Dead Space 2 sets a new standard for the horror genre and puts players back in the shoes of space engineer Issac Clarke.
The story continues three years after the events of Dead Space. Issac awakes in a psyche ward on the Sprawl, which is a city on one of Saturn's moons. Immediately, you are sprung into action and forced to run away and soon battle the Necromorphs that you fought on the USG Ishimura. The story definitely starts off very slow and I found it to hurt the experience. There is no backstory given to you. For the first third of the game you are following some random woman's instruction on your radio. Eventually, the story picks up though and answers are given to whats actually going on. The ending is well done but feels that something was missing. Hopefully the inevitable next game delves deeper into the amazing world that Visceral has created.
The gameplay is top notch and has not been tampered with that much from the original. Minor additions have been added but they feel right unlike many sequels that add pointless things for the simple point of differentiating. Over the shoulder shooting is as fluid as ever. I find usually with third person games that the character either moves too slow or too fast, especially in horror games. Fortunately for us gamers, Visceral allows Issac to move at the perfect pace. The numerous weapons added are all implemented well. The Javelin gun and the Seeker were probably the two I used throughout the most. But old favourites like the Plasma Cutter, Line Gun and the Force Gun were still the ones I preferred to use. The Zero Gravity sections have been improved upon by allowing Issac to boost in the air.
Dead Space 2 is definitely superior to the original in many aspects. First, the graphics are out of this world. There are more environments in this game that allow the creators to really show the power of the game. Many of the bigger bad guys look amazing and you can see the amazing attention to detail that was put towards creating these enemies. Issac's suits also look fantastic and again show the attention to detail that has been put towards him. The technical aspects are also phenomenal. At no times did I ever experience a drop in framerate. There are no major glitches or problems that arose throughout my experience. It plays fluid and because of that makes Dead Space 2 an even better experience to play.
Now I'm going to talk about some of my favourite aspects of the game and also some nitpicks I have. There are some slight spoilers so be careful but I will not ruin anything for you like the ending or plot devices.
Chapter 10 is probably the scariest and greatest point in the game. It is the highlight of the game and brings on a ton of nostalgia. The creators alone had outdone themselves by this chapter. Every room I went through brought back memories and also scared the crap out of me. For most of the rooms there wasn't even enemies but still I was on the edge of my seat like no other game. Chapter 10 is definitely one of the highlights of the game for me.
Another highlight like I previously mentioned is the attention to detail that was put towards Issac and the bigger Necromorphs. They look amazing and the noises that come from them just puts them on another level or scariness.
The three major nitpicks I had really hurt the game in my opinion. I think with these two additions the game could have easily topped the original by far. The first being that there are no bosses in the game which is a shocker because the first game had three amazing boss fights. Throughout the game I looked forward to seeing what Visceral had cooked up for bosses and turns out they didn't. The second nitpick I have is that I found the last chapter of the original Dead Space, when you go to the planet and the entire atmosphere changes because it is so bright and beautiful, was outstanding. This game doesn't feature that at all. The environments are different but they are all dark. I wanted something brighter and beautiful but again they didn't implement this. The third nitpick I had was the story is definitely not as good as I was hoping. Its not terrible but it is pretty disappointing.
Another minor nitpick is the difficulty. On normal the game was a pain in the ass to beat and put you in some unfair situations. I look forward to dying alot more on the next difficulty though.
The multiplayer is a decent addition even though I haven't spent too much time with it. Its a fun add on but the major part of the game is clearly the single player campaign.
At close to 10 hours, Dead Space 2 is a short game but its a game bound for numerous playthroughs so I found the game to be decent in length. The only major problems I have towards the game is that it fails in some ways to do what they already had done very well in the original. Huge boss fights, a different environment, and a great story were all included in the original but for some reason failed to be put in to the sequel. However, all the other technical, graphical, and playable aspects are all done with a newfound polish that the original game didn't have.
Overall, Dead Space 2 is a must buy, especially for fans waiting for their next horror fix.