Dead Space 2 has no right to be as nerve-wracking as it is. There are few survival-horror game clichés that it doesn’t reach for at some point in its running time – the rattling in the air vents, the monsters that leap from conveniently placed closets, the horrific hallucinations that plague its hapless protagonist, the gruesome animations that accompany death.
But its execution is so skilful that I spent most of the game creeping carefully around its dark corridors with my gun aimed and my heart in throat, anyway. It was seldom a surprise when some corpse briefly illuminated by my flash light reanimated into a shambling abomination or a hellish creature burst from a steel cabinet.
That didn’t stop every encounter from turning into a white-knuckle fight for survival that left me limping to the next exit, praying that there would be a save point and some supplies around the corner. Dead Space 2 is an unrelenting package of surprise and suspense that dials the intensity of its predecessor right up to 111.
The original Dead Space was one of the new intellectual properties that Electronic Arts created this console generation in a bid to become the cool guy among the big, franchise-milking games publishers. Developed by Visceral Games, it was an intelligent reinvention of the survival-horror genre that borrowed the best elements from the Resident Evil and Silent Hill series, disposed of their more archaic gameplay elements and transplanted the setting into space.
Dead Space 2 once again puts the player in the space suite of Isaac Clarke, the engineer that lived through a brush with the “necromorphs” (humans turned into monsters by an alien parasite) that wiped out most of the crew of the space ship Ishimura. From its shocking opening moments, it will feel familiar to anyone who has played Dead Space.
This time around, perhaps to reflect Isaac’s status as a battle-hardened survivor, he feels a little more agile and benefits from slightly tighter shooting mechanics. It’s just as well that Visceral has made these subtle tweaks — the game seems to throw far more monsters at Isaac this time around, including some daunting new necromorph varieties.
The biggest adversary in Dead Space 2, however, is not the monsters but the scarcity of the resources vital to Isaac’s survival. As Isaac fares deeper into the game, the player will find himself backtracking to the shops scattered around the Sprawl, hoping to scrap together enough credits for a small health pack or a few rounds of precious ammo. Learning to master the telekinesis and stasis (time-slowing) abilities in combat is even more essential than it was in Dead Space if Isaac isn’t to find himself with dry guns and facing a room full of necromorphs.
The Sprawl is a space city perched upon a fragment of moon in the outer reaches of space, allowing for a more varied set of locations than did the steel bowels of the Ishimura. From the creepy headquarters of Unitology — a Scientology-like religion in the Dead Space universe — to an elementary school overrun with frightening child necromorphs, the game plays out in an organic world that is both coherent and diverse.
Superb sound and visual design brings these richly detailed environments to disturbing life. The blood-curdling shrieks and wails of the necromorphs, eerie looped video messages recorded by the Sprawl’s inhabitants and the dim lighting hinting at the outlines of mutilated bodies put the player right in the centre of Isaac’s nightmare.
The pacing is brutal, punctuated with some wonderfully designed set-piece moments that owe much to the likes of Half-Life and Uncharted. Isaac is alone and vulnerable for long stretches in the game, making the moments that he manages to briefly turn the tables both exhilarating and tinged with dread of the horrors that lurk around the corner.
Even locations that were always safe in Dead Space — areas around save points, for example — may host monsters in the new game. There is no place to hide and catch your breath, unless you’re a necromorph.
Despite its many improvements over the first game, there are a few small missteps in Dead Space 2. Visceral has designed the game to minimise backtracking, occasionally making it feel as if Isaac is being funnelled from one dark corridor to another. It’s as much of an on-rails ride as a theme park house of horrors.
Also missed is the sense of dread and isolation the zero gravity and out-in-space segments in Dead Space inspired. These sequences are truncated and action-packed in Dead Space 2, one of the few changes I found to be for the worse. And the few puzzles in the game — which mostly make use of the telekinesis and stasis abilities — are disappointingly simple.
Dead Space 2 trailer (via YouTube):
Dead Space 2’s biggest addition to the series is an objective-based multiplayer component that pits humans and necromorphs teams against in matches that are somewhat reminiscent of the competitive modes in Left 4 Dead or Alien vs Predators. Multiplayer is intense, well-balanced and, like most modern shooters, offers a progression system with unlockable rewards to keep players coming back. Though somewhat lacking in depth, it is an enjoyable way to bide the time until Killzone 3 and Bulletstorm arrive.
The initial run of the PlayStation 3 version includes a welcome bonus in the form of the high-definition port of the Wii game, Dead Space Extraction. The frenetic House of the Dead-style lightgun shooter is also available as a download from the PlayStation Store for R140. It can be played using the traditional DualShock controller but really shines when paired with the PlayStation Move motion controls. — Lance Harris, TechCentral
- Reviewed on PlayStation 3. Also available on Windows PC and Xbox 360
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