Dead Space 2 Game Review

Dead Space 2 is not a game for the light-hearted, it's full of scary, intense, action-packed moments that will have your heart racing. Everything that made it's predecessor great is back and improved upon, to make one of the best games of 2011. Dead Space is by far the best horror franchise to grace the next-gen consoles, it's the modern-day Doom and one of the best gaming experiences on the market to date.

Even though it has been three years since the events of the first game, our protagonist Isaac Clarke is still having a rough ride. At the beginning of Dead Space 2 he awakes on a space station known as The Sprawl. He finds the station overwhelmed with an outbreak of reanimated corpses called Necromorphs. The action is right in your face from the get-go and it never gives you a chance to rest, even when enemies are nowhere to be seen, the game makes you feel like every corner, hole, or shadow could be hiding a deadly secret.

The main goal in Dead Space 2 is to find the religious artefact known as The Marker. The story behind the Marker and the events that took place because of it is great but in Dead Space 2 Isaac is fighting his own internal war which helps add another level to the story and really captures the mood and feel of Dead Space perfectly. During his time on the Spaceship Ishimura, Isaac saw things no man should have to see and because of the events of the original game, it has left Isaac a worn down wreck of a man and it really makes you feel a certain degree of sympathy for him and what he has to go through. What haunts him most is the death of his girl friend because it was he who encouraged her to work on that spaceship, his guilt and pain are tearing him apart and on top of this he has to avoid Necromorphs, creatures that will literally tear you apart. Isaac's internal conversations and hallucinations are one of my personal favourite aspects of Dead Space 2.

The combat has been greatly improved from the first game as well. Isaac is fas on his feet and he can stomp crates and melee attack bodies to gain loot with ease. Grabbing and throwing objects with your telekinesis is much more responsive this time around and mixing all this together with some of the most outrageous, gory, and brutal weapons ever seen in a video game is a blast. Blowing off or severing a limb from one of these Necromorphs and then using that same limb to impale another Necromorph just sounds insane, but in Dead Space 2 it's possible.

Dead Space 2 feels like the greatest haunted house attraction ever made. Visceral took out everything that slowed down the first game, backtracking, getting disorientated, and the overall sluggish controls and replaced it with a new fresher and much faster game while managing to retain the suspense and fear the first game is well known for. Dead Space 2 pressurises the player into situations that bring on emotional responses and real life human feelings that are very rarely felt in a video game. You go from point A to point B through some narrow and creepy corridors, with some open areas to break up the action. In the video game industry the word "linear" is usually used in a negative way, but here it works well and makes the tension and suspense in the game feel all the more better and creates the perfect cl; claustrophobic horror feeling that is needed in a game like Dead Space. Environments range from creepy elementary school class rooms to pitch black rooms were sounds is all you have to guide your path. The sound in Dead Space was outstanding and in Dead Space 2 they have managed to do it again, to put it simple, the sound is flawless. The sound is 50% of the fear factor in this game, it can make you panic and feel overwhelmed by the task ahead of you, it is inspirational to see the level of detail just placed into the audio of the game.

The weapons in Dead Space are extremely fun to use and the Ripper is my personal favourite. There are new weapons as well as the old ones and all can be upgraded for maximum use. When you start a new campaign the weapon upgrades will follow through and you will be able to play again with your weapons maxed-out. This adds to the fun and replay value of the game, making it a must buy for anyone who enjoys horror games or movies.

If you are the type of person (like me) who prefers the "Hardcore" experience you can get from games like Demon's Souls, then the Hardcore mode will please you. It's sadistically brutal and limits supplies to a minimum, enemies are at their toughest, and there are no checkpoints which means if you die you restart from your last save. To put it plane and simple, it's too much for the casual gamer to handle. Oh! and you can only save three times during the entire game on hardcore mode.

Multiplayer was a disappointment for me, i don't think a game like Dead Space needs multiplayer. Much like one of my favourite games of all time (Bioshock) the addition of multiplayer didn't help in any way. You can tell it was just added in to extend the replay value of an already fantastic package, it's good that it is here but unless it is going to be done properly then there really is no need for it. The five modes/maps are all fairly standard and don't really do anything new in the world of online gaming. Players are broken into two teams, Humans and Necromorphs. Humans have goals to achieve and the Necromorphs simply have to deny the Humans of achieving these goals at all costs. The online doesn't capture the true feeling of Dead Space's campaign and left me with a vague feeling. Don't let this stop you purchasing this game though because the single player campaign is by far one of the best survival horror games ever made and worth the full price on it's own.

If you get this game on Playstation 3 you will also get Dead Space Extraction as well as an added bonus so that's an extra incentive for any PS3 owner.

Overall Dead Space 2 follows on from the fantastic first game and improves on many aspects while adding some brilliant new additions. The game is beautiful and brutal at the same time, with a phenomenal sense of detail put into sound and lighting to create one of the most horrifying games of all time.

Dead Space 2 is a terrifyingly brilliant experience 9/10