The Quill

REVIEW: Dead Space 2.

Zombie games are shit, please let us clear that up first

That said, whoever thinks DeadSpace 2 is shit is retarded

Well to be fair and give him credit he needs to try it out first, then if he still thinks its shit we can safely call him retarded.

Dead Space 2 is one of two zombie-esk games that in my book don’t deserve to be used as Frisbees with garbage baskets, the other game being Left 4 Dead, but more about that in a different article.

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The original Dead Space had some interesting and innovative art direction and visuals, but truth be said it had managed to shoot itself in the foot by some of its gameplay elements such as having a shitty camera that was zoomed at a perfectly annoying and dizzying third person perspective angle that could have been better farther away from the character.

I couldn’t get myself to play it for more than 10 minutes without ending up like a zombie myself and puking my dizzy guts out, luckily Dead Space 2 doesn’t have that problem.

The camera feel is perfect now, add to that that for a dark game the art direction is rather colorful, you don’t get the feel that an Emo nor Twilight fanboy got his way designing the level, but rather someone with a intellect who can create interesting dark themed levels and still use colors smartly apart from washing everything in black and lots of RGB values with zeros in them.

The story picks up from where the last one left off with a small disconnect, leaving you wondering at first what the heck happened since the first game ended with great effect in the first game level, it really literally puts you in the middle of the action without any foreplay. Cool if you ask me

But I’m no game spoiler, so I can’t say more about the story, people who know me know I don’t fuck around and spoil stories plots by running my mouth off like some itchy bitches.

The general premise is the same, ancient alien relic found, weird stuff happens, convergence etc and now you got weird flashbacks from people in your past which is pretty cool and the ending is pretty interesting and fulfulling.

Now traditional zombie games tend to suffer from being rather slow paced and retarded and butt fucking ugly shits just for the heck of it, as if the whole  zombie/monster theme was a perfect excuse to lay back and create something perfectly lazy and retarded.

Dead Space 2 does not suffer from this syndrome which actually makes it a blast to play.

It’s really action packed and very nicely done, polished from many angles.

The level design is interesting, lighting is good, the monsters or zombies or whatever they are called are pretty interesting gameplay-wise with each type presenting a certain challenge to kill.  One particular monster type i loved got my full attention, wait for it you will know it when you meet it there is nothing like it, it will keep you on your toes !

The player suits are really kickass designs as usual and you get to try a few around. As for the programming its really top notch stuff, as the game manages to pack a lot of pretty details and run at impressive framerates while doing so.

Try to imagine this if you can, in this day and age, this drop dead gorgeous game has a single core Pentium 4 listed as a minimum cpu to play it. Impressive.

A quick check with the task manager shows that this game is single threaded yet 1 core is enough to run it in full gory glory. Do note please that the ingame vsync option was capping my game at 30fps, if you want a smooth 60fps display use you video card’s control panel to enable vsync instead.

I personally loved how this game managed to present the levels as inside-out connected. One second you are moving around in maintenance shafts, the other you are shooting the heads or limbs of some freaky zombie monsters attacking you indoors and the next you are outdoors in a second contemplating excellent scenery. All seamless transitions.

I would like to think this game is perfect from a visual and gameplay perspective, personally I had a great time playing it, but still I have some comments that aren’t so rosy.

First off I think it comes as bad taste to have two variations of monsters who were kid babies and are now baby looking monsters  and have to shoot their heads off to get through a level, especially if one of the levels is a fucking daycare kindergarten center. Very bad taste indeed.

Next is the weapon selection, you get to play around with many weapons many of them cool but ultimately useless, you basically need two weapons to get through the game.

I’m only saying that because beforehand you don’t know which weapons you should really use your limited and hard earned upgrade points on and you don’t get til the very end to relocate those upgrade points. That’s a tad shortsighted.

Now back to the fun parts, the gameplay story never lets you feel bored and keeps you interested with nice surprises with sudden demise scenes still pretty colorful to look at as your limbs get amputated in creative cool fashions.  It’s packed full of fun intense moments involving you and the other protagonists.

Dead Space 2 is a worthy successor to the Ishimura disaster first game, actually in my opinion its much better, it makes the game more accessible to a wider audience but by not selling out to marketing bullshit but by simply being polished and made with great care of the heart.

So thumbs up for the developers for moving forward and delivering a good memorable fun experience for us.

Make no mistake it’s an impressive title. It deserves 5 Kickass Quills rating for being above the pack of dumbass commercial games these days, it’s not just good, it’s very well done.

review originally published by Roy on our sister site www.gamebuzz.me