Caffeine: Dead Space 2

[domble]

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[HEADING=2]caffeine[/HEADING]​

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[HEADING=1]Dead Space 2[/HEADING][h4]Turns out they really can hear you scream.[/h4]

There are lots of ways to review a horror game.

You can talk about the psychological aspects of terror, the shock & gore factor, the atmosphere - but none of this is any help if you don't know what the reviewer is afraid of.

So, I'm going to let you into my brain, which was described in Psyches Monthly as "a nightmarish, Fruedian hellscape, upon whose barren soil man was not meant to tread." Don't touch anything.

Okee dokee, first thing you need to know is that I'm a fairly big dude, meaning that if some fool decides to attack me in my own home armed with nothing but a mask and a penknife then they're really going to wish they hadn't. Oh don't get me wrong, they'd drop me like a piece of beef, but they'd also have some pretty deep bite marks on their testicles to prove it.

As such, I don't find home invasion any scarier than the next person. What really gets me are the supernatural situations, or events that render what little brute strength I have useless. I'm talking dead Japanese girls, ghosts, phantoms and NecroKermit[footnote]He makes dying fun![/footnote]. I'm also a pathological claustrophobe, so things like lifts and flying get to me.

Speaking of flying actually, it's simply beyond me how anyone can be comfortable sitting in a soaring metal coffin going fast enough to break the sound barrier. But let's say, for a moment, that you replace the sound barrier with the speed of light, the sitting with living, and the air outside with vacuum death. Enter Dead Space 2.

As a reward for surviving the trauma of the last game, our intrepid hero Isaac Clarke was given a jacket with all too many buckles for this season and a scenic rubber room to wear it in. We join him waking up from a three-year coma, just in time for some space horrors to pop in and decide that arterial red is totally in right now and redecorate. This was presumably to kick start the action and stop gameplay mechanics like "press A to be less crazy" and "wiggle left stick to foam at mouth." They break into the loony bin, the peoples get killed and Isaac runs for his severely tranquilized life.

Now horror characters in games are hard to get right; too much personality or motive and we can't project ourselves into the game, too little and we just don't care what happens. With Isaac, the developers hit the horror sweet spot and gave us a guy we can get behind without him getting in the way. The brand new voice actor injects just enough feeling to bring the character to life without being overly dramatic, and it works. Isaac, you see, may or may not be haunted by something that may or not be his girlfriend, who blames him for her death three years beforehand[footnote]Chicks, huh?[/footnote]. Having to stop your dead spouse from trying to stab you in the face, and then finding that she wasn't there in the first place, is jarring to say the least.

The gist of the plot goes thus: space-zombies infest a space station, and Isaac has to destroy the thing making them and escape, all whilst dealing with his deceased missus trying to kill him. The way the main story is executed is pretty standard fare; characters on the other end of a comm give you simple, get-from-A-to-B-but-whoops-something-is-in-the-way instructions. The main chunk of the plot, it has to said, is bland and unspectacular, and you'll often question why you're doing something about halfway across, and then finding that you don't really care. It falls to the hallucinated visits from the world's worst ex to liven things up, as not only does it add a bit of terror to the proceedings, but also sheds some light on Isaac's feelings on what happened in the last game.

Then again, the horror genre, in whatever medium it comes to us in, never puts its plot front & center. What really matters are the events that occur between objectives, and this is where DS2 really comes into its element. The game has a good habit of changing things up whenever you get bored, presenting you with visceral and gory dismemberment gameplay that takes real skill to pull off, zero-G sections that never fail to amaze, and some interesting, if simple, puzzle segments. If all that wasn't enough, the game's boss sections really are something to behold. At one point you'll find yourself on a train that gets derailed, and as you slide to the bottom at sixty miles an hour you'll have to take potshots at astral horrors as they try to disembowell you. Sections like this will rivet you to your seat. With rivets.

And here we come to the crux of the issue: as you're hacking creatures apart with an array of increasingly gruesome weapons whilst wearing a mechanised tank-suit, are you in any way scared? Even with my plethora of hang-ups and phobias, was I ever gripped by terror?

Simply put, no. It's not scary. Even with the grotesque mockeries of the human body charging at me with their arm-blades flailing, I wasn't afraid. The game, however, really excels in shocking you. It'll pour swarms of these creatures at you, and the shock of it keeps your heart rate up as you juggle a thousand things at once in your effort to dispatch them. Your reward comes from stamping supplies out of your dead foes (a game mechanic so unbelievably satisfying it could be sold as a cheaper alternative to psychiatry) while you mentally prepare for the next conflict. The whole experience leaves you with an elation no other game can hold a candle to.

Well, okay, maybe one.

You see, of all the things the horror genre can be accused of, being original isn't one of them. After all, there's only a finite amount of ways to scare a large demographic of people. Sure, if you know someone and you're that way inclined you could make something that would bring them to the verge of a heart attack, but that's going to be about the point were your accountant points out that one person isn't going to cover the cost of making it. The best we can usually hope for in this type of game is that we don't get yet another Silent Hill 2 knock-off. Thankfully, in Freddy Krueger High, Dead Space 2 copied Resident Evil 4's homework.

Which, I think we can all agree, isn't such a bad thing. It means you've got some exciting set pieces, at least a few interesting sections of the plot, and most importantly, guns.

Now I mentioned weaponry before, but the arsenal at your fingertips here needs some elaboration. You do have the usual fare: a pistol, an assault rifle, grenade launcher - no shotguns though, with the spindly hoards that come in from every angle, something that slow-to-fire would be a death sentence. In its place, however, are more than a few exotic and interesting boomsticks. A flamethrower, unique in the annals of game history in that it's actually useful, another weapon that floats a spinning blade about three feet from your person for quick & convenient carnage, a kinesis beam that can rip the blades off enemies and pin their friends to the wall - and this is just to name a few. All your weapons and items can be upgraded at workshop benches to improve both their effectiveness and, a new word I've coined, kickassitude.

And you're going to get ample opportunity to use them. The game's main antagonists, the Necromorphs, come at you thick and fast. It does a great job of introducing you to every type of critter and how to deal with them, and things are at their most heart-pounding when you have to deal with several different types at once. Your tactics will have to change from encounter to encounter, and if things get a bit hectic you can use your magic time-slowing device to plant some careful shots on a few twisted anatomies. If all of this fails, you're treated to a pretty gruesome death scene, as Isaac is stabbed, torn apart, set on fire, mangled, squashed, bisected, disected, and skewered. Yeah, the game really likes you to know you lost.

All of this gore takes place in an impressive 12-hour play time (well above average these days), and when you're done you'll access a New Game+ mode that lets you bring across all of your upgraded weapons and suits. These can be unleashed on a harder bunch of enemies if you're up for the challenge, or an easier gaggle of opponents if, like me, you're petty and feel the need for pointless revenge. This may not be as long as the colossal 25 hour run time Resi 4 had to offer, but Dead Space gets a lot of things absolutely right that some of its competition fell down on.

The scenery you'll be happening to is lovely and varied, ranging from apartment blocks and churches to more industrial zones, like factories and tram stations. Not only that, but DS2 also has a strict "no escorts" rule. Isaac never shares the screen with anyone disinclined to rip his head off for more than sixty seconds, and during these brief times you'll never be expected to defend or, thank God, fight alongside them. Isaac's human contacts include a man crazier than he is, a woman traumatised by having to butcher her friends a few hours previously, and a bunch of other people actively trying to feed him to the Necromorphs. Seriously, Eddard Stark has better friends than this.

But even with the isolation, body horror, atmospheric environments, erection-inducing weaponry and its elements of panicky, knuckle-biting fun, Dead Space 2 still isn't scary. If you're looking for some serious, mind-numbing terror then you're going to leave disappointed.

But still, I'm up for another bite.

[HEADING=2]If you want to discuss any recent news, my reviews or fancy reading what can laughably be referred to as my "blog", check out Team Caffeine [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Team-Caffeine]!

It's Tupperware for the soul.
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Spoiler: The Caffeine Archives: because your time is basically worthless.

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http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.271118-Caffeine-Fallout-New-Vegas-Dead-Money

 

[Zac Smith]

Why is the question about LA Noire, with a review of Dead Space 2? Or am I missing something here?

 

[domble]

Why is the question about LA Noire, with a review of Dead Space 2? Or am I missing something here?

Christ mate, don't waste time commenting do you? lol

I like to have a poll on my reviews, so it's whatever I can think of. It was either this or "what's your favourite horror game" and all 5 choices be "silent hill 2". I just thought that this sudden leap forward in facial tech needed a bit of recognition.

What's your opinion, by the way?

 

[Zac Smith]

Oh it's your review, I thought you just had a poll with a random article your copied from the web.

And no, I don't waste time, I like to comment of threads in early stages so I can actually get into the discussion properly. I look on the home page and see threads with little or no replies. Less people usually means more interesting conversations because you get more of a back and forth, pretty much like now

 

[domble]

Oh it's your review, I thought you just had a poll with a random article your copied from the web.

And no, I don't waste time, I like to comment of threads in early stages so I can actually get into the discussion properly. I look on the home page and see threads with little or no replies. Less people usually means more interesting conversations because you get more of a back and forth, pretty much like now

It's always like this on the user review forum, we spend ages writing a review so anyone who comments usually gets a direct response from the writer. It doesn't move as fast in this section, mainly because it's a bit of a slog reading everything someone has to say.

Yeah if you're up for a bit of interaction, stick around, we're pretty attention-starved lol

 

[Zac Smith]

I didn't realise I was in that forum, as I said I just see what the posts are on the front page

 

[domble]

I didn't realise I was in that forum, as I said I just see what the posts are on the front page

Well no worries, it's nice you thought it looked like something official lol. Anyway yeah, have a read, let me know what you think