Just as good as the first, with added touches
I'm satisfied with it to date. As I loved the first, but enough about that...
You are placed in the boots (or straight-jacket) of Isaac Clarke yet again. The events from the first game seem to have left him somewhat mentally damaged. Hallucinations plague him as you go through the campaign. Personally I would have liked more hallucination sections, maybe some with a little more interaction. The game gets off to your usual survival horror start (massively outnumbered with no means of protecting yourself). You're re-introduced to the necromorphs in a pretty graphic fashion. i.e. your rescuer gets a little something rammed into his skull and is torn into shape as one of the many horrors you have to face. After that the escape sequence filled me with more panic than the escape sequence in the first game. The panic in Dead Space stemmed from the shouldercam viewpoint and the lack of any knowledge of your assailants. I recall sprinting to the elevator, cacking myself as a pair of spiked arms protrude the screen. Slashing away at Isaac's back. With the second game you (should) already know what enemies you're facing. The terror comes from the fact your arms are bound to your stomach and you can't attack, or even push away enemies if they grab you. Shortly after that sequence, you're given the use of your arms again and slowly but surely, you regain your tools of the trade.
The new guns in the roster aren't spectacular though. While the javelin gun proved itself useful as a launching tool, I couldn't really find any practical use for the rivet gun. Even when fully upgraded it seemed to be a pointless weapon. Maybe I was shooting the enemies in the wrong places. The alternate fire mode for the Pulse Gun was better this time around. I found more use for that, even though it chewed through ammo. The stand out weapon was again, the force gun. My first playthrough was on Zealot (the hardest difficulty you can choose without having a cleared game save) the force gun got me out of many sticky situations with some of the newer enemies.
The enemies from Dead Space 1 all make a return here (bar the stasis necromorphs), with a couple of new additions to the pot. The stalkers were my personal favourite. As I genuinely feared for my life when they were introduced. Instead of the usual "RAAAARGHHH I'MMA CHARGE YOU" enemy types, these ones used tactics on you. Flanking maneuvers and the like. They would charge at you, knock you on your back and then disappear off behind a container (no doubt laughing to themselves as they did so) with the stalkers I genuinely felt like I was being hunted. The pack were a close second. But this was mainly due to their sheer numbers. They'd attack you in massive groups, often all slashing you. Like a shoal of piranha. As they sprint towards you they sometimes drop to all fours in a bid to make you miss your shot. Dirty tactics.
The variations in places are a welcome change now too. The school / nursery area had good atmosphere, although I feel that it wasn't used as much as it could have been. After a while the metal corridors get samey. That said, when you end up setting foot back on the Ishimura there are some pretty sweet touches. Where you initially get there and the walls are vacuum sealed and places are cordoned off. When you get away from that part and start treading on even more familiar ground, there are some pretty cool effects. One area you get to is lit only with black light, highlighting all of the blood and trails Isaac left in Dead Space 1.
The zero gravity feature has been given an overhaul. The free-movement in zero gravity is a nice touch. As in Dead Space I remember issues with lining myself up to land on a certain surface. I wish there had been more zero gravity combat sections. The occasional lurker and those couple of spore pods didn't quite utilize the feature like they could have.
Another missed opportunity, it would have been nice if there were side activities this time around, like the shooting range and the zero-G ball arena. A little something to retract you from the terror, if only for a few minutes.
Now, the multiplayer component... I personally enjoy the competitive multiplayer. Both playable sides have their pluses and minuses. Teamwork is essential, well, not essential so to speak. But having someone watching your back definitely makes the online experience a little more rewarding. As the humans, you're given a pulse rifle and plasma cutter as standard. As well as a shot of stasis. With the humans you can't pick your spawn points. With the necromorphs you are given a choice of four character types; Pack, which are very fast at attacking and can jump for very long distances. The trade off is that they are extremely weak, the lurker is the second one you can pick, these guys have a ranged attack, comprising of 3 projectiles fired simultaneously. They also have the ability to walk on walls. The trade off with lurkers is the weak melee mixed with their low hit points. The third choice is the puker. He's a flailer, best suited in ambushes, where he can spring at you from around the corner, windmill his arms at you until you die and then run off down the corridor saying "WAYO WAYO WAYO, WAY-O" They have a mid to short range projectile attack which can be charged up. But using this attack is not really advised, as you won't kill an enemy with it unless they're on yellow / red health. Using this attack also leaves you unable to attack further for a few seconds. And that few seconds usually means life and death for the puker. The final playable necromorph is the spitter, They're bigger, they have more hit points and the ranged attack is brutal when fully charged. The problem with this character is they are pretty slow. More often than not, a prepared enemy can stasis you and blow your limbs off by the time you've gotten off your first attack. All of the necromorphs have the ability to sense the heat signature of the human players through surfaces. This makes it easy to single out the injured and swarm them for a kill.
The multiplayer mode is only an objective game mode at the minute. Get from A to B, destroy C, get to D etc. While it is fun, some of the maps are not very good. One of the maps forces necromorph players to spawn right in the line of sight of the human players. Only getting reprieve when the first objective is destroyed and thus opening up the spawn areas. And one area leaves the humans in the low ground as they can be mercilessly picked off when trying to capture an objective by spitters / lurkers up on the high ground. The structure of multiplayer in Dead Space 2 is unlock-based. This can be disheartening. As you don't get any really good abilities / perks with the necromorphs until the later levels. And being a low level human against a high level necro can seem like a major struggle, having to use a whole clip to kill one enemy because they have improved health. But, regardless of the balancing and occasional server lag issues, it's an enjoyable addition to the series.
On the whole, Dead Space 2 doesn't really do anything new in terms of gameplay. But as I love the first one, this one is a welcome addition to the collection.
Willsea Out