REVIEW: Dead Space 2

Sequel to one of the most original games ever, there was a very high standard for this game to live up to. But did it deliver?


I had a problem with this game. Literally. In that my second disc on my Xbox wasn't working. So after putting it down after intensively working my way through the first disc, I finally returned to Hell on Earth, or in space should I say after a 5 month hiatus.

Dead Space 2 takes place not long after the first game and Isaac is in a psychiatry ward in a settlement on some planet or other. Immediately, things start going wrong again. After an escape, your back with the monsters and you are left to survive - alone. Well, mostly. There's some woman who is helping you out a bit along the way as well - but she's hardly there so don't worry.

I can't really remember much of the story. You generally have to get from A to B via C and press a few buttons and do some things to turn things off and on in the grander scheme of things or whatever, but I never really understood the story at any point. You're also seems you're against the military as they are to recover the artefact, this ancient huge structure that seems to be the key to everything. What makes this game enjoyable is that the artefact and the story around it might seem like the main story, however it is in fact the story of Isaac's peronal issues that are the most interesting - and in fact make for the heart wrenching power behind what would usually be dismissed as a no-brainer action game.

In case you didn't know, the first Dead Space was actually Isaac coming to terms with his inner demons in relation to his wife. This denial continues in Dead Space 2 where is trying his hardest to let her go, but he cannot. She appears, calling him back into madness, Isaac trying desperately to hang onto his sanity. Again, the monsters are just personifications of his mental breakdown and it's these two levels of interpretation that make the game work. For the action shoot'em'uppers, it's a man killing monsters with a big bit of stone in the middle and some weird stuff going on, but for those who wish to, the story can be read in a multiple of ways.

In any case, EA have taken Dead Space 2 in a different direction. There's a lot more action, you get thrown about the city which has huge landscapes and more larger scale battles. However, what it makes up for in action it loses in it's original appeal. The reason why I loved the first game is that on the Ishimura spaceship, the corridors were tiny, claustrophobic, making you constantly on edge. The tension was unbearable at times and it dotted the gameplay with action set pieces that fulfilled the odd blood lust. Dead Space 2 does have tension, but it's so open that you can't help but feel like they've missed the point slightly. It's the same feeling as if it's like a Hollywood remake of a Japanese horror film. However, at one point when you enter back into Ishimura, it was one of the most emotive sequences I've had in a game. The recognisable set, the horrible closed corridors, the long elevator rides, it all came flooding back in a wave of dread upon me in a too-brief chapter that made it clear to me that the original Dead Space was definitely better.

An annoying aspect near the end, when you're up against an invincible Terminator-esque monster (which made me recall Resident Evil 3) took me quite a few attempts as I had ran out of ammo and health. I'd recommend saving at regular intervals on different slots because I'm used to just overwriting my save files again and again and I was gutted I couldn't go back to fill up on more health and ammo before launching into this battle against a load of creatures and someone that can't die. The same for the final boss battle, which took a few attempts and then suddenly through a stroke of chance I completed in about 20 seconds.

The gameplay however is a lot smoother, the graphics more colourful yet washed out and they have taken painstaking effort into the small details that grace the game's every moment. The voice acting is superb but, much like the first game, the overall story arc as I said before could have been more simplified. Why am I pushing this button again? Who is this guy? Why am I going back into Ishimura again? Luckily, it never stays like that for long and you're quite happy just to follow where you mean to go and kill some things along the way.

I did thoroughly enjoy the game and it was definitely a great purchase. However, it wasn't the survival horror that the first one was and also I didn't collect near as enough ammo or power nodes etc. by the end as I had done in the first game, so I felt like they somewhat rely on the fact you might want to replay the game keeping all your stuff again and adding to it. I just think that it's a worthy sequel but can't touch the amazing experience that I took during the first game.

Great fun but somewhat lacking in areas. I can only hope that another game like the first, or perhaps a sequel that might do something a bit different will come about. As much as I love those weird monsters, I can't help but feel that I'm going to be a bit sick of them if it's the same thing third time round. They should definitely make it more disturbing, which doesn't always mean less action.

And please no Terminator type monsters. As tense as it was, it was also very annoying.

Go out and buy it. You won't be disappointed but if you haven't done the first one? Definitely do that first.

Rating: 8/10

REVIEW: Crysis 2

Being one of the most exciting games with a brand spanking new engine to boast about has been causing quite the stir. But is it all that it's meant to be?


The new CryEngine has blown away it's competitors, but now with Unreal having announced their follow-up engine (perhaps the most used engine on the market), where does this leave Crytek? It's staple example of the engine being Crysis 2. Well, undoubtedly, this is a very pretty game. What you will notice the most is not necessarily the characters, but the fluidity of natural elements such as fire, light, water, smoke, explosions etc., it's these that are remarkably impressive. But does the game work?

As an engine, it works very well. However, as a game it's a different story. I came onto this right off the back of Homefront and it was a complete change of pace, but looking back on it now, Crysis 2 is only marginally better. Sure the graphics are superb, perhaps the best I've seen on a next-gen console, but it lacks something.

I feel the main reason is that it still feels like a PC FPS, and to a lesser extent, a poor man's Halo. The aliens are colourful, pretty, but to be honest they are quite similar and range from soldier ones, hard soldier ones, massive ones, and a big War of the World type one - which there are about 4 or 5 in the game. You are fighting humans as well who want your suit, but in theory it's the aliens that are the real threat. This also brings up the issue that I haven't played Crysis, so I've no idea where these aliens have come from, who The Prophet really is, why it's set in New York and if any of these 'flashbacks' are relevant. It's a simple story of reaching A to B with people trying to kill you and nab your suit or some such thing - really, it's all a lot of nonsense. You're a super soldier who has to save the world (basically Master Chief).

The controls are typical FPS except you have to double click your 'change weapon' button for a grenade (ridiculous), you hold LB for armour and RB for cloak. You can upgrade your alien-like powers (which I saved up for no reason really) and of which it's never fully explained why you should care that the suit is part alien or something now. You can also customise your weapon mid-game, it's a nice touch. However, what you find is that cloaking is a complete ball-ache and you're much better off going in guns-a-blazing, which almost defeats the point of it. I would usually try going in using the cloak first and if I didn't get far or got found out, then when I respawned, I'd just shoot everyone and complete it in a quarter of the time. The AI isn't too bad, but sometimes they do just stand there while you shoot them in the face. You don't have health really, but rather an energy meter where basically anything you do apart from walking uses up the energy meter so the nice bit is you've got your eye on it the whole time, always reaching out a bit further from when you can recharge your cloak to move to the next spot. All very nice touches and a storyline that isn't too crap. But why am I not feeling it?

It could be that for something so uniquely epic in a devastated New York, it actually feels rather small. You just continue moving, shooting, moving and really, it feels like it should be bigger than it is. The visuals were great, but I feel they were wasted with some perhaps quite poor game directing - it was rather short, easy and constantly anti-climatic. Your suit kept 're-booting' and there were some lame 'Press A For Defribulator' moments that felt pushed in and really the whole thing annoyed me slightly. The constant 'visor' to check out who was lurking about was like a chore that I soon ditched when I realised I didn't need it. The game just felt like it had such a powerful machine behind it, but was let down by some quite boring, unoriginal and uninspiring gameplay.

I'm not saying this was crap. Far from it. It's a smooth, sleek, well-furnished FPS that is worth it's money. It has a pretty good multiplayer section and is generally good fun, but it didn't have that epic story, that real emotional pull that other FPS games might have. Instead it was a cock-out action piece that had some stealth elements thrown in that slowed down the game, rather than adding a new dimension to it. The story was rather bland and about a quarter of the way through I just wanted to complete the thing - I didn't care anymore.

I had really high hopes for this game. The end 'crawling' bit reminded me of MGS4, which is a few years old now and that did it a whole lot better, remember all those amazing multiple screens? It heightened the drama whereas Crysis 2 makes you feel like a lame duck. Your suit keeps buggering up, but it doesn't matter because it reboots and works fine in a matter of moments anyway. Your looking around going 'that looks cool' when really it's taking away from the fact that it's a completely average shooter.

As far as FPS's go, it's a definite contender. It's a gorgeous game that will have you playing it for a good couple of days or perhaps weeks if you're more casual, but it's nothing that made me feel like it was the future of gaming. Instead, when I wanted to come away with a Wow, I came away with a small sigh and a little smile. It's worth shelling out for just to be pretty, and if you have a 3DTV and all that, but this is not an urgent game, you can definitely wait for it to come down in price, rent it, or just complete the game that you're doing now and save Crysis 2 for a later time because, unfortunately, it's not going anywhere. It does get an extra mark for being so bloody beautiful, the cheeky minx.

Rating: 7/10

NEWS: Modern Warfare 3 Announced

Activision and Raven team up for MW3 To Be Released This November!

Raven, the team who did the pretty incredible Singularity (reviewed here last year) will assist in the multiplayer production of MW3 for this November and Sledgehammer will work with Activision on the single-player element. This now means the Call of Duty project set in the future has been put on hold.

In other Call of Duty news, Activision are taking EA to court to say that they were working with Infinity Ward to delay the release of the Stimulus Package in time for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 to be released. EA say it's a load of old shit but Activision think differently.

I have to say I don't even recall playing the Singularity multiplayer but I guess Activision had to bring someone in and Singlularity was the freshest FPS I'd seen for a while so it will be interesting to see where this goes, it's just annoying that it won't be set in the future!

Medal Of Honor

As people are gearing up for Call Of Duty: Black Ops, Medal of Honor (or Honour depending if you've become completely AmericaniZed or not) tries it's hand at pulling in the Modern Warfare fanbase with it's own take on the current war in the Middle East. Can it rise to the pinnacle of FPS war games that it once held? Or is it still stuck in the past?

Do people remember the original Medal Of Honour games? I remember them with such fond rose-tinted glasses but somewhere along the line it lost it's way. It became preoccupied with just having people move and shoot, move and shoot, rather than giving it some story and the multiplayer went from reasonable to dreadful pretty rapidly. As Medal Of Honour declined, Call Of Duty rose in it's place, once considered the lesser of war FPS's there isn't a soul out there that hasn't heard of it. Where did Medal Of Honour go wrong? Well whatever they did, EA have decided to come back guns-a-blazing and basically copy Call of Duty's Modern Warfare series by bringing everything up to date.

Medal Of Honour takes place in the Middle East where you're basically set missions. It's all American and your mates are called Mother, Preacher and whatever. You play different roles as you jump from one angle of the mission to another but to be honest, I had absolutely no idea what the whole plotline was about. Something about a stupid General giving out crap orders while you're trying to save your own men; this camaraderie anti-authoritarian standpoint seems to be a constant issue in these games. In the sense that, war isn't about politics, in the end it's about the soldiers and they don't WANT to get involved in these fights but they have to, that in games like this you are trying your best just to make it out alive. It's as if they are standing apart from the issues of it all but doing their bit nonetheless - and my God this is trying to be dramatic. The end sequence is a plate of stilton wafting up my nose like nerve gas.

So the story isn't much, but the gameplay must be good right? Well, in a way. There's a lot of helping each other up and waiting for your comrades, which grates after a while and so many niggling points that you can't help but feel it was slightly rushed to get out before Call of Duty. Little points are that sometimes, the enemies will keep coming, which is fine but is a little old hat now, that if you run out of ammo you can ask someone else for it, which is a good point, but you have to equip the right gun which makes it fiddly and sometimes it won't register, an annoying bug if ever I saw one. Other points are there is no RPG action or anything like that, they try some variety by making you shoot from a helicopter, do some hardcore sniping, some stealth action, quad biking, but really it all feels forced and linear. You won't have trouble doing this on the hardest difficulty setting either, the only times I died was through impatience. But then, another annoying aspect is that it can go from being shot to dead very quickly without immediately running for cover. This 'realistic' approach works in a way, but really it's just annoying.

What I loved about Call of Duty is not only the story but the stand-out scenarios and sequences, something that Medal of Honor tries to recreate but in a vain attempt. The cut scenes with you nearing death seem to be quite frequent, to the point where it loses it's emphasis but there are some stand out bits that I really enjoyed. Namely, trying to survive an onslaught in a tiny house in the middle of the desert was amazing, the ambush on your drop-off point and the cut scene where you're in a crashing aircraft were all bloody cool, but really that was it. You also have to have the volume turned up quite loud in order to hear what your team-mates are saying because, annoyingly, they will constantly be telling you what to do. Rarely do you use your second weapon, or even grenades and the entire game was stupidly short. I think I completed it in about 4-5 hours, if that.

So the Campaign aspect wasn't great, but visually it looked incredible, it seems like EA have put style over content so that everything looks incredible rather than concentrating on the stuff that matters - it's the equivalent of a multi-million Hollywood blockbuster that looks amazing but feels as empty as a balloon. So what about the other aspects?

The normal multiplayer game is basically an almost carbon copy of Battlefield but what I hate about it, is that unlike Call of Duty where with enough skill you can still progress and have fun, Medal Of Honor needs you to have a good gun and know where all the good hiding points are. It's basically a sniper's paradise, problem being the learning curve is so steep it'll put a lot of people off. Gamers could argue this that it's worth investing in, that levelling up isn't as tough, but it's seriously not that fun and definitely not as fun as Call of Duty's multiplayer options. I didn't do too badly either, being an FPS master of sorts, but there were too many times where I would just go round a corner and I'm dead or even more annoyingly, I would see someone, shoot them straight for ages, and then he'll shoot me once and I'm dead. It's enough to sling your control to the floor.

The other extra option they have is Tier 1 - a stupid timed way of completing the game that you have to be signed into Xbox Live to do, being on a home network means sometimes my internet can cut out if someone else is using a computer for instance, so just when I'm about to complete a level under par time? I get disconnected and the game quits. All that work for nothing. Fuck. That. That will definitely be the first and last time I play that, and it's really only for completists to show off, definitely not for the casual gamer. EA have also done this thing where you need a VIP pass in order to access some of the online features, so if you bought your game second hand, you won't be able to use the code as it can only be used once. What a stupid idea.

Overall, this has to be the biggest disappointment of the year so far. I enjoyed playing through the short campaign, but the Tier 1 thing is pointless and the multiplayer flawed. It's definitely just a stop gap for a couple of weeks until Call of Duty Black Ops. Play it for something to do, but don't get your hopes up.

Rating: 6/10