Dead Space 2 : PS3
I finally find myself sitting down to write about Dead Space 2 which I finished last week. Why has it taken so long? Well, I’ve been playing Dead Space 2 again and today I thought I’d go back to Dead Space 1 for a little bit and thus went my afternoon.
I don’t think I praised Dead Space 1 enough when I wrote about it. I kept comparing it to Aliens vs. Predator which at the time made a lot of sense as I’d got it off the back of the other game, but when the game settled in my mind, I realised that it had made a lot more impact on me than AvP. The Dead Space universe grows on you.
As soon as I had finished the first game I was eager for the sequel and had it pre-ordered. Whatever games I was playing when it turned up were quickly shelved to make way for the new monster, billed as the first ‘must have’ game of 2011. They’re not wrong.
Where Dead Space has to introduce you to a few of the key concepts from the off and spends the first fifteen minutes or so letting you know who the characters are and what they are about, DS2 has no such requirements and chooses instead to drop you into what must be the most frightening beginning of a game ever. You (as Isaac) are immediately attacked. No guns. No idea of where you are yet. And, in what must be a unique moment, wearing a straight jacket. Yup, not only can you not shoot the necromorphs, you can’t even punch at them or run straight. It’s incredibly atmospheric, immediately exciting and draws you in to the new game with skill.
The atmosphere never drops. Of all the things that must be praised about Dead Space 2, the atmosphere is perhaps the most impressive. I said in my review of DS1, that the series lacked (at that time) a sense of history, which meant that when compared to something with a lot of series depth like Aliens, it felt lacking. Dead Space 2 doesn’t suffer from this at all; it builds on every moment of the first game and has enough depth that even though one could argue that the story is derivative, it comes across with enough spark and originality to make the plot interesting. I’d love it if pretty much every person who reads this review runs out and gets this game (and the other parts of the franchise) so I don’t want to spoil anything, but in terms of atmosphere, I have to just say that chapter ten of Dead Space 2 has the finest air of tension and fear in any game I’ve played and rivals most suspense and horror films too. I’ll come back to it later, but chapter ten is an example of how it should be done.
Dead Space 2 isn’t all about atmosphere though, it is a beautifully designed game as well. There have been a lot of subtle improvements over the original; the magnificent HUD is back and just as impressive as it was, improved somewhat by better weapon selection and a slightly easier way of seeing what ammo remains (this is important!). Some keys have been remapped which makes doing things like using the kinesis and stasis abilities a lot more natural (although it did mean that when I jumped back into the first game I used up a few medipacks when I wanted to be reloading..!) and the game is faster too, especially the kinesis which feels damned useful here rather than the tag-on feature it was in the original. The levels are wonderfully constructed with enough sidetracking to mean no-one will complain that it’s one long corridor, but with a definite sense of direction and the little guidance system has been upgraded too, meaning you can look for save point, stores and the workbench as well as being pointed to the objective. Isaac talks too (which he didn’t in the original) and having him exclaim with an honest swear word every now and then really does add to the proceedings. Simply put, the interface has been improved in every way.
Oh, and then there are the baddies. Necromorphs in Dead Space came in a few varieties, for sure, but in essence it was all ‘shoot it before it reaches me’. Dead Space 2 adds a lot to this, with the horrific spitter monsters, the scary fast and deadly children necromorphs who just love to swarm and the amusing (if you have a sense of humour like mine) baby-necros who explode when hit (and there is a trophy for killing them without letting them explode too - this game has it all, lol!).
Where Dead Space 2 really starts scoring points is in the gameplay itself. I had a couple of complaints in Dead Space 1 where the end bosses were just that edge of ridiculous. With all the game playing I’ve done, I’m beginning to grow a real hatred for end of level bosses - they are pointless, often requiring very different skills to the main game, and really frustrating until you work out what to do, at which point they become really easy and you feel stupid for taking so long to work it out. My faith has been restored by Dead Space 2, where the boss sequences are less a frustrating ‘run around and work out the pattern’ routine and become impressive set pieces with knobs on. Dead Space 2 doesn’t let up with its set pieces; crazy train crashes, shooting through space, avoiding spinning machinery etc., and somehow it manages to pull all this off without hitting ‘bloody frustrating monster’ moments. Well, almost. There are a couple of exceptions but they’re more my fault than the game’s…
This leads me to my actual play experience. Pleased with my success of the first game, I made the decision to play Dead Space 2 on the hard mode, rather than normal. The game sweetly informs you that this means that ammo and credits will be light on the ground and believe me; they’re not lying. Every single time I missed a shot, I cringed. Finding exciting different ways of killing badguys was a must, and inevitably I saved a few times with no ammo and a horrible swarm or particularly difficult enemy between me and the nearest reload point. This is where Dead Space 2 became frustrating for me; at one point I had three shots to kill two enormous necromorphs and the four littler ones that spawned on their death. It took me three long sessions to complete this bit and I swore more than a couple of times. The thing about this is that it really was my fault; I chose to save there, it was my skill (or lack of it) that meant I’d used all the ammo up to that point, and I did pick the hard setting… The glory of it was that once I had managed to kill everything and get past such a hard section (using broom handles, the fact that not everything’ll fit through a door, and some expert timing) I felt excellent and loved the game that little bit more. On hard, Dead Space 2 is hard. The fact that completion of the game unlocks ‘hard core’ mode where you only get three saves and no checkpoints and even less ammo… well; I’m determined to beat it!
During my time of playing the game, I came across someone else’s comment which went along the lines of ‘I have Dead Space 2 sitting under the TV, but I can’t bring myself to put it into my PS3!’. I knew exactly what they meant. At times, Dead Space 2 is too frightening and you need to literally psyche yourself into playing. During the aforementioned chapter ten, I had moments where I had to play another game (something innocuous like Gran Turismo 5) for an hour or two while I prepared myself for a session of DS2, and then once I’d got through a section, I’d have to save and stop just to let the tension out of my shoulders. Dead Space 2 is so good with its atmosphere that it occasionally prevents itself from being played! Most of the chapters in Dead Space 2 (like its predecessor) take an hour or so from start to finish. Chapter ten took me a week. ‘Nuff said.
With excellent (and achievable) trophies, an array of fun weapons, a great storyline, a real sense of skill when you achieve something and that atmosphere, Dead Space 2 demands a replay or two. It’s not just good for one run through, it’s probably good for three or four. I’m half way through my second run as I write this, and every time I get to a section I have a little voice in my head that says ‘ooh, great, I loved this bit’. I’ll be honest, frustration at having no ammo aside, I loved every bit, and when I got past the no-ammo moments, I loved those for testing me. I even managed to save just before the final boss with no ammo and had to do that more than twenty times before I managed it, with one shot left. This game takes it to the edge and holds you there for the entire experience and when you are done with it once question above all hangs over your thoughts for the next few nights; when the hell is Dead Space 3?
There are some games that everyone with a PS3 (or an XBox, in fact) should own. Dead Space 2 is one of these. It’s not flawless, but finding those flaws is nitpicking to the highest degree. Buy it today.
