Dead Space 2: New aliens, same ol' frights

In the immortal words of John McClane: “How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?” In this case the ‘shit’ is another alien infection and the ‘guy’ is everyone’s favourite space engineer, Isaac Clarke (lose a thousand nerd points if you miss the reference).

Yes, dear old Isaac is back once more to fight off another horde of mutated undead in Visceral Games’ latest title Dead Space 2, a sequel to their previous title that shares the same name; minus a ‘2’, of course.

Regular readers of my other articles – yes, all three of you – will remember that many moons ago I wrote an article about another game, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and mentioned the fact that Dead Space was scary in the same way that I’m good with girls, i.e. not at all. So, did Dead Space 2 do any better on that front?

Well... sort of. Before I go on like an embittered O.A.P. let me make it clear to you that the Dead Space series is in no way bad – after all, I played the original at least five times over and I can bet my left nut that I’ll be doing the same thing with its newest sibling. The weapons are fun to use and dismembering enemies to kill them is still a reasonably fresh concept. Many smaller changes from the original make life much more enjoyable, such as the mobility control in zero-G environments and the self-charging stasis module, but others less so. You often have to stomp on fallen Necromorphs to get the goods they drop, which this becomes quite frustrating in larger battles when you have to scavenge ammo from dead foes whilst trying to avoid being ripped apart by their surviving brethren.

There are a couple of new Necromorphs that go out of their way to slaughter you and whilst there have only been a few new additions, I was very impressed to find that they all filled niches not occupied by the original Dead Space line-up. There’s a long range attacker that spews corrosive acid, organic proximity mines and crawling bombs, a pack attacker and, my personal favourite, a new Necromorph that hunts intelligently, aptly named ‘Stalkers’. These bastards will drive you mad. Fast and dangerous, they’ll lure you into attacking one of their numbers whilst another sneaks up to charge into one of your blind sides. Unlike most Necromorphs you have to plan and time your attacks against these guys to avoid being gored; battles with them were invariably the tensest.

Isaac also dropped the Gordon Freeman approach to survival and actually speaks now and then, mostly in response to the NPCs guiding him along. I suppose I like this change, turning Isaac from a human puppet to more of an actual person, but at the same time I couldn’t help but think he sounded an awful lot like Tom Cruise. Very off-puting.

There’s also the new multiplayer component, but it’s nothing spectacular. You play either as a security officer or a Necromorph in teams of four, with the security team trying to get shit done whilst the Necromorphs attempt to screw their shit up. Unless Visceral continually update this mode I can’t see it becoming popular. That said, it is a nice little extra that’ll add, at the very least, a few more hours to playtime.

OK, rant time. First, people really need to stop calling Dead Space a survival horror. It is not a survival horror, it is an action shooter. Now that’s fine with me, but stop calling it a horror game! Dead Space 2 will shock you and make you curse now and then, but ‘shocking’ is not the same thing as ‘scaring’. ‘Shocking’ is when someone walks up behind me unannounced and explodes a paper bag right next to my ear. ‘Scaring’ is when my asthmatic housemate is out at a party and I can hear heavy laboured breathing in the kitchen at 2 a.m. Nothing really emphasized this point better than one encounter near the start of the game.

You begin Dead Space 2 with no ability to defend yourself, and you have to run past a load of Necromorphs to escape the area you start in, which is admittedly a pretty bad-ass way to open. Running down a set of stairs with three slashers trying to tear me apart whilst I desperately navigated blockades was genuinely scary and tense. However, the very second I got my hands on the plasma cutter all tension evaporated in an instant. You’re armed, and if you’re not a blind paraplegic you can aim and kill with it. Enemies ceased to be a threat, and all you have to do from there on in is to keep some ammo handy and you’re golden. It’s fun, yes, but it’s not scary.

And here’s another thing – pacing. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, pacing revolves around the idea of highs and lows in a game. The lows are calm areas, places you can take a breather and relax. These only serve to heighten the experiences felt from the high areas, where most of the action takes place. High, low, high, low; that’s how it’s meant to go (I intended that to rhyme). Mentioned earlier, Amnesia is a good example of this – you have a calm central hub from which you move to high tension areas.

The effect of a game with little to no pacing can be seen in Dead Space 2. It leaves you mentally drained, and you become exhausted from the near-constant action. Long lift journeys need to be left peaceful. Cut-scenes need to be that little bit longer. Puzzles should not by interrupted by Necromorphs leaping out to give you a big hug and a slobbery kiss. In short, the game needs to let you relax now and then.

On saying all of this you may think that I dislike Dead Space 2, which simply isn’t true. Aside from the pacing issues and a poor idea of what scary is, Dead Space 2 is still a pretty decent game. It has many shining moments, such as one where you return to the Ishimura, the ship that the original game was set in. At the start of the level I assumed that it’d just be a cut and paste job, and hence feel pretty unoriginal. Ironically, it turned out to be my favourite level. I got a very strange feeling of nostalgia, and memories of the original game came flooding back as I traversed some of the old levels. It was also the only level in the game that I felt made decent use of the aforementioned pacing.

So would I advise you to fork out a wad of cash and purchase this sequel? Chances are if you’re a fan you’ve already bought it and wasted your whole weekend playing it like I did (just ask my housemates), so this review will have been a waste of time (sorry about that). On the other hand, if you’re new to the series I’d say pick up the original game cheaply before moving to its shinier bro.

Dead Space 2 is available now from Visceral Games on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.