Sequel September Finale - Dead Space 2 (PS3 - 7)
It's here, the fifth and final installment for Sequel September. And with it being a horror game it makes for the perfect bridge into HorrorTober. I did Dead Space not too long ago as a part of a vote between all three games in the series. So I figured where else to go but the second game in the series? The first game was great, although it did have some faults. Were they fixed in the sequel? There's only one way to find out.
For the new control features, R3 still brings up a line on the ground for your locator, only now you can change it to guide you towards either your next objective, the closest store, save station, or bench. The best new control feature though, is with L3, and this is your Zero G suit, but I'll get into more detail about that in the next section. Overall, the controls are really fluid and great. Visceral realized they did a good job on them in the first game and didn't change a thing for this one, and it was a very wise decision.
All the original weapons come back, including the plasma cutter. But there's a couple new things added to your arsenal as well. There's the seeker rifle which is effectively a sniper rifle, complete with a scope that you can zoom in on enemies with. The detonator gun let's you lay out mines to cover corners for any enemies that might try and sneak up on you. And the last new one is the javelin gun, it shoots a metal rod out which you can use to impale enemies and stick them to the floor and walls, along with it's alternate fire which can electrify the last rod you shot out.
The weapons are all great, and the few new ones are very deserving of their places in the game, and you'll need them to take down the necromorphs. It's the same for your enemies too, all the original ones find their way back, and there's a couple new ones here too. There's the pack, another necromorph form of a child, that attack in (you guessed it) packs that are easy to take down but high in number. Puker's can attack from a distance by shooting a ball of bile that will corrode through anything it hits. Crawlers are reanimated babies that have an explosive sac in their stomach that will crawl towards you and explode once they're close enough. My favorite are the stalkers, these work in groups to literally hide in the environment, flanking and sneaking up on you before finally charging out at you with intent to kill. These aren't the only new ones you come across, but they're the most common. And the strategy of dismembering to kill them remains the same.
Depending on how you look at it, there's either a couple of bosses, or a decent amount of them. Most could honestly just be classified as mini-bosses as the fights against them are all pretty quick. The game doesn't give you time before throwing them at you either. As soon as you get yourself back into a RIG suit at the end of the first chapter, the next room you walk into has a massive tripod boss for you to take down. There's even a new "version" of the regenerating Hunter from the first game, now called an Ubermorph.
The rest of the mechanics and features of the first game remain unchanged. You can upgrade all of your gear and weapons through work benches with power nodes, your stasis and kinesis modules return, with the kinesis module seeming a lot more powerful than the last time. All with the exception of the new Zero-G suit. By clicking the left thumbstick, when you're in zero-g you can now freefloat and have all-out combat while doing so. Isaac's RIG now comes equipped with what looks like a jet-pack which allows him to do all this.
In the end, this ones just as great a game as the first one, but let's look at how challenging it is first.
The normal enemies are fairly easy to moderate. With the number of different variants, you'll need a different strategy for each of them. Your punch and stomp seem to have gotten stronger between games, so they're just as effective of weapons as anything else you carry. Some enemies can be dispatched up close, while some need to be taken down from a distance. Either way, you won't get too flustered by them unless you find yourself backed in a corner with an undead army in front of you.
Bosses are a moderate challenge. At first appearance, they all look impossible because they're huge, and each one will have you thinking "How the hell am I supposed to kill that?" It's all doable, however, and once you find your rhythm with them, it's a cake walk from there on out.
Although there isn't much, the exploration is still a bit of a factor. It's easy, but the choice you have to make can be a tough one. To gain access to the extra rooms, you must use a power node, the same nodes that you have to use to upgrade your weapons and gear. So each door you come across, you'll be wrestling in your head for a short period over what you need more : the stuff behind the door, or a little extra punch for one of your guns.
Overall this one has a bit of a challenge to it, but it's not overwhelming unless you bump up the difficulty. Before we get into if it's worth it, let's see what was good and bad about this one.
- Deeper Mythology. The original game set up a decent back story, and this one dives even further into it. A lot of games do this as sort of filler and flavor for the game, but Dead Space's is so unique and interesting that it makes you want to scour every area of the game to find every text, audio, and video log to learn everything that you can.
- Supporting Cast. This time around, there's more characters that are involved in the story, and it helps invest your interest in the game. Isaac having a voice helps this too, you get to hear all the reactions and emotions to the situation that's unfolding.
- Size Does Matter. This game is huge, at least the area of The Sprawl is. It doesn't feel like it, but later on in the game you come across the Ishimura docked up and being held as evidence of what happened on Aegis VII, and once you see it, it puts the rest of things into perspective size-wise.
- Downplayed Horror. Like most horror games in that short span of time, Dead Space fell into the pit of being actionized. The setting is still creepy and there's still jump scares, but nowhere near the level they were on in the first game. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's still noticeable and a bit upsetting because tromping around the narrow, tight corridors in the dark on the Ishimura was a lot more nerve-wracking than being on the wide open Sprawl.
Thanks for checking out all my Sequel September reviews this whole month. I'm looking forward to HorrorTober, are you? Head over to my YouTube page to follow some of my PS4 and Xbox One game streams as well as some Let's Play videos!
The Story
It's been three years since the events on Aegis VII and the Ishimura. Isaac has suffered a mental breakdown due to the effects of the marker and is now in care of an asylum on Saturn's moon Titan in a settlement called The Sprawl with no memory of any part of the last three years. While on The Sprawl, an outbreak of necromorphs occurs, forcing Isaac to escape the asylum on his own. He is contacted by a woman named Daina who claims she has a cure for Isaac's mental condition, and if he can make it to her she'll give him the cure. She also warns him of Tiedemann, the director of The Sprawl. After Isaac makes it to Daina, she is killed in a ship attack, but not before Isaac learns that she is in fact working with Tiedemann who's been using Isaac's DNA to manufacture another marker with the intent of bringing forth an event known to the Unitologists as Convergence. Now Isaac's only friend is another patient from the asylum who seems even more far gone than Isaac himself is. Together they must stop Tiedemann's Convergence plans, while battling their own minds. Will they be able to do it all before it's too late?The Controls
Nothing really changes for the controls between the two games, although there are a few new additions instead. The joysticks control your movement (left) and camera/aim (right), D-Pad selects one of your four weapons that you can carry, L1 aims your weapon, L2 lets you sprint, R1 punches or fires your weapon when it's aimed, and R2 is your curb stomp or activates the weapons alternate fire mode while it's aimed. X is your action button, O controls your quick heal, or your kinesis module when used with L1, △ recharges your stasis module, or uses a burst of stasis when used with L1, and □ reloads your weapon.For the new control features, R3 still brings up a line on the ground for your locator, only now you can change it to guide you towards either your next objective, the closest store, save station, or bench. The best new control feature though, is with L3, and this is your Zero G suit, but I'll get into more detail about that in the next section. Overall, the controls are really fluid and great. Visceral realized they did a good job on them in the first game and didn't change a thing for this one, and it was a very wise decision.
The Gameplay
Dead Space 2 remains the same as being a 3rd person, linear and objective-based shooter. You have two main goals through the course of the game : first to get to Daina, and then ultimately stop Tiedemann and his Convergence plan. Each chapter gives you a different hurdle you must overcome to obtain those main objectives like escaping from a certain area, repairing something, or just rescuing someone/a group from a bad situation. Unfortunately you can't wander too far off the path. The best you can do is gain access to random rooms around The Sprawl where ammo, credits, and other items can be found in abundance. There's a new hacking mini-game introduced in this game. Certain consoles can be hacked to get you new equipment or through locked doorways. Isaac rips open the face of the console and it brings up a circular screen which you have to rotate the left joystick to find the blue weak points, then press X get past it by ripping wires.All the original weapons come back, including the plasma cutter. But there's a couple new things added to your arsenal as well. There's the seeker rifle which is effectively a sniper rifle, complete with a scope that you can zoom in on enemies with. The detonator gun let's you lay out mines to cover corners for any enemies that might try and sneak up on you. And the last new one is the javelin gun, it shoots a metal rod out which you can use to impale enemies and stick them to the floor and walls, along with it's alternate fire which can electrify the last rod you shot out.
The weapons are all great, and the few new ones are very deserving of their places in the game, and you'll need them to take down the necromorphs. It's the same for your enemies too, all the original ones find their way back, and there's a couple new ones here too. There's the pack, another necromorph form of a child, that attack in (you guessed it) packs that are easy to take down but high in number. Puker's can attack from a distance by shooting a ball of bile that will corrode through anything it hits. Crawlers are reanimated babies that have an explosive sac in their stomach that will crawl towards you and explode once they're close enough. My favorite are the stalkers, these work in groups to literally hide in the environment, flanking and sneaking up on you before finally charging out at you with intent to kill. These aren't the only new ones you come across, but they're the most common. And the strategy of dismembering to kill them remains the same.
Depending on how you look at it, there's either a couple of bosses, or a decent amount of them. Most could honestly just be classified as mini-bosses as the fights against them are all pretty quick. The game doesn't give you time before throwing them at you either. As soon as you get yourself back into a RIG suit at the end of the first chapter, the next room you walk into has a massive tripod boss for you to take down. There's even a new "version" of the regenerating Hunter from the first game, now called an Ubermorph.
The rest of the mechanics and features of the first game remain unchanged. You can upgrade all of your gear and weapons through work benches with power nodes, your stasis and kinesis modules return, with the kinesis module seeming a lot more powerful than the last time. All with the exception of the new Zero-G suit. By clicking the left thumbstick, when you're in zero-g you can now freefloat and have all-out combat while doing so. Isaac's RIG now comes equipped with what looks like a jet-pack which allows him to do all this.
In the end, this ones just as great a game as the first one, but let's look at how challenging it is first.
The Challenge (or lack thereof?)
Dead Space 2 brings a bit to the table in way of challenges. From your enemies, to the bosses (normal and mini) and the exploration. But with the game having varying difficulty levels, all the challenges are relative to what setting you play on.The normal enemies are fairly easy to moderate. With the number of different variants, you'll need a different strategy for each of them. Your punch and stomp seem to have gotten stronger between games, so they're just as effective of weapons as anything else you carry. Some enemies can be dispatched up close, while some need to be taken down from a distance. Either way, you won't get too flustered by them unless you find yourself backed in a corner with an undead army in front of you.
Bosses are a moderate challenge. At first appearance, they all look impossible because they're huge, and each one will have you thinking "How the hell am I supposed to kill that?" It's all doable, however, and once you find your rhythm with them, it's a cake walk from there on out.
Although there isn't much, the exploration is still a bit of a factor. It's easy, but the choice you have to make can be a tough one. To gain access to the extra rooms, you must use a power node, the same nodes that you have to use to upgrade your weapons and gear. So each door you come across, you'll be wrestling in your head for a short period over what you need more : the stuff behind the door, or a little extra punch for one of your guns.
Overall this one has a bit of a challenge to it, but it's not overwhelming unless you bump up the difficulty. Before we get into if it's worth it, let's see what was good and bad about this one.
PROS
- Isaac Speaks! After never uttering a word in the entirety of the first game, Isaac's vocal cords are released in the second one and boy does he make up for his previous silence. If you continue to use his stomp move in quick succession, Isaac will not only grunt with the force he puts into it, but will begin screaming obscenities to go with his anger and frustration. He also gets a little bit of attitude with him, after being everyone's little errand boy the last time around, he definitely hurls some sass at the people who try to order him around this time.- Deeper Mythology. The original game set up a decent back story, and this one dives even further into it. A lot of games do this as sort of filler and flavor for the game, but Dead Space's is so unique and interesting that it makes you want to scour every area of the game to find every text, audio, and video log to learn everything that you can.
- Supporting Cast. This time around, there's more characters that are involved in the story, and it helps invest your interest in the game. Isaac having a voice helps this too, you get to hear all the reactions and emotions to the situation that's unfolding.
- Size Does Matter. This game is huge, at least the area of The Sprawl is. It doesn't feel like it, but later on in the game you come across the Ishimura docked up and being held as evidence of what happened on Aegis VII, and once you see it, it puts the rest of things into perspective size-wise.
CONS
- One Path. With as big as The Sprawl is, the fact that you're confined to one little narrow path all the way through it is even more upsetting than it was in the first game, because the environment in this one is so lit up, colorful, and just plain beautiful. But the best you get is a passing glance at things while you're running from and causing mayhem.- Downplayed Horror. Like most horror games in that short span of time, Dead Space fell into the pit of being actionized. The setting is still creepy and there's still jump scares, but nowhere near the level they were on in the first game. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's still noticeable and a bit upsetting because tromping around the narrow, tight corridors in the dark on the Ishimura was a lot more nerve-wracking than being on the wide open Sprawl.
Final Verdict/Improvements
So is this one worth it? Most definitely. There are still imperfections, but they aren't big enough to steer away from this one. And being able to find this one now for either $5 (PS3) or $10 (Xbox 360) definitely helps. And I would honestly go for the PS3 version because there's an added bonus for anyone who has and uses the Playstation Move. Dead Space Extraction - the prequel to Dead Space that was made for the Wii - has been ported over and is included on the disc! So you get two games for half the price of the Xbox 360 version. As far as the improvements goes, Visceral paid attention to what the fans wanted. The two biggest complaints from fans about the first game were Isaac's silence, and the point-and-jump Zero-G, and the Zero-G is so well done that it'll be that much harder to go back to the first one because of it.Thanks for checking out all my Sequel September reviews this whole month. I'm looking forward to HorrorTober, are you? Head over to my YouTube page to follow some of my PS4 and Xbox One game streams as well as some Let's Play videos!
