Game: Dead Space 2 (Visceral Games, 2011)

There are many reviews for Dead Space 2 that have compared the series so far as the Alien and Aliens of computer games. It's an easy analogy to make but it also fits very well: If Dead Space was the slow, brooding, dark and creepy one (which it clearly is, with its dark industrial corridors and lack of wide open spaces), then it's sequel dispenses all subtlety and goes straight for the jugular. From about minute two, you, as Isaac Clarke (protagonist from the 1st game), witness the new Necromorph infestation first hand. The chaos, whilst gruesome as hell, carries a distressing sense of panic and hopelessness to meld a genuinely unsettling experience; full blown terror in place of the original's jump and boo techniques. And this is only in the first level.

That's not to say it's always so in your face. One thing the guys at Visceral Games can be congratulated for is their near perfect sense of pace. Whilst the first couple of chapters insist in throwing everything it can at you, it does give a certain amount of breathing room whilst also, in an expert move, retaining the initial tension of that first half hour through the rest of the game. Compare it to any film/book you've seen/read that opens explosively then spends the rest of its time building relentless momentum to a truly insane climax. Spread over 8 or so hours of gameplay (I think my play time clocked in at 7hrs 57mins), the tension, at times, shreds your nerves.

It aint perfect. During it's middle chapters the constant walk-into-a-room-only-to-be-locked-in-and-attacked-by-beasties-on-all-sides gets a tad repetitive and there are some moments in the later stages that are more frustrating than challenging, even on the normal difficulty setting, but Dead Space 2 does what all great games should do: immerse you in the narrative and never let go. It's a powerful beast that still carries some of the flaws of it's predecessor but improves in all the ways a sequel should do.

Could the Dead Space series be the new Resident Evil? Quite possibly.

4.5/5