Four Limbs Way Up!

Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are. For fans of the original Dead Space those words no longer hold meaning of childhood and innocence, but instead are merely the creepy reminder of a time spent aboard a derelict starship filled with death and fear at every turn.

Opening with a bang we find Isaac Clarke, Engineer and sole survivor of the disastrous events upon the Planet Cracker, the USG Ishimura, which claimed the lives of every crew member aboard, imprisoned in a straight jacket and drugged into delirium while a stranger brings him to consciousness. As this man speaks to a stranger at the other end of his com link a scythe is thrust through his abdomen and he is transformed into one of the horrors our protagonist had escaped only a short time before.

Isaac is then guided by only the voice of a woman named Daina, as well as an escaped mental patient by the name of Norman Stross. He struggles to find out how he has come to be on the space station, The Sprawl, which orbits Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, with no memory of the last three years or why he has ended up in this place. His ultimate goal however is to discover how the necromorphs have come to this station after he destroyed both the Hive Mind and the Red Marker on Aegis VII. Through this he struggles with a deteriorating mental state and constant reminders of the loss he faced during his first encounter.

Definitely worth waiting for, Dead Space 2 provides an awesome new look into what it’s like to experience an outbreak first hand and how difficult it is to survive during one. The game wastes no time in throwing you into the thick of the enemy outbreak and makes it clear that it is not here to be your friend. It is looking to kill you and wants all the blood it can get as you arm yourself against old foes and new who will find you within the first hour of the game, all of them looking for a piece of you.

The overall game play mechanics are the same with a few added tweaks as well to keep you on your toes. While the controls are very much the same, Isaac has been given a voice and will tell you exactly how he feels about being hit by a necromorph or what joy it brings him to stomp the items from a fallen enemy. In addition he takes a very active part in the story and dictates just as much as he is told, despite how little he knows of his surroundings. No longer the gofer, Isaac is now looking to take charge of the action as he knows his enemy.

As interesting as it is dark DS2 leaves several surprises for the player and many twisted occurrences and background sounds and action that will leave you questioning the mental stability of the games creators. The moment that has stuck the most since playing this long awaited sequel was just this: Isaac is walking down a hallway of the living quarters when from inside one of them, the sounds of a screaming woman can be heard as she is dragged away by a vicious necromorph and slowly the sound fades into nothing. Suddenly, when all is quiet the sound of a whimper and the cry of a baby, as it was left alone to cry in the dark. The child’s fate, and that of those like it, is soon made clear as you progress through the game.

Shocking, suspenseful, bloody, and fun, Dead Space 2 takes everything that makes the original great and expands on it to drag you deeper into their reality, making the game everything a good sequel should be. Just remember the words of the long dead tram engineer, Benson, from the Ishimura:”Forget about shooting them in the body, you gotta cut off the limbs!”