Dead Space 2 Review - Is It Good or Bad?

Winston H.

Updated:

27 Jun 2021

Dead Space 2 Review - Is It Good or Bad?

Before we start with the review, I just want to preface it by saying that I have no reason to be biased towards praising or bashing this game. I'm not sponsored by the developers or publishers of the game, nor do I see video games like that; RDR2 is my favorite game of all time, and I still had expressed lots of complaints about it because that's just how I review games what it does right and wrong and how to do those two sides balance each other to give a final score..

I) What is Dead Space 2?

Dead Space 2 is a sequel to the Dead Space franchise, and it's a survival horror action where you continue the Story of Issac Clarke, who woke up from a 3-year coma in titan station, also known as sprawl.

Released on January 25, 2011, after being developed by Visceral Games and published by EA Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360.

Dead Space 2 had a huge success at its launch, selling 2 million copies in its first week, but it was still considered disappointing for EA despite that number.

II) Dead space 2’s Story:

Three years after the seventh Aegis event, Isaac Clark woke up on the Extension of a civilian space station in orbit around the remnants of Titan. Isaac wakes up mid a necromorph outbreak, and has no memory of the past few years, and experiences severe hallucinations.

While people are murdered and committing suicide, Isaac is contacted by Daina Le Guin, who explains that Isaac's encounter with Marker encoded his information into his brain; Sprawl director Hans Tiedemann gradually extracts data into a new Marker that his team of scientists reverse-engineered.

Drugging Isaac to erase his memory and protecting him from his frenzy and suicide. Now Issac seeks to destroy that Marker and stop the outbreak of the necromorphs.

III) Dead space 2 gameplay:

Dead space 2 still has you playing as Issac as the main protagonist, offering a more in-depth look at his character as well as giving him a voice that not just for moans and grunts but for speaking as well.

Combat

As in the first game, Isaac has to fight off the mutated and aggressive human corpses. To take them down, the player must use a "slicing strategy": in other words, have them participate in a weight loss contest by slicing away the limbs or parts of the necromorph participant.

For example, shooting a Slasher Necromorph in the head, like many other species, will have little effect; However, it can be stopped by firing at its bladed arms.

Depending on how they are injured, some necromorphes can adopt new ways and tactics, even sprouting new limbs or spawning more enemies in the process.

Issac also gets Stasis mode which is a freezing force that temporarily slows down enemies. It can be upgraded and used in a lot of ways.

Another great tool in Issac's arsenal is the kinesis which is essentially telekinesis powers that allow you to grab objects and throw them away; this can be used to pick up pointy spikes and shooting them towards enemies.

Movement

The movement of the character when you're playing didn't change much from the first game, although it feels a little better overall.

You don't feel 100% in control, it's not clunky, but it's an intentional stylistic choice to drive the narrative of not having the situation under control.

What the developer tried to do with Issac's movement works pretty well for what it is.

The suits our character finds himself wearing to protect himself from the different kinds of aliens aren't exactly made for agility, so it makes sense that the movement in them wouldn't feel like Issac is surviving an outbreak of aliens in sweat pants.

Missions

The first chapters are essentially just about surviving across multiple locations while trying to get to the reverse engineer marker and destroy it.

There are some new elements to play this time around. For example, there are some specific models that Isaac Clarke can hack "This task is easy just by moving the joystick to reveal the blue area in the electric field", and activating all three zones before the timer expires will lead to a successful hack of the machine.

This is not the best addition to the game, but it is a subtle distraction from all the horror, a breather before going back to the nightmare time.

You also can enter the lane engineer service center in some parts of the level, which allows you to crawl through channels. To reach the other sections of the levels, these slow steps and dying sections build the atmosphere of the game.

Upgrades and stores come back in the game and offer basic weapons and suit improvements.

Playtime

To beat the game on medium difficulty, it would take about 8 to 12 hours; some DLCs had two extra chapters continuing the Story of the characters from Dead Space: Extraction, which would get the playtime up to 19 to 21 hours.

IV) Visuals and Sound

The graphics are impressive for a 2012 game, the world is properly detailed, and the fact that there are little lights helps hide flaws that otherwise would pop out.

It gives an immersive vibe that takes you in and doesn't break character.

What helps the immersion is the perfect sound design; it's scary, claustrophobic, and creepy.

All of this is matched with ambient or classical music in the background to close the deal on the auditory experience.

V) Should you get it?

The full game is 19.99$ on steam which is a steal for the quality of it. If you like survival horror or thinking about trying one, this is one of the best introductions into that genre.

I guess all is left to say is b̵͈̟̓̒͑̈́̎̏̈́̒͛͜u̴̢̥̤͙͛y̵̢̨̗͉̳̲̩̤̳͎̗̣̞̬͋̈́̋̈̌̊ͅ ̴̛̰̭̬̻̘͙͖̙͇̬̉̀͒̃̏͑̇̆̕i̴̡̧̢̛̬͍͐̌͋̓͛̈͠͝t̷̡̘̰̮̟͓̝̩͐̅͛̏͋̊͛́̄̅́͛͜͠ ̶̛̰͉͈̬͎̰̱́̌́̽̓̉̔̈͋̉̈́ͅn̴̡̩̲̩̮̻̜̭̬̋̀̏͐̈́̇̈́̃ó̵̡̯̭̗̼̰͖̬͛́̈́̆͒͝͝͝ͅẉ̶͎͉̗̞̲̖̩