Gaming Dead Space 2 Review

I agree. I spit on gamepads when it comes to FPS, RTS etc, but they work fine for third person games like this. Having said that, I could have done with my mouse for beating the final monster on DS1 (I played on the xbox).

 

Sounds like my PC had some issues? I too had the mouse react very slow, in spite of a high-DPI mouse and sensitivity cranked up to maximum. This might've been the cause of my wrong perception of 3dPS, seeing how I only really disliked the looking back and taking turns. ( I quit about 15 minutes in the game)

 

Seems like comparing the Alien film with aliens 2. The first was die-hard horror, the second was more action oriented.

 

Although apparently better than HL2, as per your article last year: http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2010/02/18/your-favourite-game-was-rubbish/3

 

I enjoyed watched the animated story of dead space 2 much like I did for dead space 1 before playing

 

Heh, last time I say this I swear:

FORCE VSYNC THROUGH THE DRIVERS!

That is a perfect analogy.

 

Dead Space is a fantastic game, with brilliant graphics and controls. I never had any problem with controls in first part. Now, second part is even more beautiful with upgraded graphics.
I haven't played it yet, but I'm looking forward to, should get it this week.

 

I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It's more action packed than its predecessor, which removes some of the tension, and therefore it's not as scary. It’s highly atmospheric and damn good fun to play though and the graphics are great whilst not too taxing.

Also mouse and keyboard works better this time around making dismemberment a joy.

 

As much as I'm going to kick Joe for dissing a game he spent an awful lot of time playing and enjoying, I must jump to his defense here: all that article states is that arguably Doom 3's plot was told better than Half-Life 2's, nothing about the games overall (because HL2 was better, obviously).

 

I picked up DS in the steam sale, and played it for about 2 hours before the horrible controls, like a lot of console ports, forced me to give up on it.

I note a couple of people stating that the controls are better in DS2 so I may give it a go when it comes down in price a bit.

 

Really surprised me this one. Gaping plot holes aside, the fantastic pacing, satisfying weaponry, superb graphics and simply masterful 5.1 surround soundtrack make for a superb big-screen experience.

N.B. Make sure you fail to fight off each of the the bosses/enemies at least once, and enjoy the fantastically gory death scenes. Gotta love the giant claw through head dismemberment animations. Lovely, lovely stuff.

 

WTF is all this omg great graphics???

U blind or what?

Many textures are worse then in Dead Space, which weren't all that great to begin with.

Another thing worse then original is Anti Aliasing. WTF developers didnt have enough time to fix the bloody engine? Now u can't force AA through drivers (like in DS) because if u do, u lose shadows - the only thing worth mentioning graphics wise.

 

As someone who eat, breathed and drank all the goodness that is dead space since the first game came out, you can bet the second one is just as good and it is, plus your iron man now with your 'lil thrusters in space. Very relaxing just floating around in the void once you deal with all the enemies.

Multiplayer - needs to be patched just like every other multiplayer game, theres some lag issues, there are some skill issues with one team getting players with no upgrades or anything and the other team having unlocked guns and just pretty much walking through some of the levels while they rack up the points. Still hella fun though, feels a lot like a console version of L4D minus the first person shooter part.

 

First game was brilliant and this looks to be too!

 

played both, both worth the $.... the game does "cheat you in some action scenes and does get a bit repetitive but the high quality graphics were fun.

 

Loved the first one, but I didn;t realise till half way through that you could open the white lighted lockers! Maybe this is also the problem DdD is having with lack of ammo?

 

Just finished it. I have to say I enjoyed it immensely. Like the first, but to me a bit more like an interactive movie as Issac's interactions with other characters makes him seem more involved, vs. just a puppet / victim that "I" was saving. The comments about pacing are true, just when you think you can't take anymore you're pushing against nothing....it goes calm for a bit. And there are a couple of pretty horrible moments that they make you take part in. I don't want to spoil it by saying more. They did a good job of I think building on the psychological effects of what happened before and explaining how the events on Aegis VII 'grew' as a result of the original discovery, and why those responsible could or would be so shortsighted. (Again, attempting not to spoil for those who havent even finished the first)

The visuals DX9, 10, or even if they're 8 - are stunning. Some of the lighting effects blew me away (there was one - rare - calm moment that I just looked around, enjoying the lightplay and shadow effects). Zero g was a lot easier to handle now (in a good way, not 'dumbed down' - never made sense to me that a vacuum capable engineering suit wouldnt' have thruster jets in the first one.

To those complaining about the PC controls on the first one - now only can you force VSYNC but you could also hack the .ini file yourself. I think I turned the mouse sensitivity to something like 1.7 (normally on a scale of 0 - 1). The bar looks stupid when you reboot and see it in the options menu, as it runs past the normal range, but it makes the controls much more what a PC user is used to. I'm not excusing that one had to do that - it was definitely a bit of a troublesome issue for a console port - but it was correctable with almost no real effort (yes, the .ini change works on the Steam version too, just have to find it). DS2 did NOT have similar issues, btw, controls were fine out of the box, I think I set mouse sensitivity to about 0.85.

My one complaint - and it was mentioned in a review on another site. Some of the audio dialog that's kind of important to the story development is so distorted (on purpose) I had a hard time understanding it. I hope they might 'patch' those audio files - the writing was overall pretty darn good and I feel like I missed a lot due to the audio issues. Might try again with only 2-channel (was playing 5.1 surround on multidriver earphones)

 

**not** only could you set VSYNC I meant. I did have it on by default for DS2 as well, and never thought controls were acting wrong. I did tend to run into impossible odds a few times. I hate the damn evil kids, even more than the tentacley-wallcrawling infants in the first one. Easy to kill individually, but they hunt in packs....

 

I think the point some were making is, usually DX9 screams port...whether that's fair or not.. DX10 and better still DX11, at least suggest they've really spent some time on the PC version, not treating it as some after thought, once the version developed to run on crappy(by PC standards) console HW is completed.

PC fans will have to wait for DICE with their planned Battlefield 3 reveal on March1st, to see if a major game built on DX11, featuring things like DX11 multithreading (if drivers ever come), tessellation, native 64 bit support, etc. can really raise the bar. It used to be the case that the games forced upgrades. Games coming out with DX9 in 2011 can never do that and you know this before you even play them.

The lighting is incredible though, in the first game too. Iirc, they apparently had experts from the movie world. They used a specially developed deferred lighting mesh?? Imho, DS's lighting was to that game, what those superb water effects were to Bioshock.

 

I don't know about you, but I dislike having to force something through drivers for something basic such as the controls to work properly...