Dead Space 2 Is No Resident Evil 4

[Knytemare]

Oh yhatzee, are you running out of things to rant about. Dude has a forcefield time altering gizmo that he duct-taped onto his arm, and you think his helmet has to be pressurized?
Hes got a forcefield.

Also, the suits are welded onto you, in a giant machine. Pretty sure they are customized to each wearer.

In addition, the people who transform into necromorphs were , in point of fact, waiting several hundred years to turn.

I know you were joking, but thats the actual fluff of the story.

 

[Seneschal]

hahaha, great ending paragraph, i lol'd

I think there is definately a balance between realism and gameplay, sure, carrying only a pistol and a machinegun in HL would be more realistic, but it would make the combat too unvaried, so the devs thought, unrealistic, whatever, deal with it, we want to make a fun game

on the other side, opting to go for the more realistic choice of a good old solid helmet would make more logical sense, but would not affect gameplay. And in games like dead space, where the subtle details really contribute to immersion, stuff like this sticks out like a sore thumb

Agreed. Every time the helmet just rolls off, it feels like the game is reenacting that scene from Lost in Space where their helmets fold down into NOTHING. It's jarring and meaningless because nothing else in the universe seems to work similarly. Even in Mass Effect, an arguably soft-sci-fi, you have this consistency - mass effect fields are used in everything, vehicles, construction, personal shields, weapons, artificial gravity, propulsion... The main thing is that plausibility doesn't get damaged.

Here it seems that helmets are the only gimmicky foldy mechanisms in the universe. There's no folding furniture, vehicles, rooms, something that would make you speculate "oh, this seems to be a universe with advanced micromechanics and smart materials, and probably a dire lack of space", which improves immersion, makes the setting more palpable and uses the environment to convey information about the world around you.

But no, Dead Space is gratuitous. Half the game could be happening in a mall on Earth, except when you get thrown into zero-g, the only remotely sci-fi element in the entire series.

 

[samaugsch]

Hey, it's my viewpoint, but I didn't have to say it! Thanks, Miracle!

PS what he said.

Yeah, I always find it amusing how so many people just automatically agree with everything Yahtzee says even when they haven't played the game.

Judge for yourselves, folks!

Well, one important thing to remember is what kind of games Yahtzee likes. If you don't share a whole lot of preferences to games that he does, it's probably not a good idea to use him as a source. Another important thing to remember is that he tries to be as critical to most of the games he reviews as possible. If you happen to like a lot of the same type of games that he does, you could follow these guidelines: If he says a number of good things about a game, it probably means that he couldn't think of enough faults that the game had and therefore is a possible choice. If he doesn't say anything good in particular about a game, it may be around average. There are certain reviews he has made that has made it clear that buying the game is simply a waste of money (I.g. Kane & lynch 2, where he has even said quote by quote "there's nothing fun about the game."). Even if the game wasn't quite as bad as he made it out to be, the chances of it being more enjoyable than most other games are slim to none. Of course, it's important to use other sources, too, but I think yahtzee is definitely a good one to include, as I believe he is one of the least biased reviewers out there. It's really about how you interpret his reviews.

 

[Silviu Iordache]

How do light sabers in STAR WARS work? HOW? a light saber is impossible!
Stop arguing about stupid things.If u think a game is ruined just because you can't bend your mind around how a piece of technology works then you have some serious issues.Sure the helmet is an important trademark of the product,but it's not a thing to worry about in this game,because it has alot of other great things to offer and to learn from, as a gaming experience and a as a story.

 

[EonEire]

What annoys me is there are 2 scenes (that I can recall anwyay) where the Helmet retracts and leaves Issac in danger. It almost seems to do this intentionally to PLACE him in more danger. If the helmet stayed where it was, both scenes (not mentioning to avoid spoilers) were defused or very much less of a threat.

 

[tahrey]

The bike riding side of me says ... hell yes - that complaint (about folding helmets) actually has some grounding in reality. I wear a flip-front (aka "system" or "jet") helmet for the great extra convenience and comfort I get out of it. However, that ONE point of articulation/single clip has measured disbenefits in cost, weight, protection level (only has to survive one major blunt-trauma hit, after which you junk it, rather than loads of bullets - but it's still less effective even for that), sealing quality and noise, and can of course fail (coming apart at the joint or the clip, etc). Mine is quite well made, so it's no worse than an everyday one-piece lid at half the price, but if the same level of tech and build quality was applied to a one-piece as to this you'd have a VERY nice helmet. (strong, light, etc)

Plus of course most of the protection comes from the thick layer of toughened polystyrene foam that it's lined with. Good luck making THAT fold up or slide smoothly in multiple layers.

However that side also wants someone to go all Tony Stark and make a fold-up one, as the weight isn't really so much of an issue (about 1.5kg) - but the bulk can be. Particularly when trying to attach it to my bike's pathetic helmet lock. Be so much easier if it could just pack up tight and go in one of the cubbyholes behind the engine along with the toolkit and manual.

The movie-watching/gaming side of me says ... dude, he's got a miniature fusion reactor (zero point generator? something else? i dunno. wasn't paying attention. isn't important) that chucks out a couple hundred kilowatts IN HIS CHEST and doesn't suffer any effects from heat and radiation, has made some kind of electrically powered impulse engine-cum-photon torpedo thing that fits in his hand, and built the first version of both the generator and his power armour in a desert cave from scrap metal. The dude is both a genius, and clearly operating under cartoon physics. He's got license to make stuff like that.

(BTW thinking of cartoon stuff, I'd like to put the blame squarely on Michael Bay for starting all this when he changed the transformers from sheet metal to chaotic piles of shrapnel)

Now, story universes where they're trying to impose some measure of reality on the situation, that can't fly - your character SHOULD be hobbled by having to deal with a bulky, fixed-size/shape helmet (maaaaaaaybe with a "jet" option, given that the name comes from fighter pilots using them). Save the folding awesomeness/silliness for the more outlandish ones.

 

[stuhacking]

I did like the Iron Man armour, but I could not accept Iron Man 2's suit in a suitcase.

 

[Shieldage]

Hey, Yahtzee. You should make the helmet rant into a one-page comic. You know, like they did for the two-minute segment they did on capes in the Incredibles

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Well, Dead Space it's not actually a horror game. It's a gore-fest, like Splatterhouse for example. Things like the eyeball are thrown in to make the game look less pants-on-head retarded (and it's a very stupid game at it's core).

And I totally agree about helmets.

 

[aaronmcc]

"And frankly, I'm still unclear on what the whole point of the eye thing was, plot-wise, besides someone thought it would be cool to gratuitously throw in."

The point is...

SPOILER

...to convince you that Ellie is dead, just before revealing that she is quite alive, despite having lost depth perception.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

A page dedicated to a badass helmet? Blasphemy, I say!

In Dead Space: Extraction, they actually did pull of their helmets and set them down (RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALKWAY. Inconsiderate jerks.) and it took painfully long. I prefer the automatic fold-down helmets, if only for the aesthetics.

Anyway, I agree with the above posters, Yahtzee. If you played Vanquish, it must be reviewed! (I thought the game could have been better if 99.9% of the enemies weren't RUSSIAN and robots. So...I don't even know how to describe it. 'Hey, we beat the Russians!' 'Yeah, about that...' 'I bet we killed all them dirty, dirty commies!' 'Well...no. They were all robots. They lost enough metal to build a city and a few billion dollars.' 'Well, we lost less, right?' 'Weeeeeell...we lost most of our fleet, and pretty much 95% of the army. But hey, we still have Sam Gideon! Oh. Wait. This report says he died of lung cancer. Well FFFFFFFFFF-'

...I lost my train of thought.

Well, you've just described the reason I loved Vanquish. I'm Russian and naturally felt slightly offended when first heard about this game. However, once I've played through it and realized that it's a story about 1 (one) Russian dude who destroyed San Francisco and most of USA army with zero casualties on Russian side.

 

[Wicky_42]

OT: I think that Dead Space is a "Nu Horror". You know how they have the "Nu Metal" music? Ment for a newer generation of metal heads? Its the same thing with "Nu Horror" games.
...
In short, its a new kind of horror game, for a new generation. Us "Veteran" video gamers have been through all the horror games. Weve seen theyer progression. And because of it, the newer ones just arnt as good. Because nothing is scarier then our memories of whats scary.

Honestly, I think that that's the best justification for differing people's reactions. Some people forget that not everyone's played the whole horror genre before = it certainly never interested me. I never played a Resident Evil or a Silent Hill; not my type. Dead Space 1 was my first experience, and I loved it - it freaked the shit out of me on my first play-through, though I was used to it by play through 2.

None the less I lapped up Dead Space 2's atmosphere and loved it. I was so un-nerved though-out the first half of the game, it was awesome. Take 2, new-game plus, with a super-charged plasma cutter and advanced knowledge of the set-pieces took the edge out of it and made it just a fun fps. I can see how lovers of the horror genre would have not found the horror aspects of the game up to scratch right from the word go, but with enough exposure everything becomes staid and boring and competing with nostalgia is a *****, but to dismiss the game on niggles is to do it an injustice.

 

[aaronmcc]

Actually, the intro to Dead Space 2 is the fastest a transformation has ever occurred in the games. Usually, the person has to be dead for a fair amount of time before the flying vagina has its way with the it and even then it takes anywhere from ~5-10 seconds of sinew snapping and bone exploding before the shambling monstrosity is battle ready. Hell, I think that's literally the only occurrence where life->death->necromorph was so fast. I really believe Yahtzee is grasping for straws with that scene...granted, the fast-pass transformation is one of the first things you see in the game, but still.

Oh, and don't tell me the Stalker necromorphs didn't freak you out with their bloody bone dog faces quizzically peering out behind corners before they blind sided you and took 1/2 of your health.

Spoiler: Somewhat of a Spoiler with Argument Concealed Within

Also, what about that lovely little trip into the Ishimura where Nicole kept whispering to Isaac? That was a fairly nice bit of subtle, atmospheric horror. You go into the ship and atmosphere and tension are built for 5 or so minutes before the first monster appears...in a massive dark hallway...and when he's dead you hear a great roar and necromorphs start coming from every which way. The ship was nearly completely clean without a corpse or drop of blood to be seen (at least until the places where the cleanup crew didn't get to yet) and covered in plastic garbage bags which I must say freaked me out almost as much as the odd scene of a bottle rolling from behind a corner and when I rounded said corner, nothing was there with no way in or out from that corner besides a door which I would have heard open, ogeez

I couldn't agree more. In fact I think Dead Space 2 does a great job of building tension. You go through the Ishimura for ages, ready to be attacked at any moment but nothing happens and the tension just builds until you finally let your guard your guard down and...wham! You get ass raped by a brute and 20 necros. Hell, there's even a bit early on where a bedroom alarm clock went off and I shat myself.

 

[Phuctifyno]

Lost In Space

 

[Marik Bentusi]

People just tend to mix up "gore" or "ugly monsters" with "horror".

If you feel horrified, that's an emotion. Gore or ugly monsters that are supposed to install fear are just tools. Tools on their own can't achieve anything. They have to be used correctly.
In the attempt to create an analogy, exchange "horror" with "love" and let's say that the tool this time is a pretty face. You don't love a character just because they have a pretty face. It's a component that may play an important part for many people, but just showing a pretty face doesn't make us love this or that character.

 

[leonnasagawa]

Personally I didn't have a problem with them making the game have a little bit of each element of horror in it, some people say it's inconsistency but I say it's interesting. I felt the game had a good balance between being psychological horror, action horror and occasionally it did sometimes even feel like a horror survival particularly near the end a little before and after the regenerator monster shows up. I also liked the game's humour regardless of the small part it played in the game.

Having said that there are some things about Dead Space 2 that could have been better. Some of these are small gripes and doesn't have a major effect on my enjoyment of this game but I feel a need to express these gripes as I feel no one has mentioned them yet. For instance I didn't like how quickly dead Necromorph bodies disappear after I had killed them, there had been one case where a dead Necromorph body which I had killed disappeared in front of me when I was just about to stamp on it to get an item. This could be due to the fact that I don't have a digital TV but if that isn't the case, then it is one of those few small things that annoys me a little.

I also felt that the zero gravity and inside vent sections could have been better. When I went inside the vent one of the first things I thought was that scene from the movie Alien in which the captain is inside the vent doing something and the Alien is loose in there as well. I was really hoping to fight Necromorphs in the vent and if they provided Dead Space 2 with a tool that allows you to detect movement in the vents that would have been more complete than just going in the vent and out the other end.

The one thing I really liked in the first game was the ability to walk on walls and the ceiling in the zero gravity sections, it was fun and I was hoping that would be in the second game as well as the ability to fly around using your rocket boots. Instead they replaced ceiling/wall walking with the ability to fly anywhere you want, why can't we have both? Speaking of zero gravity, how come there wasn't more combat in those scenes? My guess is they tried to do the atmosphere trick in horror by making you paranoid by lack of enemies that works well in games like Amnesia The Dark Descent but for a game that is mainly focused on action horror, I was hoping for some more action or better yet they could done both in separate zero gravity scenarios.

I didn't like the fact you had to remove a equipped weapon to buy a new one which would have been better if it just got automatically stored in the safe, I found it annoying that you had to pay to remove all the nodes from a weapon or equipment (which I did once for the Rivet Gun which is completely useless to me)and if there are other gripes, I've probably forgotten (at this stage I'm probably nitpicking but other than that good game). One last gripe I have is the cover art. The first Dead Space, just by looking at it you can tell that it is a horror game that takes place in space that probably has a lot of gore because of the dismembered hand. Whereas the collectors edition and normal edition cover art it just gives off the impression that it's just a sci-fi game with no horror.

P.S. As for the Iron Man automatic assemble helmet, I personally wouldn't change it. It's believable because as technology advances humans get lazier and I personally think it is a lot more convenient to have a helmet that is automatically put together across your face rather than taking your helmet off when on break and then putting it back on when break is over. It just means that as long as you have that engineering suit, you can go back to work any time you want with ease.

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

Second, regarding the helmet thing, it's true that it would offer less protection, but modern engineers wear plastic hardhats on site. How much protection do you really need? And you're not going to misplace it, so that's nice. The fact that it's used in combat is sort of an unhappy turn of events that they probably weren't planning for when they designed the thing.

Isaac's helmet however is intended for space, where overall integrity is more important than the modern building site.

Yeah, so if it provides an airtight seal, it's good enough. Hard to say whether it does or not. For some reason, you have a very limited air supply in the game. Either it leaks a lot, which seems bad, or it just doesn't retain much air. It *seems* like the latter, since the capacity is upgradable.

 

[Linkassassin360]

Got to disagree with you on this one yatzhee, they did majorly improve deadspace in this one. There was alot of psychological horror, that was put inbetween all the gore, that I really enjoyed. Yes, the necromorphs were actually the least frightening part again, but atleast we got to see Isaac with a personality, and grow more demented as the story progresses and the moments of mental breakdown grow more and more intense. It would have been great if they could have somehow combined these moments with the necromorps, because they turned into safe havens due to necromorphs refusing to interrupt Nicole and Isaac's "private time." Plus there are quite a few subtle things, they just get drowned in the bloodflow from the contant mindless assult you have to fend off.

But as for deadspace being serious, I would say: Yes, but it does have a degree of self awareness. Just look at the ending of DS2: A direct parody of deadspace1's ending.

Also, the helmet being so easily removable is part of the plot, so as ridiculous as it is, its atleast somewhat justified. Plus, people in the future will be lazy as all hell, which explains why the only person you control seems to survive more than 5 minutes in any deadspace game.

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

First, the fact that people argue over the intention or meaning of something doesn't mean that it did a poor job of getting its meaning across. There are whole college courses taught in literary analysis, and not a single one of them consists of a whole group of people trivially going through every work agreeing on what it was trying to say or do.

I hope you were being sarcastic, because I've been in literature college courses where they literally do just that, no pun intended.

Sounds like a boring class. "Not a single one" is hyperbole, but a major goal of those classes should be to encourage discussion and promote individuals to think for themselves. In many cases there is a "right" answer that most people agree upon, but if we start there, and there's no discussion of alternative viewpoints, you have a class full of boring people with no ideas of their own, or you're analyzing works that probably don't require analysis.

In fact, I think more gamers should be made to sit English in college, because a lot of them could do with being introduced to the intentional fallacy. Every time someone levels a shred of criticism at any game, someone pops out of the nearest manhole and declares that 'it's not trying to be this!' The value of individual response is strangely out of favour compared to lofty ideals of some meta-criticism that overrides everything else.

I think you might be misapplying intentional fallacy here, though. If someone says "This is crap because it's absurd" it does matter whether they're reviewing Airplane or The Matrix. If Dead Space *were* a self-aware parody of the sci-fi horror genre, it would be pointless to criticize it for being over the top and absurd. It's only meta-criticism if you arrive at that conclusion through developer interviews or something similar. If you arrive at the "intent" conclusion through analysis *of the work*, it's fair game, and not a meta-criticism. I don't think any of the people you're referring to were getting their data from meta-sources.

Particularly because I think the intent *was* to be serious and genuine, so I doubt any such sources exist.

 

[hecticpicnic]

So true i was more scared of RES4 than Dead space.Yes later in RES 4 it become less scary the monsters become more and more ridicules and yo get a magnum revolver.But in dead space the necromorphes after a the first 1/4 of game i don't even care and yo don't even care for your characters life its just like oh i died *reload* and for a game like dead space that's a huge flaw.