Dead Space 2

It seems like it's been quite some time since my last review, and for that, I apologize. Last Sunday was taken up by Soundwave, so that was totally worth it. However, I realise that I may not be able to review alot of games coming out around now, and my back catalogue will only grow.

Anyway, today I'm reviewing Dead Space 2 which is obviously (unless you were dropped on your head as a child) the sequel to Dead Space.

STORY
Dead Space 2 begins in a mental hospital on the Sprawl, a densely populated metropolis built on a shard of Titan, one of Saturn's moons. The game takes place 3 years after the end of the first, and resumes with Isaac Clarke waking up with very little memory of the time that has elapsed. It just so happens that the Necromorph's are attacking the Sprawl, so clearly, it's just not Isaac's day. It soon becomes apparent that Isaac will have to face these monstrosity's alone, while being tormented by his own mind. Hey, he was in an asylum for a reason...

Now, If you have NO idea about what a "Necromorph" is, never fear! Dead Space 2 provides a nifty little "Previously, on Dead Space" cinematic, which sums up the events of the previous title quite nicely. While I've played little more than a demo of the first Dead Space, I found that I had caught up with the story very quickly.

The story itself isn't bad, but it's far from award winning. The plot, as a whole, is fairly predictable, as many times you'll find yourself having to take the long way around because something unforseen went wrong. That is, unforseen by Isaac, not the player. It would take an idiot not to see these plot twists coming.
A few of the characters are quite likeable, though Isaac falls into the cliched action hero role more often than not.

PRESENTATION
Dead Space 2 looks really good, but so did its predecessor. What seperates the two, is a brand new environment, in the form of The Sprawl. While the Ishimura was a dark and uninviting spacecraft, The Sprawl is a metropolis, filled with hospitals, shopping centres and school buildings. While it all takes place in a space station style layout, each area does have its own unique feel. I'll never look at a preschool the same after this game.

While the environments look great, and the characters look quite well made, the Necromorphs just have too much going on. They look far too cluttered to be particularly frightening. This is why I found the ones closer to human form most scary. Speaking of "scary", Dead Space 2 does the usual thing of using high pitch violin squeals to get the player startled, and it works as well as it was ever going to here, even if its been used a bit much over the years.

Oh, and I thought this was worth mentioning; there is NO Heads Up Display. At least, not on the borders of the screen. Instead, you have Isaac's "Rig", which displays your health bar, as well as other meters. Along with this, your weapons laser sight comes directly from the gun, and the ammo count is displayed as a hologram from it. I know some people will find this unimportant, but I thought it was interesting.

GAMEPLAY
Dead Space 2 makes no huge changes from the core gameplay of the original. You run around various blood splattered areas lit by flickering lights and you use some rather heavy duty weaponry to strategically dismember the horde of disgusting alien zombie things. Now, the "horror" element of this action horror game pretty much gets thrown out the window when you get given guns that can slice the heads of five aliens in one shot. It works well enough, but it detracts from the overall scariness of the game.

Yes, I jumped a few times, but that was more from surprise than being genuinely scared. Also, the Necromorphs are cheap bastards. More often than not, you'll find yourself facing off against two monstrosities, then a third will drop from the roof vent and claw off your man bits.

The most unsettling bit of Dead Space 2 has to be the fact that your ammo and med-packs are scarce, and this is what horror games should be, conserving your shots if you can because, before you know it, you'll have to start smacking the necromorphs to death with the least lethal part of your gun.

Now, when you aren't blowing the limbs off aliens with huge guns, you're probably solving puzzles with your stasis and kinesis modules. The puzzles aren't the most complex things, but the features themselves are pretty cool. Stasis lets you freeze enemies/objects and kinesis allows you to pick things up, which is helpful when your ammo is gone.

Oh, and there are some trippy zero gravity bits. They were a nice touch and they add some much needed change to the gameplay. The use of thrusters, in conjunction with Stasis and Kinesis makes for some interesting segments in the game.

REPLAYABILITY
First of all, once you finish the single player game, you are able to restart, on a higher difficulty with all your previous gear available to you from the first vendor. That's kind of interesting, but it certainly didn't make me want to do it again. Though, that's just me; theres tonnes of audio and text logs to convey some more of the somewhat interesting story to players who want more.

As for multiplayer, Dead Space 2 adds a Left 4 Dead-esque game mode, where 4 players control humans and 4 players control necromorphs. The human players have to complete an objective, whereas the necromorphs just have to kill the humans. At the moment, it's pretty unbalanced, but can be fun on occasion. I say, go buy L4D and play a more refined version of this mode. Dead Space 2 didn't impress me with it's multiplayer.

OVERVIEW
Dead Space 2 isn't a bad game. It's environments have a lot more variety to them compared to the first Dead Space and some of it's characters are interesting and some are even likeable. The story is a bit weird, but I can accept that a few people can get into it. It was nothing, if not interesting. If anything, my main problem was the gameplay. A horror game can't be that scary if you keep giving players an arsenal that would make Bulletstorm blush. I'm just saying.


Next time on Tophat Gamer, I plan on reviewing Killzone 3. Or Bulletstorm. You guys should vote on it. Not that you will. Oh well. See you next time!