Dead Space 2 Review - PS3

7

Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 8
Audio: 8
Innovation: 6

Horror in games has the same hit or miss issues that other genres, like comedy, have. The audience either reacts appropriately, or it fails to cater to their specific taste. Unfortunately, while Dead Space 2 does little to buck this trend, it does present itself as a supremely competent addition to the third-person action shooter library. Not an entirely notable entry perhaps, but an entertaining one nonetheless.

Conventions established in the first title are brought back in the sequel with the obligatory expansion/tweaking of core gameplay concepts. Isaac Clarke’s descent into debilitating insanity is the driving force behind the story: after surviving through the Ishimura disaster, he awakens in a hospital three years later aboard the Sprawl, a city clinging to a portion of Saturn’s moon, Titus. Clarke has no memory of the past three years and is thrust immediately into yet another Necromorph infestation, this time having to cope with his mental degradation, which materialises as visions that are overlaid at various points throughout the game.

If there’s one thing that Visceral should be commended on, it’s the way the entire Dead Space canon has been embellished through other forms of media. Not one piece of tie-in media cheaply extends the universe: they are integral in providing as much back-story as possible. The events just prior to Clarke’s awakening in the Sprawl are told in Dead Space Ignition and are referenced in Dead Space 2. Those with just a passing interest in the main games will, more than likely, gloss over it, but those who are entrenched with the story will appreciate the attention to detail.

Having said that, it is surely a matter of taste as to whether the story is any good and to be perfectly blunt, it isn’t. Dead Space tells a very generic story at its core, and for the most part, it simply proves to be an excuse for the excessive and gratuitous violence that’s littered in the game.

Not that it’s a bad thing though, a point which will be littered throughout this review. Dead Space 2 is perfectly entertaining, mindless fun.

Gameplay

Dead Space 2, like its predecessor, is played from a tight, third person perspective. Unlike other third person shooters (Uncharted, etc), Clarke is neither agile nor nimble. He is a lumbering tank, one built for manual dexterity rather than snap shooting from the hip. Such a setup works particularly well on the PC where accuracy is easier to achieve with a mouse and keyboard setup, but may prove frustrating (at least, initially) to console gamers who will more than likely find themselves dying more often at crucial moments than their PC brethren.

Granted, this particular trait of Clarke’s serves to heighten tension, which it does quite admirably. The feeling of being confronted with a swarm of Necromorphs from multiple directions can be overwhelming due to the fact that Clarke is not a Die Hard-esque, athletic machine of death.

Does this create horror though? Better yet, is the game actually scary? Not entirely.

The Dead Space series is ...

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