Dead Space 2 Is No Resident Evil 4

[mrdude2010]

I can't wait to see how many people missed the sarcasm in the last paragraph *makes popcorn*

omg yahtzee are hate half life arghh im canceling my subsription 2 teh escapitst now shame on him!

 

[mrdude2010]

Yahtzee: "What is the issue is the fact that people can argue over the game's "intention," which implies flat out that the game has failed to bring across a consistent tone, another example of the lack of discipline that now seems to universally affect triple-A games."

Sorry, but you are off base there. "Intention" arguments are the stupidest plight to all discussions purporting to be intelligent. They can be applied to anything, and will always be done so with ineptitude. The made thing--book, game, movie--bears no intention or consciousness of its own. Its life is the connection it makes with its audience. There is nothing more than that movement, that communication, between a reader and her text. The author is severed from the work. You can write blatant propaganda fiction, but putting rhetoric in cultured clothing neither cultures sophistry nor bastardizes storytelling. The author is in the story only as a severed remnant, discarded packaging. What matters is the story and its immersed reader. You criticize immersion for the wrong reasons, and what's lacking here isn't so much the game as it is the player.

Basically, you criticize the game for not being human enough. But it most definitely is, only not in the way you're asking it to be. There are no persons to the game's necromorphs and corpses. They are instead bodies--physical, organic. This is more akin to Alien, with the carnal turning against you, invoking a much more penetrating dread and disgust than other types of horror can provide. (Julia Kristeva's concept of the abject is useful here.)

The violence isn't ham-fisted or excessively over the top just to cheaply force a thrill out of its audience. Consider this difference. Guillermo Del Toro's a perfect example of this sort of hackery. His visceral violence penetrates the audience so that they suffer the violence themselves. It brings the violence onto the audience rather than before them, invoking pain rather than horror, which is the one impermissible use of violence in media. Dead Space 2 instead uses the visceral to turn the audience's own bodies against them. Similar to the rather prolific zombie genre, necromorphs are transformations of the common and familiar human, which we approach with the everyday attachments that body=person, and it violently rips these associations from us. This is why I am so thrilled that Dead Space 2 brings in children and even infants, which I haven't had to kill since the original Silent Hill. Children are not only people, but meant to be cherished and protected, which is why them swarming and slashing at you--and yes, you curb stomping them to pieces--is so delightfully disturbing.

The body turns against the person. This person isn't Isaac the character, but rather Isaac the player (which is where the promise of horror video games lies). Perhaps he would be better off silent, but that's a separate matter.

In any case, I'll refrain from arguing for Dead Space any further. But it is my rather Pyrrhic hope that you consider these points before dismissing such a superb game.

are you planning on majoring in english by any chance?

i'm going to assume that yahtzee didn't mean "intention" so much as "tone." he's completely right about that lack of consistency affecting many major games, where they try to do too much, but i think his point in reference to dead space 2 was that it had it's creepy parts, but the ridiculous heavy handed nature of the violence made the gore and violence against humans somewhat less intense. when every fucking enemy is a baby, it stops being a big deal that you're killing "babies" because every enemy you face is a "baby." And like yahtzee said, the game loses an opportunity to instill horror and be unnerving by the near-instantaneous transformations that throw away the sense of struggle. it ceases being killing potentially partially human beings corrupted against their will and just turns into killing weird zergling things. you don't connect with the victims in the same way you might if you perceived some sort of internal struggle, some sign of humanity from the monsters. If the game was trying to come across as a completely serious, scary, psychological experience, they would have done better to drastically reduce the number of enemies, play with the lighting and keep enemies for the most part off the screen until it's too late, and reduce the number of bullets you get. and stop throwing children at me it gets old after 4 hours. in other words, the game lacks a perceived struggle, both between the former humans and their new identity as mindless killing machines, and between isaac and his sense of humanity. as things are, he's just killing undead monstrosities as far as i'm concerned. one of the main things that drives horror is perverting recognizable and generally harmless or disenfranchised into something scary, something familiar and yet wrong, and for me, the repetitive nature of the encounters and environments kind of ruins that.

tl;dr- it should be machete or silent hill, but instead it's crank 2 high voltage

 

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, well horror is subjective, and as I've said before, I think the actual issue is that "Dead Space 2" pretty much went down a checklist of things that it could use to call itself horror, without wanting to actually make anyone uncomfortable, or you know... horrified, because in doing that they would get all kinds of complaints about the content. Especially if it was intense enough to get a reaction from genere fans. This is why I think horror games blow chips so much today, the industry is unwilling to do it right due to fear of the complaints. It got to a certain point andthen pretty much stopped, and backpedaled a bit.

To put things into perspective, I don't think many people would be complaining about "Dead Space 2" and it's horror chops, if say "Resident Evil 4" or even the "Silent Hill" franchise had not been made. The issue is that we're now used to games that go this far, and as a result it's not as effective as the first times we saw it. The video game horror genere has however ceased to progress in accordance with the fan base however, so we're largely left feeling disappointed.

I've said all that before.

As far as the helmets go, I think the first offender in video was probably "Major West" in the remake of "Lost In Space". The way his helmet worked was kind of cool looking at the time, and I think one of the movie's more memorable moments, which has lead to wide imitation.

That said, it's hard to really argue with the practicality of these kinds of things in video games. See, for all pretensions of being "science fiction" things like this are largely aping the genere without the actual science/hypothetical science being explained which is what makes the genere what it is. We're dealing with "space fantasy" which is rarley used term where little is ever explained, and picking on one thing like this is silly when you look at all the other things going on.

Truthfuly in a REAL science fiction novel you'd probably have at least two paragraphs (and probably 3 or more pages) explaining how a helmet like that works, or why it's practical within the setting, having derived from other sciences discussed earlier. For example if
your dealing with a setting where they have developed the abillity to manipulate molecular bonds, even on a limited level, things like the cracks might not even be a factor, since once assembled the thing basically bonds into one solid piece in keeping with it's programming. As far as it's storage goes, it could be created by anything from nano-technology, to some kind of energy reactive liquid metal, and despite how it looks, it's actually "pouring" itself into that pattern while being guided by a programmed energy field.... etc...

I could probably come up with a dozen differant science fiction explanations for why his helmet works, and why it would be practical within a given setting. But then again, for all the complaining, ask yourself if you really WANT one. You can give a video game a pretty consistant universe and have things make sense in of themselves, but it involves a lot of exposition of the sort that people whine about. Issac as an engineer would be a GREAT character to play "how it works" with in a setting like this, but somehow I think people don't quite want to get into his head that much.

It's one of those situations where you can't take the "no-exposition that isn't tightly woven into the needs of the story position", or the "no exposition at all, I just want to get on with the entertaining stuff and shoot things" position, and then complain about how jarring the technology between someone's helmet is because it isn't explained, when you'd be whining like a four year old if they ever DID build an explanation into the game.

One of the problems with gaming catering to increasingly mainstream people, is that you wind up losing out on things like "underlying logic" since few people care in comparison to the market. It means that the creator who came up with a consistant universe and explained all this stuff never gets to really show off his universe, or just as often tha nobody even bothers to explain why anything happens the way it does, they just go with whatever seems like it would be cool or easy to insert into the game. A "folding helmet" might just be because it was easier to do that way, than to actually animate him carrying a helmet around with him, or work out where he was keeping it in various scenes. The folding helmet being a middle ground solution to him either never wearing one (or having a super friends bubble drawn around his head), or pulling it out of hammerspace.

 

[sinestro1940]

Yahtzee, I will start out by saying that when I first saw your review for Dead Space 2, it put me into a fit of fanboy rage. To even hear any sort of slander about Dead Space was sacrilege, and you might as well have spit on my dead dog. Now that I've become less immersed in the game (as I tend to really get into certain things if I find them interesting) long enough to pull away the blindfold of anger from mine eyes, I am able to see that all your points about why the Necromorphs aren't scary are completely valid. If Visceral Games were able to "humanize" Necromorphs beyond just looking human, then they would be ten times more scarier in Dead Space 3, and I hope they take that into consideration. As for the helmets, I really think that's just a nitpick, as most people would probably tell you, "FUCK YEAH, MAN! DID YOU SEE THAT?! HIS FUCKIN' HELMET JUST FOLDED OUT OF HIS ASS! YEAH!"

 

[Nifarious]

What I said

are you planning on majoring in english by any chance?

i'm going to assume that yahtzee didn't mean "intention" so much as "tone." he's completely right about that lack of consistency affecting many major games, where they try to do too much, but i think his point in reference to dead space 2 was that it had it's creepy parts, but the ridiculous heavy handed nature of the violence made the gore and violence against humans somewhat less intense. when every fucking enemy is a baby, it stops being a big deal that you're killing "babies" because every enemy you face is a "baby." And like yahtzee said, the game loses an opportunity to instill horror and be unnerving by the near-instantaneous transformations that throw away the sense of struggle. it ceases being killing potentially partially human beings corrupted against their will and just turns into killing weird zergling things. you don't connect with the victims in the same way you might if you perceived some sort of internal struggle, some sign of humanity from the monsters. If the game was trying to come across as a completely serious, scary, psychological experience, they would have done better to drastically reduce the number of enemies, play with the lighting and keep enemies for the most part off the screen until it's too late, and reduce the number of bullets you get. and stop throwing children at me it gets old after 4 hours. in other words, the game lacks a perceived struggle, both between the former humans and their new identity as mindless killing machines, and between isaac and his sense of humanity. as things are, he's just killing undead monstrosities as far as i'm concerned. one of the main things that drives horror is perverting recognizable and generally harmless or disenfranchised into something scary, something familiar and yet wrong, and for me, the repetitive nature of the encounters and environments kind of ruins that.

tl;dr- it should be machete or silent hill, but instead it's crank 2 high voltage

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, but I think that you and I played different games.

There's a difference between heavy handed and over the top. You've seen The Thing, right? It takes carnal forms to extremes, which forcibly alters your previous perception of bodies. Heavy handed is Gears of War. Gore Gore Gore! Kratos destroying for destruction's sake. Whereas Isaac's destruction really is a tooth and nail struggle for survival. Over the top is an extreme which does something, has an agency, whereas heavy handed extremes are just fluffy spectacles.

The babies and children really weren't over-present, I thought. They either attacked in their own surroundings or at particular swarm moments.

Again, it's not about 'once people', but 'once human'. The first time I saw a zombie game work *well on the 'once people' was really Dead Island's new trailer. We could get into Isaac's haunting girlfriend and the game's psychological tension, but that's a different matter.

The struggle is all you, your survival.

"Play with the lighting and keep enemies for the most part off the screen until it's too late, and reduce the number of bullets you get" is exactly what the game did. I don't know if you were playing on casual or what--I've played on both normal and zealot--but don't you remember starting off in just a straight jacket, running for your life through chaos, getting just a flashlight to walk through pitch black rooms, and having to use telekenesis to defend yourself before even getting a gun? Lighting was always an issue. Going through the Ishimura, I had to grab and throw the work lights just to find my way. You were never truly safe in the game. You could be attacked at any moment from any angle, including behind you. There was nothing repetitive about your surroundings, which can't be said about the first game. The game gave you an insane asylum, medical ward, nursery and gymnasium, high speed subway car, the old Ishimura (which wasn't laziness. The fun of it was going back to that haunted place and see what life it's led. The ship is even more of a character than Isaac. Besides, the fighting didn't even take place on the familiar territory.), a mall, freedom in outer space, a creepy church and its secret cryrogenic lab, a government facility which you enter with a dozen guns pointed at you, a ride on a giant tunneling machine...Repetitive isn't really an applicable word to this game. Complaining like Yahtzee that you just go from point A to point B is meaningless. The point of the game is that you have to go forward, deeper into hell. It's the journey that makes the game. As for reducing enemies, there were plenty of moments where you were alone. This wasn't some kill 'em all shooter. You had to worry about ammo constantly. You never become an unstoppable killing machine, even with full upgrades. In the last couple levels, things got even harder and you were forced to run rather than fight.

Honestly, I don't see where you're basing your criticism but for a dislike for what type of horror the game is. It's fine to have preferences like that, but it's, well, at least unfortunate to use preferences to dismiss a game for not being what it doesn't try to be.

Yahtzee is decent at making fun of both good and bad games. But when he applies his standard for gaming, he just paints a two dimensional straw man of a game that encourages flat and boring ways of thinking.

And since you asked, I'm actually an academic between Masters and Ph.D in English. Horror and Black Comedy being pet projects of mine.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Its no RE4 but RE4 had its own set of problems all in all tho they and DS2 are heads above Bioshock and RE5.

The most issues I had with DS2 was it had relatively no scares and no real work to introduce the monsters in new and inventive ways..

 

[Meilow]

AHA! I want to see Yahtzee rip Half-Life and new one!

 

[robandall]

I don't think the game was supposed to be a horror. I had to stop playing Condemned, and Silent Hill before it, as I just couldn't take it but but even I didn't have a problem with DS 2. Sure there's lots of horrific stuff happening but nothing that makes you feel unsafe. The game never lets up so there's no chance for a sense of dread to build. SPOILERS the scariest part of the game is the first 5 minutes aboard the Ishimura where nothing happens. It's just you and the memories of what you went through the last time you were there. The constant tension I felt when I walked through those corridors. END SPOILERS.

Isaac's persona is also far to capable now. Before he was silent and cowering, running from objective to objective with two goals in mind: find Nicole and get the hell off that ship. In DS2 he chooses to go into the heart of darkness - he talks like he's got a sense of duty - a standard unwilling hero in an action game. Upon running into a load of necromophs he calmly says something like "Yea, it's not safe". What I would expect an engineer to say is "Holy Christ! They're f*cking everywhere. I need to get, the f*ck, outta here now!". If Isaac's not scared how are we supposed to be?

There was nothing psychological about his visions either - I was expecting a constant, subtle, distortion of reality. You wouldn't be sure of your motivations or actions leading you to almost fear reaching your goals. Isaac's psychosis ended up just being used as a setup for a few cheap shocks or so Nicole could rant at you like an angry spouse.

All in all a great game that kept the gore and left the horror.

 

[Salad Is Murder]

"Dead Space 2 is no Resident Evil 4"

Yeah, we never had to escort anyone to anywhere...THANK GOD.

 

[L4Y Duke]

The sections with Isaac's dead girlfriend showing up or deranged people were the most horrific though giving off a F.E.A.R. vibe("we're going to burn for what we did to you, Isaac", exploding baby, etc)

For me, not so much.

Not so much because that sort of thing just doesn't effect me, not so much because it was so easy to just ignore it and get back to the slicey-slicey killing bonanza, but because it's so freaking hard to make out what nicole's trying to tell you in them.

It wasn't so much a moment of "Gwaahh!" as it was "...come again?"

Oh, and Dead Space 2 fails in horror in exactly the same way Dead Space 1 failed: The game tries to be fair.

Like, seriously. Aside from the "Oh, crap there's reanimated dead guys. Run away" section at the start of each, you are NEVER attacked when you cannot defend yourself, ammo counts notwithstanding.

 

[jono793]

Oh, the helmet! I understand the intention of the thing, it allowed the writers to give Issac a face and/or personality this time around. So why, oh why did they go to all that effort for the sake of YET ANOTHER generic brown haired Nolan North lookalike?

For the time and effort that must have gone into animating the accursed thing, why not do something bold and different? They could have gone down the Samus Aran route and made Issac a girl in a surprising twist. Perhaps looked to Bioshock 2's logic and made Issac a sentient prototype Necromorph. Hell, even an android would have been more interesting character. Then the helmet could have folded away to reveal a second, identical helmet!

 

[Verkula]

Resident Evil 4 is no Dead Space either. Thank god for that, i like my games diferent.

Run away" section at the start of each, you are NEVER attacked when you cannot defend yourself

Pretty sure you can die in both games there, its why i had to watch the unskippable opening on Hardcore again, after i took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and got oneshoted.

it allowed the writers to give Issac a face and/or personality this time around. So why, oh why did they go to all that effort for the sake of YET ANOTHER generic brown haired Nolan North lookalike?

You do realize you could see hes face already in the first game, both at the start and ending?

 

[L4Y Duke]

Resident Evil 4 is no Dead Space either. Thank god for that, i like my games diferent.

Run away" section at the start of each, you are NEVER attacked when you cannot defend yourself

Pretty sure you can die in both games there, its why i had to watch the unskippable opening on Hardcore again, after i took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and got oneshoted.

I know. I died in the opening section of Dead Space 2 when I went for the wrong sprint button.

But, my argument stands. If you are defenceless, you are enemy-less as well, aside from aforementioned opening sequences.

Consider the vast period in Dead Space 2 where you're in the strait-jacket, after you win the quicktime ambush, from then right up to when you get the Telekinesis module and can impale the undeadies with gusto.

How many times are you attacked? Once. By a guy that is clearly insane. In a cutscene. After which, he gives you a torch, health and then offs himself.

Or the vents. Can you fight? No. Can you get attacked? Yes. Do you? No. Well, you get jumped once when coming out of one, but that's a quicktime event.

Or the panels you have to hotwire. How many times does an enemy attack you when you're using one? Once. (Assuming you're smart enough to clear the room before starting) Maybe twice, late in the game when the developers finally decide to throw an impossible-to-defeat enemy at you, and you're slow at the hotwire or don't stall him for long enough beforehand.

 

[z3rostr1fe]

Imma gonna wait for that article about HL...

 

[Zechariah Riojas]

OH NO, not half-life...on a lighter note who took my helmet?

 

[TheEldestScroll]

yeah i think everyone is so brainwashed into thinking that the scariest thing ever is human anatomy spilling everywhere and things that pop out at you that it is beyond hopeless.

i think of video games as more of an art form, and dead space is about as far from art as you can get.

 

[Normandyfoxtrot]

yeah i think everyone is so brainwashed into thinking that the scariest thing ever is human anatomy spilling everywhere and things that pop out at you that it is beyond hopeless.

i think of video games as more of an art form, and dead space is about as far from art as you can get.

Yeah they can, but like artsy movies, artsy games tend to be pretty shitty since most people can't balance art with fun.

 

[thecoreyhlltt]

i'd like to see a clip of what he's talking about when he said something about an eyeball and something that should'nt be anywhere near an eyeball... but i can't find anything on youtube, whaaaaaaaaaaaah :.(

 

[Wiryjackal]

So this argument is about what Dead Space is trying to be? Well I say that Dead Space 2 is trying to be a Action game. To understand this, You have to accept a couple of points.

First, That a game's trailer or advertisement is trying to sell the game.

And second, That said trailer is meant to represent the game as a whole to the consumer. If we accept both of these as true and then go watch the Dead Space 2 Launch trailer.(The one that most consumers actually see.)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=776fi2I8e6U

Now that trailer seems to fit action to me better than any other genre. From the rock music in the background to the shots which were filled with shooting and fighting Necromorphs. It doesn't really matter what the game is, They were selling it as an action game. It's their fault if that's not what came out in the gameplay.