Gaming Dead Space 2 Review

Isaac Clarke is back and madder than ever. Literally. Someone call a doctor.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/xbox-360/2011/02/01/dead-space-2-review/1

 

Sounds great. Just need to finish Dead Space 1 now.

 

Never finished the first. got bored of it. Think I will give this one a miss.

 

isnt it dx9 and not getting download content on pc?

= fail

 

The first was excellent, not sure how someone can get bored of it. Thought it was well paced and if you allowed yourself to become immersed, it was quite scary...... if played on the harder levels.

Not played much of the second one yet but it is good so far, perhaps not as much of an impact as the first.

 

I never played the first one But I would have probably got too scared to finish it anyway Maybe I will play thi sone though??

 

I really dislike third person shooters that don't do a good enough job of dealing with the third person perspective, is this one of them? Dead space 1 was.

 

The problem with the first one was you had limited health+low ammo and you had to buy both at great expense from shops, where if you weren't wasting money on ammo+health you could buy weapon upgrades instead.

Hence you spent a lot of the game trying to complete sections using the minimum ammo + health, then running back and forth saving. This meant a lot of restarting as every time you get jumped at some suspense moment, almost die but make it however having used up far too much ammo + in need of a large health pack you need to redo that section this time taking nearly no damage + using minimal ammo, then going back halfway across the map to save.

This isn't that much fun.

The game also forced you to shoot very accurately to win against charging/shooting enemies, while hampering you with dodgy mouse control and a 3rd person view point for aiming. This got pretty frustrating when you missed some enemy which not only meant a waste of expensive ammo but also getting hit wasting expensive health. Cue restarting that little bit again.

I did complete dead space, but I can't say I really enjoyed it. Is dead space 2 any better?

 

Sounds like you weren't very good at the game.

A lot of these complaints suck so far.


"isnt it dx9 and not getting download content on pc?

= fail"

Really? Who cares whether or not it's DX9 or 10, or even 11. The game looks great graphically. Why am I even replying to your post....

"I really dislike third person shooters that don't do a good enough job of dealing with the third person perspective, is this one of them? Dead space 1 was."

The perspective is the same in DS2. I think it looks and feels great. Gives you a good level of immersion.

 

Agreed, regardless of whether it uses DX9 or DX11, the game still looks great. It shouldn't use new tech just for the sake of using new tech.

The perspective is the same as it was in the first game. If you didn't like that, then...

And, agreed, it does just sound as if you weren't very good at the game, DbD. Ammo and health weren't that rare, though it was admittedly tough to get every upgrade. Still, if you were restarting after every fight and found it difficult to shoot an arm-covered monster in the limbs...

 

I recently got the original for a fiver and have completed it twice I thought it was great, really want to play DS2 but I want it to come down in price a bit.

 

Really? I found the game gave me far more med packs and ammo than I could ever use, so I sold them all at the store and spent all my cash on nothing but weapons and power nodes. After 1 1/2 playthroughs of the game I had bought all the suits and had fully upgraded every weapon. Granted this was on normal difficulty and I know this wasn't so much the case on the harder difficulties, but after all that is what the harder difficulties are there for, they shouldn't exactly be a cakewalk. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could have that much trouble completing the game on normal difficulty, let alone easy.

I also don't understand complaints about the third person camera angle. I like the fact it is so close to the character and doesn't let you immediately see everything around you. This is a deliberate design choice; if the camera angle was similar to the one in Batman:AA for instance, then the game wouldn't be nearly as scary/suspenseful.

 

This game reminds me stylistically about the transition from F.E.A.R to F.E.A.R 2 . Psychological Horror to a more action orientated experience.

Its a shame the second one was pants !

 

That's what the business calls survival horror. It'd be like complaining that MS Flight simulator involves planes!

Couldn't agree more. What's more, Dead Space 1 and 2 can run on very low hardware requirements - whoever coded the game did it bloody well.

Edit: I'm also glad to see the game awarded a high rating. Eight is spot on.

 

The real question is - are controls finally fixed ? Or it is still "roll your mouse 5 times over your mousepad and waste 30 seconds to turn around by 180 degrees" ? Dead Space 1 was unplayable exactly because of this issue (at least for me). And don't expect from me to play shooters with gamepad.

 

I'm really enjoying this one. The combat is very good (the 3rd person doesn't grate at all), and the game is generally scary at points, even if it's more BOOGA BOOGA BOO! scary than creeping dread scary. Joe is spot on to say it's paced very well indeed and the game dynamically adjusts drops of ammo and health to keep things tense without being frustrating, even on the normal difficulty. You might think you're flush with guns and health, but 5 mins later after a mega necro-morph fight in the dark, when you're limping and down to your last clip, is when the tension really sets it.

The only bummer for me is no MSAA support yet, even if you force it in the driver

 

Only just started playing the first one after the getting it in the steam sale.

Really enjoyed the hour or so that I've played so far, Think I'll complete AC:Brotherhood first though before I really get stuck into it.

 

Mouse cotrolls working fine for me, with or without v-sync, which IIRC was the cause of the DS1 issues.

 

I would never play FPS on a gamepad, but feel 3rd person games such as dead space are well suited to it.

I completed DS1 a few weeks ago with a 360 controller hooked up to the PC! Thought it was a great game!

 

Yup, the only real problem I have with both games .