Whoops I forgot about Scary games month: Dead Space 2

The scariest thing about scary games month is the way, every year, like a creeping zombie the holiday sales crawl just a little bit further up the month. I fully suspect by the time I pass from this mortal coil that "holiday sale" will follow "back to school" in like, early september, and halloween will be a one day event where they jam candy at a 400% markup then it disappears from the shelves after being priced 'to move' into garbage bags full of candy while they rush out their Christmas cacophony. But we're not allowed to call it Christmas sales, which does actually make sense, since really who cares?

"Dead space" is a good term for a horror game in a lot of ways even beyond being a puntastic little riff. There's a lot of dead space, filled with spooky but pointless noises, in just about every horror game I've ever played. Need to walk down the spooky empty corridor for your spooky surprise! Which is, unspookily enough, more zombies. Or sometimes, just nothing. Spooked you! You get nothing!

in a shocking twist, horror goes surgical

Oh I'm sorry, necromorphs. Which is basically like going through the dictionary and assembling two words which are as close to 'zom - be' as ghoulishly possible. Regardless, while I've always been a huge fan of the title of the game, I have largely mixed feelings about the first game. I really liked the crumbs button, the ship design and the way combat felt just different enough to be different. But horror largely isn't my cup of tea, and horror seems to mean 'colon sounds and raspberry jam' more than trying to build a scary atmosphere.

I feel sometimes like the feeling that violence is all around you gets away from 'horror' and turns more into being 'horrifying' if that makes sense. Dead Space 2 has even less restraint than the first game, it opens up with a reference to hallucinations that slowly unveil themselves in the first game then some totally hyper violent murder. I understand they're sort of going for a 'look at how real this shit has already got' moment, but horror is at its best when the shit is more implicit, less real so I don't even know how to start with this game.

she's like yo, holy face, you scared yet?

Horror, like I said, is more about implication and playing tricks on the mind than the up front, raspberry jam all over the screen. Dead Space 2 is a full cut away from its predecessor, clearly more invested in that sweet sweet raspberry jam. Such the raspberry jam. Minute one, maximum raspberry jam, paint the walls, make furniture out of it, yessss, get the jam on. The dead space jam. That being said, I start to wonder if the complaint is a touch disingenuous given the scope of what you're reviewing. Dead Space 2 is, with a bunch of words ahead of it describing genre, atmosphere and texture, ultimately a game. While it is a bit of a bummer to realize that horror is a shallow well that can't be just filled with buckets of jam and zombies screaming 'are you scared yet', the actual gameplay of Dead Space 2...?

the traffic jams here are horrible

That part seems fine. It is partially because the old mechanics from the first game come back pretty quick and partially because using the plasma cutter again is like meeting an old lover, but I did find DS2 just quicker to transition into 'enjoying as a game' out of the 'new game/what is going on/how do i shot plasma' phase that rather dominated the start of my original Dead Space experience. Dead Space 2 is also much slower and more reluctant to introduce irritating nonsense, like puzzles that force you to stasis objects or the poopy floor gimmick. I don't know how else to define that one, dead space 1 had tons of just gooey sticky floor for no reason.

As with the first game, you're an engineer, which helps to justify the volume of nonsense your character can cut through. Isaac Clarke is more the engineer in a Star Trek sense, with even less combat skill. He can push his way through any sort of device, but the minute you get into combat he feels like a mix between a poorly coded driving game and mario. That might be coming somewhat from my end, but maybe not. Isaac hacks doors, fixes computers and uses the various naughty acting machines as his background informs that he should. It works so much better for me than other games where you're Hoo-Hah the marine and some squeak has to sit there explaining the science to you.

outlander what now?

I do really like one major dynamic of Dead Space 2, and I feel like its something a lot of other games or films don't handle especially well in sequels. In the first game, you know your mind is breaking down, you know you're hallucinating, but you're not really certain as to the limits. There was an interesting bit that each other person you're with is also going insane, and you're all sort of looking at each other like "no that is on you, not me". In the sequel, Isaac knows his brain is busted and getting worse, but he calmly tells himself things are hallucinations at points in the game. He has the same detachment the gamer does, creating a weird sympathy between yourself and his perspective. Over time he kinda accepts his craziness, which is disappointing, but then the arc works out and I like it.

Another thing found I really like is that I don't seem to always notice chapter changes in DS2, unlike in DS1 where they ended up feeling very pronounced. I mean sure there's elevators and big battles and stuff, but it all just strings along without showing its seems so obviously. This helps to keep the game moving and also helps to keep the atmosphere going. DS2 is certainly less capable at being a horror game, but the dynamics of the game world actually work really well and do get you into the moment. Maybe that moment is being a sort of bad ass action hero instead of shrieking at the monitor, but hey, as long as you're having some sort of fun. Combat is still pretty tense, given how clumsy it is, until the end game where you're decked out and overburdened with an embarrassment of riches ... and an embarrassment of bad level design.

fly through the dead space toilets

The game's story ... Geez, I just don't really know. The idea of an alien artifact that influences people to go crazy to soften them up, or something, for the zombies to dice them up? I guess I can sort of get behind that. But the interactions people have with it, whether or not they're under its influence, just gets a little silly. Dead Space 2 rapidly gets away from the Unitologist angle that sort of pooped on the first game a bit in the latter half, but the lore is just kinda contradictory. It seems like you go from scenario to scenario, and sometimes the context and canon from one don't match with the other. It does also sort of hint at a situation you see repeated in sci-fi, where mankind gets into space but then somehow "runs out of resources", which just seems so dumb to me. You can break down planets for their minerals, but you're running out of resources? Which resources? Once you can mine planets for rare earth metals and build huge solar arrays, what are you missing?

On the other hand, it does feel somewhat implied that this angle is, shall we say, put into their heads. The game has a lot of weird, disjointed subtext from being written by a committee, I guess.

you can tell she's serious, just look at those pants

I did like the secondary protagonist introduced in the second third of the game, though it is sort of weird that you see one character die then they just randomly bring in another one who is also sort of a vaguely white but not too white looking lady. Still, the game is good about making her interesting and not nearly a damsel in distress, which is nice. There is a solidly written reason she doesn't do much of anything through some of the game, instead of just having her do what Kendra Daniels or whatever did. Dead Space 2 is actually pretty good at its characters, even if the plot is a little bit too Aliens without even trying to make sense. Then again, Aliens just sort of screams 'corporate greed!' and you're supposed to take all sorts of nonsense at face value.

I want to point out that if they really wanted to amp the horror factor, someone being injured in the fashion she was in the situation she was is miles more terrifying than fighting shrieking alien zombie children in a gymnasium with blood stains up and down the wall.

One thing that is very odd about Dead Space 2, and perhaps indicative of an era of design that I don't connect with because I tend to play games in a completely random ass order, is the differences in difficulty from moment to moment. In situations where you have access to all of your tools, combat is meaty and somewhat frantic, but not so much difficult as tense. As long as you line up your shots and don't blow your proverbial stasis payload all over the place, you can get through most fights mostly in one piece. But in situations where you're very limited - such as, like, the very beginning of the game - you die out of nowhere in odd, confusing moments. I've seen this in other games, QTEs that are poorly explained and repetitive, that just splatter you over and over. There's a little climax early on in the game and I think I died more to that set of QTEs than I did to the entire first third of the game, multiplied several times over. Granted outside of QTEs or otherwise "limited" moments I died once in the first third of the game, so that isn't saying much really.

So basically, the main combat is good, because combat in a horror game should put tension in your shoulders and spook you, but it shouldn't ever kill you, because your immersion pops like a balloon. Dead Space 2, at least on whatever difficulty I put it on, is really good at that early on without denying you the tools of the game. The QTEs generally break from this, with all sorts of awful random deaths, but that almost feels like a different team who didn't understand what they were doing put them into the game, so I can't blame the main of the game for it.

worst strip club ever

Unfortunately much like Dead Space 1, the last third of Dead Space 2 - well, maybe unlike DS1 just the last quarter or so - the game starts to "need an end game", once again throwing out its horror-ness in exchange for something I guess a bit more exciting. In theory, anyway, but to be honest much like the first game the climactic chapters just get increasingly silly to the point the game just starts to drag. A single powerful zombie jumping down spooks you, but a large swarm of them no longer functions as in the horror realm and their AI doesn't even work properly. They run into each other, they don't work nearly as well and they start being AoEable.

The game starts to feel like you're that half off toaster on at wal-mart and the zombies are careening into each other black friday style. The fresh ones get to tripping over the wounded ones and this is god damn clown college now?

If there is one thing that doesn't belong in horror gaming, its aoeing enemies down. Zombie slaughtering? Sure, but this ... This isn't quite what you were enjoying eight hours before hand. I started to find the game just exceptionally boring and struggled to keep playing, which was sort of a downer since the middle of the game is pretty damn good. There are some really good, creepy sections in the middle that just work expertly and have just the right amount of combat to pepper you.

Also, seriously, can we decide on a theme here? An infinitely regenerating goofball enemy is a horror element. Piles of combat aren't. Mixing them together and you're just getting irritated that you can't problem solve your way through. You just end up with this contradictory feeling as the design dissonance wraps around. As well, it is a little weird that they are essentially re-using an element from the previous game but at the end, ugh. I don't really care for either version here, as while the necromorphs are pretty ridiculous, they generally feel like somewhat believable sci-fi on normal difficulty. Infinite regeneration isn't.

you guys were mining blood? HOW?

So did I like DS2? Well, it is sort of a mixed bag. It is a better action game and a worse horror game than DS1, which is for better or worse in parts. Honestly a lot of the gurgling noised goofiness in DS1, especially the mining deck or that moronic children's song playing through an entire level, is attributed to "horror" design and I didn't care for it at all. But some of the really cool, creepy peaks like the bridge of the Ishimura just aren't reached. Horror in space just has such infinite potential, because space has so much potential and when you mix isolation, coldness and fear in that potential turns terrifying. I remember getting to the bridge in the first game and just staring out at the asteroids floating around, such a great moment. Still, the middle of Dead Space 2 is really good, and hits a lot of the highs that the first game did with more variety, a better looking engine and stronger characterization. Even though not every conversation was great, the interaction between the "trio" in the middle of the game was a lot better than the trio in the first game. The anti-gravity stuff is very different, but some of it was just downright cool. As dumb as that re-aligning solar panels bit was, there was a framework there for a really cool section I guess they just didn't feel like doing, but you still have a couple minutes of feeling isolated and alone out in space that just work.

The end of the game, much like the first Dead Space, is bad. There is very obviously someone within the development team, or something within their design documents, that doesn't understand or cope with the fact the game is ending. It is unnecessary for combat to 'follow suit' with the narrative climax of a game, since combat is such a secondary element to Dead Space. Sure, DS2 doesn't end with a block pushing puzzle, but I still started to just get this feeling of the game becoming a boring chore instead of interesting. I also just don't understand the enemy selection in the late game at all, or the level design, or much of anything.

oh yeah total horror gaming

TKing a pole into an enemy's head, knocking him scrambling then jumping on them and stasis locking them is cool. Juggling 2-3 enemies with the same techniques is intense. But the minute you start forcing Isaac to weave between enemies the game just looks stupid, he doesn't turn or dodge or fight in a graceful enough way to cope with fighting six guys at once. You just end up having stuff run into each other or firing off shots blindly, taking all the finesse out of the game. The designers also never, ever, ever give up the "horror game" element, which is really annoying in intense combat and just flat out boring when you're into the endgame. Enemies obey certain rules in FPS games, only popping in on weird angles or flanking you on logical vectors. Here enemies just fall out of the sky, effectively, so you end up doing weird jogs around rooms to try to block off assaults and it just isn't very good. Stuff still pops out of nowhere, even in well lit, mostly undamaged rooms. It's really stupid, because you're not "scared" of something that happens every 15 seconds in 'combat' rooms.  I just wish enemies would start the room spawned and come fight me. Also the air vents thing is just absurd. Not every room in every section of everything ever built has huge, man sized vents, and the fact the game relies on them to deliver the enemies just becomes overwrought.

Also, the floor poop comes back and I don't even understand how. And what are the stupid 'baby' necromorphs doing in the endgame anyway? The facility was just overrun ten minutes ago and you're expected to believe these incapable of walking, rolling bombs made their way in ahead of you? Who thought THAT up?

Anyway, while I would probably still recommend Dead Space 2, the ending was for me much like the first one - I just found it increasingly tedious. Enter a desolate room, beep boop, enemies jump down from the giant air vents or whatever, beep boop, more enemies show up as you're fighting, then you continue a little forward for like six more guys to show up. And combat just devolves into stasis into flamethrower, good luck fighting things with an eye for ammo and finesse when they're just swarming out of those air vents at you. If you don't mind both the horror elements and the combat elements going into absurdity, the end of the game is pretty visually nice...

On the other hand, while I did somewhat dislike the last boss - especially since you just never deal with the regenerator, even though I guess in theory you're offered the easy chance to do so, it isn't part of the final encounter - I really did like how the ending played off the first game's ending. The secondary protagonist and her role in it was charming, and just generally better than the way Dead Space 1 goes full isolation mental sickness Hell in the end, but better because of how DS1 ended. I don't necessarily feel like the two games go together perfectly, but there were definitely some nice parallels and I came out of it pleased with the end.

I smiled at the 'What?'