Sorry for not getting to write about this sooner. I’ve finished Dead Space 2 within a couple of weeks after getting it, and now I’ve gotten some free time to write about it. I initially looked forward to the experience, and after playing it a couple of times, here’s what I think about the game. Have fun reading!
The Fun Times
Surviving the action
There was a lot of good action in the game. Enemies come left and right, and there’s much more action than in the first game. After each wave of monsters that appear, and after you stomp on them, you get to feel pretty accomplished. And I like that. The challenge factor of the action was also more difficult in this game (e.g. guards that won’t die, and larger waves of enemies), and after having to die and figure things out (which ultimately I shouldn’t have to do and this game deserves much fail for that), I felt pretty accomplished.
Embedded UI
This was done well in the first game, and I’m glad they kept this in the sequel. All of the important UI elements (health, inventory, items, ammo) all appear as part of the natural interface of the game, and only appear when you “activate” them. The only thing to keep in mind is the game is not paused when you bring up these UI, so you will get hurt if you’re not looking (which is ultimately annoying and frustrating).
Horror tones like Silent Hill
The team who designed the mise-en-scene did a very good job. It made me think of how well Silent Hill does horror – through very subtle pieces in what the users sees (and hears). There’s echoes, music, silence, blood, interesting lighting, and little easter eggs that will make you keep saying “WTF” all the time. This was very well executed – the game designers placed the monsters and the puzzles in these areas to maximize the “horror” factor. They also did a good job of remediating the “Alien” series, as they mixed in the darkness, music, and monsters on a derelict spaceship.
The mystical blue/yellow/orange/purple line
Enough said. The best part of Dead Space returned and it actually curves around corners instead of being line segments. It’s still a great interaction that helps you to find where you’re supposed to go. They added other colors to help you know where the stores, benches, and save points are (in addition to the checkpoints).
Improvement Points
There is much to critique and hope for improvement in future Dead Space gaming:
Predictable Horror Movie Elements
I love watching bad horror movies, and horror/slasher movies in general. As such, I’ve picked up on some of their cues about what is going to happen: by watching the lighting, the framing, listening to the sounds, and just reflecting on the pacing of the movie, you can predict when the bad guys are going to strike. The same applies for Dead Space 2, except, that it is much more predictable than the first game. Silent Hill did a better job at true “horror” than this survival game – I wasn’t surprised too much at what was going to happen because of how I could “read” the game and figure out the next moves rather easily. While this is good for me the “gamer”, I would expect to find an improvement to the execution of the horror elements in the future to be much improved so I can enjoy the game as a “gamer” and as a “viewer”.
Can’t upgrade stuff you’re not carrying
This should have been very simple: if I’m carrying guns and equipment in my safe, I should be able to access them from the bench to upgrade them. Nope. I have to walk to the safe, drop my guns, pick up the guns I want to upgrade, then walk over back to the bench, upgrade them, and then put them back. Quite the hassle. I should be able to upgrade what I would like so that I can have fun using the guns that I want to take out those nasty monsters. My safe should be accessible anywhere. Period.
Pacing
The pacing can be much improved. Unlike a movie where there is constant “building” while the story moves forward to a natural conclusion, there is a constant “flip-flop” of pacing in this game. Everything starts off pretty quick, then goes pretty slow for a while, then back up again. This happens quite frequenly, and these peaks and valleys in the action are also dead giveaways to when monsters and “gobs of story” are about to be thrown at the user. I’d prefer a better pacing to keep me more engaged and motivated to get Isaac out of this mess.
Quite reminiscent of RE5 – and you know how I feel about that one
So as I was playing this, I couldn’t help but see RE5 in this game. The introduction of more action, interactive animated sequences (at least it was one button instead of randomly selected), and the feeling of being placed against many more guards than I should have to fight (for starters), all made me think that I was playing RE5. And the realization that apparently that the designers think that throngs of more guards makes for a more “engaging and horror” experience is not something I hope will continue. More guards does not mean more scary. Period.
Not really needing stasis
One important aspect of the first game, stasis, I kinda didn’t need to use in this version of the game. Most of the time the guards came out one-at-a-time, or in a giant row, which I could then take out quite easily. I very rarely used stasis (except for the Stalkers), which I then turned into cash to upgrade my guns. Stasis was pretty cool in the first game, and it was a little letdown to see that I didn’t pretty much have to bother with this.
Stalkers
These are enemies that hide and randomly come out of corners and attack you. Needless to say, they are the most annoying and hardest to kill monsters in the game. The “challenge” of them is where the improvement point needs to be noticed: it’s in the way they act and how the player has to change up things to defeat them. The player either has to die to figure out where they are, run around the room to figure out the “trigger point” to trigger the Stalkers to run at the player, or end up relying up luck and stasis to kill them (and they’ll keep running at you even without legs and still damage you – different from the other enemies in the game). The other thing that the player has going for them is that the designers stocked multiple of these enemies in areas where there are tall boxes in the room – a signifier that says that there’s a lot of enemies hiding (along with the fact that they use a signature scream when they are first spawned). Ultimately, I shouldn’t have to resort to death and retry or looking at the intricate locations of boxes in a room to realize what I need to do.
This game makes Galaxy Quest a reality
Many of the rooms and challenges don’t really make a ton of sense in context with the setting. Let’s put in a random lazer puzzle here, or let’s make you fly through some smashers, or even let’s go out into the middle of space and throw some random rockets (which the designers didn’t do a good job of introducing how to use – they should have said or shown how to “place” and use them) for you to use and try to figure out the puzzle before you run out of air and get attacked. To quote Galaxy Quest – “This makes no sense! Why would a ship even have this — because the writers wanted it that way!” *Facepalm* Another pure example of this are the hacking puzzles, a new puzzle added for this game. Just simply rotate the control stick until you get to a blue section and press A. Except that you have a timed puzzle and many red areas that you have to steer away from. And a lot of times you’re chased by guards too while trying to do this. The only help from this annoying puzzle, which is used way, way too much, is that the controller vibrates when you get close.
And you have to succeed 3 times to move on before time runs out, or you’ll have to do everything all over again.
Controls
While it’s good that the kept the same controls from the first game, I feel the design is still running into some simple problems. Having to use both triggers to shoot my guns? Lame. Why can’t we use the controls from other FPS/TPS games out there. I have to remeber a different control scheme from other shooting games to play this right. Also, I end up using my extra health and stasis way too much, because the buttons to use them are close to each other (stasis:Y, health:B) and that ultimately I end up confusing them, as other games have them marked as the reverse that Dead Space has.
Ultimately
Dead Space 2 has some fun going for it. Decent challenges and action, coupled with a decent story will make for a fun experience. But there’s a lot of minor annoyances that snowball quickly at points that break the experience (e.g. the very first set of rooms, combat, puzzles, etc.) of what could be a superior horror and survival game. But if you’ve played the first game, there’s some good easter eggs in there for you to keep you playing.
