As many of you might know, E3 happened this week. Last year around this time, the game I am reviewing this post was previewed. It is Dead Space 2, a horror action game from the minds behind the first Dead Space and Dante's Inferno.
Three years have passed since Issac Clarke had boarded the USG Ishimura in order to find his girl friend Nicole. After managing to escape the horror of the necromorphs, destroying the Red Marker and fleeing the planet, he wakes up in a hospital on Titan Station, and not everything is as it seems. When he wakes up, he is met with another Necromorph infestation and must escape. On the way he decides to go after the marker with the help of a fellow patient, Stross, and a CEC Class Four Heavy Equipment Pilot named Elli Langford.
This game is so much fun. After getting it a month or so before I've already played through it at least four times. Its challenging, horrific, funny and emotional. The whole way through the game Issac is suffering from dementia born from the Red Marker he had encountered in the last game. Every time you go into one of his visions the screen turns different colors and you are normally faced with Nicole. Yes, your dead girlfriend from the last game is back haunting you but she is nothing like in the last game. At least in that she was trying to help you. In DS2 she is trying to kill you.
The Necromorphs are as bad as ever. In this game you get a few returning favorites along with some new ones. My current favorites/tough guys are the Stalkers. They come out of behind walls and slam into you. They act a little bit like pack animals. Creepy and tough as hell. Also there is the puker, who pukes acid on your face and makes you move at a crawl. Creepy things.
The action is crisp, the horror is fantastic and truely scary. Some things can be fustrating. If you haven't played Dead Space before, play it on Causal difficulty all the way through. It will make normal and then the other modes after that much easier for you.
Issac's voice actor is wonderful and added voice just makes you feel for him more as a person. His struggles really do come to life. The choice to change Nicole's voice actor also turned out to be a really good idea. I don't think the actress from the last game could do 'hellishly evil and sweet' all at the same time. I really loved the character of Ellie and hope to see her in the next game.
I give Dead Space 2 4.5 stars out of 5.
