Dead Space 2

Abstract

Developer: Enropcom Visceral Games, Publisher'.Electronic Arts (reviewed on XBOX 360) As any deep-space traveller knows, going into cold sleep/hibemation/sus-an/insert cliché here/ after a prolonged fight against aliens never ends well. Ripley found herself 57 years in the future fighting the same aliens she thought she'd blown out an airlock in the first film; in Event Horizon (Dir. Paul W.S. Anderson, 1997) Laurence Fishbume's character ended up trapped on a space ship with Sam Neill (The Horror!) that was being sucked into a black hole, and in Dead Space 2, Isaac Clark (the hero of the first game) awakens to discover that he has no memory of the last three years, he's on a space station called "The Sprawl" which is hollowed out of the Saturn moon, Titan, and said station is being quickly overrun with necromorphs.

Developer: Enropcom Visceral Games, Publisher'.Electronic Arts

(reviewed on XBOX 360)

As any deep-space traveller knows, going into cold sleep/hibemation/sus-an/insert cliché here/ after a prolonged fight against aliens never ends well. Ripley found herself 57 years in the future fighting the same aliens she thought she'd blown out an airlock in the first film; in Event Horizon (Dir. Paul W.S. Anderson, 1997) Laurence Fishbume's character ended up trapped on a space ship with Sam Neill (The Horror!) that was being sucked into a black hole, and in Dead Space 2, Isaac Clark (the hero of the first game) awakens to discover that he has no memory of the last three years, he's on a space station called "The Sprawl" which is hollowed out of the Saturn moon, Titan, and said station is being quickly overrun with necromorphs.

Not the best way to wake up after a long sleep, but what are you going to do? In Isaac's case, grab a Plasma cutter and go slice up some reanimated mutant corpses.

The gamer takes control of Isaac as he tries to escape the Sprawl, only to become embroiled in a plot by the Unitologists (who seem vaguely similar to a certain new "religion" that has lots of celebrity members including one quite short one who likes impossible missions. Although as far as I'm aware they're not involved in a plot to become immortal by building an alien monolith and reanimating corpses, but you never know) to begin a new phase of human evolution by building a new Marker (a sacred artifact which had been the cause of all the trouble in the first game).

Running with the original game's previous mechanics, the gamer is embroiled in a survival horror in which resource management is combined with the need to slice off the limbs of enemies in order to kill them. Weapons are made up of various engineering tools, although new types are added to the fray, including a nifty Javelin and a mine layer that also comes in very handy.

Graphically DS 2 exceeds the first game, with new, even more gruesome, enemies. Character models are also improved with the added bonus of the player actually getting to see Isaac's face as he speaks to other survivors on Titan.

Also improved is the running of the game. In DS Isaac was shuttled from one repair job to the next as an excuse for fighting the Necromorphs. In DS 2 the plot flows much more naturally and feels more like a story being told than a bullet point presentation.

The horror elements in Dead Space 2 are both obvious and subtle. The more obviously horrific, of course, involve the reanimated and mutated corpses of the dead. The attacks by necromorphs come from out of nowhere and with a large variety of bad guys, allowing for sudden changes in mood. For example, the Pack are a mass of small, humanoid enemies who swarm you. The multiple enemies require quick bursts of rapid fire to be killed down. Other enemies, such as "The Brute" requires sustained and heavy gun fire to take down. In this way, the player is kept constantly off guard and the player's selection of weapons can become a matter of life and death.

However, the real horror comes as the player realises the true nature of the necromorphs. It is easy to dismiss the larger monsters as just being your standard video game cannon fodder. However, some still retain human characteristics, with Slashers having a human face and The Pack obviously being children.

Indeed, at one point in the game (and please note, spoilers follow), Isaac finds himself in a school. Nothing attacks and it is eerily quiet, until he reaches the nursery. Watched through a window, a woman calls out to something out of sight and a necromorph crawls into her lap and explodes. It takes a little while but the realisation eventually sets in that the necromorphs have been through the nursery and reanimated the corpses of infants. It's particularly unsettling and, from a personal point of view, not the best moment to have your pregnant wife watching you play.

This is a shift from the more familiar fear of infection that permeates the Resident Evil games and the psychological warfare that Silent Hill plays on you. If anything, the Dead Space series is going all out for body horror, with the necromorphs' victims twisted into grotesque parodies of themselves and sent out to convert more to the Marker's malevolent cause. If Resident Evil is the Contagion (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2011) of the game world, then Dead Space is quickly filling the role of District 9 (Dir. Neill Blomkamp, 2009) or even Human Centipede (Dir. Tom Six, 2010) (without all the faeces).

The game also has additional gameplay elements - at one point it takes a slight break, in which, instead of running around trying not to get eaten, you have to steer a needle into your own comea (in the game, not in real life -1 can see the Daily Mail's headline already...) Gods help you if you push it too far...

Also of note is the multiplayer format for the game. You play either as part of a security detail (in groups of four), trying to stop the necromorphs or you play as the necromorphs. The security detail plays much like Isaac in the main game, but playing as a necromorph is where the fun is. You can play as one of four types of necromorph allowing you to slice, shot and vomit acid on those pesky humans as much as you want.

Dead Space 2 is an excellent sequel to the original game, adding to the background of the universe and new gameplay elements that mean it never feels stale to play. Added to this is the genuine horror of some of the plot; doing away with reliance on the cheap thrill of having something leap out from hiding to attack you and, instead, giving you the unsettling notion, that whilst it's still a videogame, the monster you just killed is the reanimated corpse of a child.

If you are a fan of the series, then this is definitely one to get. It carries on with the excellent gameplay of Dead Space and builds the mythos of the universe. Added to this is the ramping up of the terror and the unsettling feeling that permeates many of the best horror films -that the creature you just sliced into pieces could, just possibly, be you at some point.

Eoin Murphy

Dead Space 2

Graphics: 9

Gameplay: 9

Sound: 9

Replay Value: 9

Overall Score: 9