It’s been 3 years since Isaac Clark’s hellacious experience on-board the USG Ishimuru, and he is still easily the unluckiest person in the known (and made up) universe. He awakens on a huge sprawling space station appropriately named, wait for it, The Sprawl. Almost immediately, there is a Necromorph attack, which pretty much dispels any lingering thoughts you might (probably not) have that Visceral Games decided to go a different direction and make Dead Space 2 an Animal Crossing clone rather than stick to survival horror. I think they ma
de a solid choice.
Let’s talk about game play. In a word: Awesome. The DS2 version of Isaac is quicker on his feet than he was in the previous iteration, making it easier to dodge and destroy the hordes of attacking horrors. Your actions are well-mapped to the button layout, so the keys to your survival are literally at your fingertips. These include shooting, switching weapons, using telekinesis, and slowing things down with your stasis. There’s a ton of enjoyment to be had just in the variety of ways that you can take out a stampeding baddie. There was also a lot of complaining about the lack of ammunition in the original Dead Space, and that has been taken care of. If you don’t find enough ammo in the many breakable boxes lying around, then you will certainly get enough by stomping on recently destroyed enemies (because, in space, rending zombies limb from limb apparently creates saw blades, javelins, and plasma rounds).
The story itself is decent, as long as you don’t look too closely at it. After all, your ultimate objective is to find and destroy The Marker (spoiler alert: not a giant Sharpie). Your reasons for this? Not real clear. It’s just something you are supposed to do, and most everybody feels that way, and you really just don’t have much else going on…so you do it. The true brilliance of this game lies in Isaac himself and what is going on inside his head. I mean, this dude is whacked out…and understandably so! He is still dealing with all of the awfulness that he witnessed on the Ishimuru, and is completely wracked with guilt over the death of his girlfriend, who he talked into taking the job on the Evil Ship Zombie Nightmare in the first place. To me, this explains his far superior fighting prowess in DS2 over that of the first game. The Isaac in DS2 is a man at the end of his rope, physically and mentally. He feels that he doesn’t have much to live for, and he is not so slowly going insane; this makes him a dangerous, dangerous man…especially if you happen to be a space zombie…which I do not recommend.
Visceral Games made a few other fixes as well. A quick click down on the right thumb stick (360 version) will create a handy objective arrow thingy which will help immensely when you become disoriented. Also, largely because of the size of the space station, there is considerably less backtracking than you may have been subjected to in the past.
All of the improvements, sticking with the things that worked in the first Dead Space, the incredibly fun combat system that has you aiming for arms and legs instead of heads and bodies, and the amazing and enduring suspense throughout the game all add up to one of the best games that I have played in recent memory. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up as soon as you can.
-Matty out
Fun Factor - 9 | Controlability - 9 | Content - 9 | Game Mechanic - 9 | Story - 7 |
Visual Appeal - 9 | Score and Sound Effects - 8 | Replay Factor - 8 |
Technical Build - 8 | Load Times - 9