in which Nick plays Games: Dead Space 2
If you recall, I rather enjoyed the first game. I was planning on pre-ordering the Collector's Edition of this one until my friend did so and said the extras (a print, a CD, and a toy gun) were all cheap and useless. Saved myself some $25!
Things I Liked:
- It's largely the same game, with a few minor tweaks - slightly altered weaponry (the plasma rifle's alt fire is now part of the force gun, the plasma cutter is weaker, etc), some new weapons, and that's about it. Oh, and a bigger emphasis on Kinesis as a weapon. So given that I liked the first game, I'm OK with that, but others might not be.
- Many of the same things I loved about the first - the audio diaries, the sorrow, the environment - are the same. So I still like them?
- The new enemy, the Stalker? HOLY SHIT. Awesome.
- There's a bit right before Chapter 14 where you have to shove a needle into your own eye. FANTASTICALLY CREEPY.
- Zombie children remain creepy. Zombie babies too.
- I played through on "Survivalist" mode, which is a step-up from Normal. It was significantly harder than my playthrough of Dead Space in that I had to actually BUY ammo, but I still never bought health or stasis packs, and I had probably 100k+ in gear to sell if I wanted at the end. Still, more difficult WAS better!
- The zero-g sections were fun, for once.
- The story wasn't too bad, and it was neat to have a named NPC that didn't die or betray you. 1 NPC out of 2 games - shit odds.
- The put you back on the Ishimura at one point, and do a fantastic job of just being quiet. THEN the monsters show and shit goes squirrelly, but man - up to that point, I was on pins and needles.
- NO FUCKING ADS CANNON!
Things I Didn't Like:
- Things I didn't like in the first game - inexplicable weak points, giant yellow exploding pus sacs, the 'bad DM' NPCs.
- Other than the Stalkers (which, mind, were GREAT), not a lot of new stuff to kill.
- And, honestly, there wasn't that MUCH variety either. Slashers and Spitters (oh fucking SPITTERS) got a lot of screen time. Lurkers, a bit. Leapers, Stalkers, Crawlers? Not so much. There were 3 or 4 Brutes (including one evolved), 2 Tall Men and maybe 4 Pregnants? The hell?
- Ever worse than the first game, you knew where enemies were - if you saw a store, it was highly unlikely to be a threat. Benches likewise. Audio logs, almost assuredly. Zero-G? Almost never, unless it was a zero-g SPECIFIC threat.
- Hacking was stupid.
- The new weapons were largely ignorable. I picked up the mines just for the Stalkers, but the rest were uninteresting and I never bought them. Ended up with the Plasma Cutter, Plasma Rifle, Ripper (natch), Line Gun, and Mines. That's it.
- Ripper was still massively overpowered.
- I rarely if ever used Kinesis to kill stuff. Sure, I'd occasionally do it if really low on ammo (I didn't buy ammo until I HAD TO before the end of Chapter 9) and exploding barrels were fun to throw, but most of the time I didn't bother.
- Still don't really care for stasis. That you all but HAD to use it on Brutes, Stalkers, and a few others was kinda insane. I think I had well over 21 unused recharge packs in storage.
- The voice-acting (particularly Ellie?) was pretty terrible.
- The last two chapters sort of took the whole game off the rails - there's an unkillable zombie that stalks you (just like in Resident Evil! Or Dead Space 1!), TONS of cheap-shot leaping/slashing/whatever badguys, and the final sequence (from Tildeman on) is just ludicrous.
- Even in buying ammo, I ended the game with almost 100k in unused funds and gear, and this is after buying probably 50k in ammo and something like 30 power nodes. So I spend almost half a million in credits and could've spent MORE? Wow.
Verdict:
Pretty much same as the first - solid for $30-40 if you're looking for a good 10-12 hours of zombie-based survival horror, but not much beyond that. To be fair, I didn't play the multi-player component (which EA has stupidly hidden behind a code) or do a replay yet. I probably will replay it, mind - there's both a Zealot (hard!) mode, and a "hard core" mode in which you can only save 3 times AND every death kicks you back to your last save. So...yeah. Beating Hard Core, though, gives you the Hand Cannon, so I more or less HAVE to do this. It's going to be a long, long suckfest though.
Still - a good time if you like zombies and survival 'horror'.
Things I Liked:
- It's largely the same game, with a few minor tweaks - slightly altered weaponry (the plasma rifle's alt fire is now part of the force gun, the plasma cutter is weaker, etc), some new weapons, and that's about it. Oh, and a bigger emphasis on Kinesis as a weapon. So given that I liked the first game, I'm OK with that, but others might not be.
- Many of the same things I loved about the first - the audio diaries, the sorrow, the environment - are the same. So I still like them?
- The new enemy, the Stalker? HOLY SHIT. Awesome.
- There's a bit right before Chapter 14 where you have to shove a needle into your own eye. FANTASTICALLY CREEPY.
- Zombie children remain creepy. Zombie babies too.
- I played through on "Survivalist" mode, which is a step-up from Normal. It was significantly harder than my playthrough of Dead Space in that I had to actually BUY ammo, but I still never bought health or stasis packs, and I had probably 100k+ in gear to sell if I wanted at the end. Still, more difficult WAS better!
- The zero-g sections were fun, for once.
- The story wasn't too bad, and it was neat to have a named NPC that didn't die or betray you. 1 NPC out of 2 games - shit odds.
- The put you back on the Ishimura at one point, and do a fantastic job of just being quiet. THEN the monsters show and shit goes squirrelly, but man - up to that point, I was on pins and needles.
- NO FUCKING ADS CANNON!
Things I Didn't Like:
- Things I didn't like in the first game - inexplicable weak points, giant yellow exploding pus sacs, the 'bad DM' NPCs.
- Other than the Stalkers (which, mind, were GREAT), not a lot of new stuff to kill.
- And, honestly, there wasn't that MUCH variety either. Slashers and Spitters (oh fucking SPITTERS) got a lot of screen time. Lurkers, a bit. Leapers, Stalkers, Crawlers? Not so much. There were 3 or 4 Brutes (including one evolved), 2 Tall Men and maybe 4 Pregnants? The hell?
- Ever worse than the first game, you knew where enemies were - if you saw a store, it was highly unlikely to be a threat. Benches likewise. Audio logs, almost assuredly. Zero-G? Almost never, unless it was a zero-g SPECIFIC threat.
- Hacking was stupid.
- The new weapons were largely ignorable. I picked up the mines just for the Stalkers, but the rest were uninteresting and I never bought them. Ended up with the Plasma Cutter, Plasma Rifle, Ripper (natch), Line Gun, and Mines. That's it.
- Ripper was still massively overpowered.
- I rarely if ever used Kinesis to kill stuff. Sure, I'd occasionally do it if really low on ammo (I didn't buy ammo until I HAD TO before the end of Chapter 9) and exploding barrels were fun to throw, but most of the time I didn't bother.
- Still don't really care for stasis. That you all but HAD to use it on Brutes, Stalkers, and a few others was kinda insane. I think I had well over 21 unused recharge packs in storage.
- The voice-acting (particularly Ellie?) was pretty terrible.
- The last two chapters sort of took the whole game off the rails - there's an unkillable zombie that stalks you (just like in Resident Evil! Or Dead Space 1!), TONS of cheap-shot leaping/slashing/whatever badguys, and the final sequence (from Tildeman on) is just ludicrous.
- Even in buying ammo, I ended the game with almost 100k in unused funds and gear, and this is after buying probably 50k in ammo and something like 30 power nodes. So I spend almost half a million in credits and could've spent MORE? Wow.
Verdict:
Pretty much same as the first - solid for $30-40 if you're looking for a good 10-12 hours of zombie-based survival horror, but not much beyond that. To be fair, I didn't play the multi-player component (which EA has stupidly hidden behind a code) or do a replay yet. I probably will replay it, mind - there's both a Zealot (hard!) mode, and a "hard core" mode in which you can only save 3 times AND every death kicks you back to your last save. So...yeah. Beating Hard Core, though, gives you the Hand Cannon, so I more or less HAVE to do this. It's going to be a long, long suckfest though.
Still - a good time if you like zombies and survival 'horror'.