Dead Space

Its been a long while since iv blogged, due mainly to college eating my time and various other attention consuming activities. This also means I haven't been playing much lately and so don't really have anything gamey to talk about. That said I have managed to get through Dead Space 2 over the last month. I was very excited about it as I am a big fan of the original game. I haven't spoken about the original and the sequel is very similar so i shall give them both some attention here. This will be full of spoilers so you have been warned.

The Ishimura is suitably menacing

Dead Space and its sequel were both developed by Viseral Games, one of EAs many game dev studios. The player is introduced to Isaac Clarke, an engineer sent in on a routine repair mission to a gigantic mining vessel called the Ishimura. The Ishimura, known as a 'Planet Cracker' had been involved in some illicit mining operations and had accidentally brought aboard an artifact that caused some rather horrific unintentional consequences. The game was notable for a few things. It had a thick frightening atmosphere that had some truely chilling moments. While the concept is fairly cliched, the game managed to keep this somewhat overused setting scary and fresh. The ship itself is dark and spooky, the enemies are enjoyably gruesome and the game has some excellent music and sound effects, greatly enhancing the atmosphere. The storyline is interesting and well paced with the player falling into the standard survival horror routines of item collection, door unlocking and boss fights. The games universe is believable and the voice acting and cinematic direction are done well.

The games combat system featured a new mechanic called 'Strategic Dismemberment'. Here the player has to kill the games enemies by blowing their bodies apart piece by piece. Isaac, being an engineer, makes most of his weapons from discarded mining tools like plasma cutters and welding implements. The enemies of the game are reanimated corpses that have been mutated into horrible monsters by an alien retrovirus. These 'necromorphs' can take a lot of punishment, head and body shots tend to be ineffective, so the game pushes the players reflexes as they try to hit vulnerable areas like joints amid a screeching mass of flailing arms, meat hooks and tentacles. The necromorphs also adapt their strategies depending on how they have been damaged. If the player decides to trim the necromorph of its head and legs for example, it will then begin crawling towards the player with its arms or tentacles while blindly slashing around itself. Not as deadly but still very dangerous.

The player must prune any necromorphs of any unsightly limbs

Another interesting addition was the RIG system. Here the developers reinvented the whole menu and HUD by incorporating them into the game as part of Isaacs suit. This basically means that whenever player wants to access their inventory, upgrade their equipment or even save the game, it all takes place in real time. So the player cannot 'hide' in the menu screen as they can still be attacked and killed where ever they are.

Jumping into the menu leaves you vulnerable to attack

There was also some cool zero g sections of the game where the player could push themselves off walls and floors to reach other flat areas where Isaac could turn on his magnetic boots and walk around again. Enemies and items floating around gave gameplay a whole new dimension. Isaac also carried some useful tools such as a stasis device that slows down time for your target relative to the player, making dismemberment slightly easier. There was also kenesis device to move large objects around. Smaller ones could be picked up and fired at enemies.

The back of Isaac's head becomes pretty familiar after a while

There were some minor points of contention with the game. The setting despite being great is very over used as said before. Any self respecting gamer or sci-fi head will immediately recognize the dark, deserted spaceship routine. The games protagonist, Isaac, is completely silent throughout the game with the exception of a few grunts or the odd scream when a baddie removes an arm. Throughout the game, Isaac is also searching for his girlfriend who was stationed on board the Ishimura. All of the conversations in the game are one sided, so it is very difficult for the player to relate to Isaac. You only see his face at the very end of the game. Dead Space could also get a bit repetitive with some mission objects seeming a little dull and some environments being recycled.

Despite these minor points, Dead Space was a fantastic game. When I bought the sequel I was very excited about seeing what the developers had improved on and how the story would progress. I was pleased to find everything I loved from the first game had survived relatively unscathed with some nice new enemies and weapons thrown in.

In Dead Space 2, the player returns as Isaac Clarke. The game is set 3 years later, Isaac is being treated in a psychiatric hospital for the mental trauma he suffered from his fight for survival in the first game. This time the game takes place on Titan Station AKA 'The Sprawl'. It dwarfs the ship from the first game, being a huge highly populated semi circular metropolis attached to a large asteroid orbiting Saturn.  The station served as a base for the Planet Cracking starships like the Ishimura and is suitably enormous. However the evil government types have foolishly recreated the artifact from the first game and so inadvertently started another necromorph outbreak, this time on a scale many times that of the Ishimura. So a confused and frightened Isaac comes to during the initial stages of the outbreak and after a spectacularly gruesome opening sequence, the player is thrown into the game.

Isaac is suitably pissed off the nightmare is continuing

The first differences anyone familiar with the first game should notice is with the games protagonist. The main problem with this character in the first game is that he was completely silent. The player knew Isaac was looking for his girlfriend, however it was hard to have any emotional connection with him as he didn't utter a single word through out the entire game. This was a major complaint and the developers have definitely taken this on board. Dead Space 2 makes much more of an attempt to develop his character, with Isaac talking and interacting with other NPCs. He is also battling with his own personal demons resulting from his horrific experiences aboard the Ishimura, with frequent hallucinations and flashbacks dogging him throughout the game.

I want to be an engineer in this future...

Once the brutal starting sequence throws you into the middle of the necromorph outbreak, the game quickly falls into a familiar pattern for anyone who has played through the original. The gameplay is pretty much identical to the first game. The mission objectives see Isaac lumber through Titan Station in his attempt to escape and survive. While the game is set in a new location, overall the levels look pretty similar to the first game. While there are lots of interesting new areas, like a Unitologist cathedral, a school, huge residential blocks, you mostly spend your time moving through industrial facilities and corridors that could have been any level from the original game. Similarly the RIG and inventory systems have not been changed, nor has the store or upgrade systems. All of the weapons make a return as does the iconic suits Isaac wears. There are now in fact several new suits that are quite cool looking, but have no real differences from the first game. There are also a number of new weapons, including a seeker rifle and mine layer. However I found myself ignoring these and going for the older weapons I was familiar with.

In terms of the games enemies, several new grisly necromorphs have been added. All the previous kinds are here in force, but Isaac now has to deal with several nasty and powerful new breeds. Most common are the acid spitting kind that are very tough to bring down, plus large dog like creatures that dodge incoming fire and weave behind cover quite effectively. Some of the more disturbing kinds include mutated children and babies that attack in screeching packs and can easily corner you. Luckily some well placed heavy ordinance will reduces them to twitching piles of smoking limbs that has had several censorship dickheads complaining already. Like the first game there are several boss fights involving large and deadly necromorphs. These fights are usually a big drain on your ammo and health and can often take several tries to complete.

Difficulty wise, the game is adequate on hard mode. If your a veteran of several play throughs of the first game such as myself, the game can be completed in about 8 hours of casual gaming. There is a trickle of ammo, cash and health that just about keeps you from running out. This is done well as it can get quite desperate at some stages as you need to make every shot count and be nimble on your feet to avoid coitus with a 4 foot alien flesh hook. Each multiple enemy encounter will likely use up most of your ammo and a good portion of your health so the player needs to carefully ration their supplies as they move through the game.

One major change is to the zero gravity sections. In the first game Isaac would have to carefully aim then launch himself to flat areas onto which he could stand, with his magnetic boots allowing him to find purchase on flat surfaces. In Dead Space 2 Isaac's suits now have small jets that allow him to maneuver about the environment much more efficiently. The zero g sections tend to be much larger than the first game often involving moving long distances to complete objectives outside the station. There are also new necromorphs that prowl the vacuum so you will need to be quick to survive in some situations.

Many parts of the game take place out in large outdoor sections

Another minor new feature that actually made a big difference is Isaacs ability to recover items when he stomps on a fallen necromorph. There is not nearly as much ammo pickups scattered throughout the environment as there was in the original and most of your ammo is collected this way.

Overall, Dead Space 2 is a decent successor to the excellent original. The developers clearly did not want to mess too much with the winning formula of the first game. However this is practically the same game with some new enemies, locations and weapons. As I was a big fan of the first game I don't really mind, but I would have been nice to see some more obvious changes and improvements. Games like Assassins Creed 2 really evolved from its predecessor to become the polished masterpiece that it is. The differences here are harder to spot which was a bit of disappointment. That said however, if you are a fan of the original, and there are many, there is plenty here to keep you amused. The games excellent plot and setting are further explored and expanded on. Isaac is now a much more accessible character with real effort gone into his development. The grisly but immensely satisfying sport of dismembering necromorphs is here in all its glory. Don't expect any major changes, but Dead Space 2 is a worthy addition to any ones collection.

If its not broken, don't fix it.