’s moon, Titan, and the main objective here is to destroy the evil monster-making marker and get the hell out of dodge/outer space.
The objective of finding the marker has zero motivation attached and it’s hard to care for any of the characters or to find the effort to want to find out. However, one of the early plot twists was quite clever in that it was blindingly obvious yet you didn’t realise it until Isaac did, a perfect example of a player-protagonist relationship done right. This time around, Isaac talks and I was sceptical whether or not it’d feel quite right. If I’m being honest, it doesn’t totally fit when he’s yelling “Fuck!” at people I don’t care about.
What I will say for Dead Space 2 is that its strength isn’t in its narrative or characters or setting, but in the creepy atmosphere and pacing the likes of which I haven’t seen since Naughty Dog’s last venture. The game is ridiculously good at not stopping the pace or halting to explain something. I find it odd that a lot of other websites say that “It’s linear in a good way”, when linearity was never a bad thing, instead just being how the developers use it. Dead Space 2 funnels you through high velocity and high thrills set-pieces that never, ever just stop.
Gameplay is relatively unchanged in that instead of shooting the faces of monsters, you have to dismember them. The Plasma Cutter, an old favourite, returns from the original and can rotate 90 degrees to suit arms, legs and other alien limbs. The Pulse Rifle, essentially a machine gun, also makes the rounds along with a few others that I’ll let you find out for yourself. Along with this you have kinetic powers such as grab and stasis which allow you to freeze an enemy, telekinetically latch on to their dismembered arm and impale them against the wall with it. It takes 'stop hitting yourself!' to a whole new level.
Dismembering hand-in-hand with the kinesis powers works wonderfully. It never gets old to impale a ghoul against the wall with his own three feet. The gameplay seems fine-tuned, as do the controls, making for the perfect action-horror experience. As you murder your way through The Sprawl, you gain credits and power nodes which can be spent on items, weapons and upgrades. The vast linearity has made it so that upgrades and weapons feel perfect for each and every situation.
Multiplayer is interesting but ultimately fails to compel me to play any more of the game. There are two teams of monsters and humans. The creatures have to stop the humans from fulfilling objectives by killing them. The humans are generally overpowered and the controls don’t transfer that well over to the monster side of things. Balancing issues, flat map designs and a slew of other issues stop this from being an addictive experience, but it has the premise and potential, just not the longevity.
Dead Space 2 is the Uncharted 2 of action-horror. Once it grips, it never lets go. While the narrative falls flat, the gameplay has been fine-tuned to a joyous romp and the creepy atmosphere has been ramped up to its finest. Isaac’s story is the only interesting piece of the narrative puzzle here and while the multiplayer lacks a few key components, do not question your decision to buy this game as it's the pinnacle of its genre.
• Dead Space 2 is also available on the Xbox 360 and PC. The PS3 version of the game is currently a system-exclusive Limited Edition featuring Dead Space: Extraction in HD with PlayStation Move compatability.
• This review copy of Dead Space 2 was bought and paid for by Screenjabber.com