Dead Space 2: Horror Will Never Be The Same Again
Dead Space 2When the original Dead Space launched, it redefined the sub-genre we know as "survival/horror." Some say it fit better into the standard action or third-person shooter category but in truth, it was an evolutionary take on an aging category of gaming.
You will see our review of the sequel within the next couple of days but in the meantime, we can tell you that once again, we're forced to think about horror in games in a whole new way. The core gameplay mechanic remains the same, but developer Visceral has taken the next step, and we just dare you to play Dead Space 2 at about 2 a.m. with all the lights turned off. In the past, Resident Evil and Silent Hill have given us memorable and terrifying experiences, but Dead Space switches up the pacing and simply won't let you rest. In the older survival/horror games, there were always instances of anxiety and fear but when you start to play DS2, you'll start to notice that you're never relaxed.
Even when you're coming down from the latest high, the next is likely right around the corner. Pacing is important in any entertainment product that wishes to instill fear in the participant, and it's also essential to understand basic human nature. In-your-face gore soon becomes little more than tiresome and disgusting; it's why Silent Hill always succeeded at creeping up our spines. It didn't rely entirely on gore; it was more about a scraping and a shuffling off in the fog and darkness...we didn't know what it was, and that was the worst part. And while it's true DS2 has a lot more gore, Visceral still keeps such elements alive. And this is why games designed to scare people will never be the same again.
"I think it'll make a person become insane." "This game is an atrocity." Those are two quotes from the horrified mothers who were shown snippets of Dead Space 2 and while it's easy for the desensitized gamers to scoff, we can almost guarantee that DS2 will show you a little something you've never seen before...
Related Game(s): Dead Space 2
Tags: dead space 2, ds2, ea, survival horror
1/24/2011 9:14:05 PM Ben Dutka
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Comments (69 posts)
GuernicaReborn
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 11:02:47 AM
1 up, 0 down
LimitedVertigo
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 9:45:53 PM
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4 up, 2 down
BikerSaint
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 9:59:55 PM
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I just gotta make sure to buy all my neighbor's large super-industrial-absorbant sized box of "Depends" before they start hearing the screaming coming out of their walls at 3 AM.
5 up, 0 down
GuernicaReborn
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 11:04:52 AM
2 up, 0 down
Nlayer
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 2:33:22 PM
2 up, 0 down
Snaaaake
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 10:05:34 PM
Reply
Demon's Souls has some creepy environment, I'm a scaredy cat so some places creeps me out.
That is where RE5 failed, you can't have survival horror in a sunny day.
3 up, 0 down
WorldEndsWithMe
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 10:07:03 PM
2 up, 0 down
PorkChopGamer
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 12:26:34 AM
0 up, 1 down
LimitedVertigo
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 12:47:07 AM
7 up, 0 down
aaronisbla
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 1:16:44 AM
After loving RE4 when it first came out, then hearing about RE5 being in sunlight, i had a bit of faith in capcom back then. But the more i played and seen from them this gen, the more my faith dwindled. By the time RE5 was released, my expectations were very low for it, unfortunately the game turned out worse than i thought it would
Last edited by aaronisbla on 1/25/2011 1:19:04 AM
4 up, 1 down
WorldEndsWithMe
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 10:05:44 PM
Reply
Hang on, I think I heard something shuffling this way...
3 up, 0 down
LimitedVertigo
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 12:47:41 AM
3 up, 0 down
WorldEndsWithMe
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 10:00:33 AM
2 up, 0 down
jaynet333
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 10:23:36 PM
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1 up, 0 down
MadKatBebop
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 10:39:09 PM
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I'm gonna play it at night with the lights off, wish me luck!.
1 up, 0 down
CHAOS THEORY X
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 10:46:31 PM
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0 up, 0 down
WorldEndsWithMe
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 10:01:48 AM
5 up, 0 down
AcHiLLiA
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 11:18:49 PM
Reply
DS2 come and get me if you dare.
Last edited by AcHiLLiA on 1/24/2011 11:25:11 PM
2 up, 0 down
Shams
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 11:27:21 PM
1 up, 0 down
bigrailer19
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 11:35:48 PM
Reply
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 1/24/2011 11:36:15 PM
1 up, 0 down
FxTales
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 11:47:02 PM
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0 up, 0 down
Jed
Monday, January 24, 2011 @ 11:56:01 PM
Reply
1 up, 0 down
LimitedVertigo
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 12:48:14 AM
3 up, 0 down
ABUrabad
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 12:55:45 AM
2 up, 0 down
MadPowerBomber
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 4:27:26 AM
2 up, 0 down
Akuma07
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 5:31:44 AM
'freak' accident....
Something like those Wii-TV videos on youtube... but more hardcore? XD
1 up, 0 down
GuernicaReborn
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 11:02:04 AM
1 up, 0 down
MadPowerBomber
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 @ 1:38:37 AM
Poor TV.
0 up, 0 down
ABUrabad
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 12:50:39 AM
Reply
0 up, 0 down
LimitedVertigo
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 1:21:08 AM
2 up, 0 down
Lawless SXE
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 1:42:18 AM
Reply
Peace.
1 up, 0 down
___________
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 1:55:06 AM
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IT IS NOT SURVIVAL HORROR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
when you can kill your enemy in one freaking shot, and have heaps of ammo, and kit that is not freaking survival horror!
survival horror is the original RE games where you had one bullet, one gun, no medikits, no tools, and had to kill a boss who took 1000 bullets to kill!
THAT is survival horror, not the action crap DS serves up!
0 up, 8 down
LimitedVertigo
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 2:00:54 AM
...and you're thrust into the setting and forced to SURVIVE using anything at your disposal.
ya...DeadSpace isn't survival horror.
3 up, 0 down
Lawless SXE
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 2:16:54 AM
1 up, 0 down
MadPowerBomber
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 4:26:09 AM
Dead Space isn't survival horror at all.
It's just horror. And that's more than enough for me.
I can get into specifics, but it'd be a really long post if I did so. I kinda consider myself to be an authority on horror, but that's just my over inflated ego talking. I am always up to throw around my knowledge of horror, though. :D
However, I would like to know what game YOU were playing. I don't recall being able to kill things with one shot and having plenty of ammo throughout Dead Space UNLESS you had the DLC weapons and were playing on the feather weak difficulty setting. Even with the Heavy Damage weapns, the DLC suits, and the cheats in place, the guns weren't fully upgraded enough on the medium difficulty setting until about halfway through to kill anything in one shot. Well, unless you were using that charge weapon.
You're very inconsistent in your rants and raves about Dead Space, I've noticed. One week you're praising it and hoping they keep all the horror from the first one in it, then you turn around and say that DS2, from the demo, was changed so drastically to include differences in gameplay and a more "action orientated" gameplay style, then to it not being horror at all and not even being that scary, to ... this one.
It's kinda weird, dude.
1 up, 0 down
Akuma07
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 5:24:37 AM
I have played DS
DS shares alot with the original RE games. Try playing it on a harder difficulty, I guarantee you will start to feel that survival thing.
But, with ANY survival/horror game, the difficulty setting depends on how easy that survival is. On the easiest setting, enemies will take one shot to kill, and theres plenty of ammo, on hard though, you get maybe 6 bullets for a whole section, and simply too many enemies to kill.
I think thats why they made you play DS on the hardest setting if you wanted the platinum, to truely experience the game.
RE was like shoot the zombie until its head explodes. DS is about strategic dismemberment, yeah sure, you can blast away at the zombie, but it wont die until your clip is empty, OR you can take off an arm and a leg and be done with it.
If you actually DID play DS, maybe you played it on an easy setting?
@MadPowerBomber
He's from western sydney, you can't trust his opinion! hahahaha I kid i kid
Last edited by Akuma07 on 1/25/2011 5:30:10 AM
1 up, 1 down
Shams
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 7:36:04 AM
2 up, 0 down
crunchy_nut_kid
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 8:17:17 AM
3 up, 0 down
___________
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 8:27:35 AM
where are the chainsaw guys or the anvil guys from RE?
RE was a proper survival horror game because you were a small fish in a big pond, you were a ant versus jesus freaking christ!
in DS its kinda the other way around, your the supped up junkie not your enemies.
im not saying DS is not hard, it certainly can be but it does not have the 100000 shot boss battles that RE has.
hell, even RE5 the first chainsaw guy you fight takes forever to take down!
dead space has NOTHING like that!
i would not even call DS horror, maybe its because im use to horror games but it did not scare me at all.
F.E.A.R had me cowering like a little girl, but dead space was faaaaaaaar too predictable to be scary!
0 up, 2 down
SvenMD
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 8:29:01 AM
And if you found "heeps of ammo" laying around on Impossible, then I want your copy of the game....cause it wasn't freakin' that easy.
You've taken beef with DS2 ever since the devs came out and said there would be more action, so why don't you play the game and then decide.....
2 up, 0 down
Ben Dutka PSXE [Administrator]
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 9:51:28 AM
Never knew survival/horror was defined by how many guns are available and how strong the enemies are.
That's...interesting.
4 up, 0 down
GuernicaReborn
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 11:00:53 AM
I think the problem here is that you're remembering RE to be harder than it actually was. I might have had ammo problems a couple times in each game, but I almost never ran out. The biggest problem in RE 1-3 was the inventory thing. Especially RE1. I always used Jill because she had eight inventory spaces.
2 up, 0 down
WorldEndsWithMe
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 3:09:56 PM
2 up, 0 down
BikerSaint
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 5:16:07 PM
<<you were a ant versus Jesus freaking Christ!>>
I can see it all now, you keep on using the Lord's name in vain & you'll experience some real survivor horror when that lightening bolt from Heaven strikes you right in your gonads.
And then St. Peter refuses you a entrance through his Pearly Gates.
Then ho ya gonna call? Certainly not GhostBusteres...Maybe "Satan"????
I hear he just loves ripping the flesh off of "Crispy Critters(they probably taste like chicken).
1 up, 0 down
MadPowerBomber
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 @ 1:57:10 AM
HORROR isn't scary. You're thinking of Scary movies, and while Scary movies are all horror, all horror isn't scary. It's disturbing, it's discomforting, it's unpleasant. Horror is more of an emotion than it ever was a genre of literature, cinema, or even video games. Or, for the sake of accuracy, it's a complex combination of emotions, of which fear is but one of them.
Dead Space is all of those things.
I've found that when people don't think something is "scary" it's because they didn't allow themselves the feel the vulnerability that is necessary for any and all works of horror to be effective. If you're watching a horror flick or playing a horror game in broad daylight, or with all the lights on, or in a crowded theater sometimes, you're removing yourself from the emotional aspects of the horror that works it's nasty little fingers into your brainmeat.
As for the comparisons to Resident Evil, are you serious? There's the monster that doesn't die always chasing you, always in the same room as you, etc., etc. There are the Brute monsters that you can't effectively damage from the front. There are the snot/sh*t frog things that come at you in massive groups that can whittle you down to nothing in no time. There's the darkened versions of every monster that just punish the crap out of you, so on and so forth. Not to mention that you can't effectively do anything to the monsters by just shooting them as you would in a normal game. On the harder difficulties, even dismembering them takes two or three shots for one limb. This one shot one death thing only happens on feather soft difficulty and on normal if you're using maxed out weapons or the DL weapons EA likes to put out there. I think your memory of Resident Evil is stronger than the actuality of Resident Evil. I tried playing the second one recently on my PSP, and it's little to do with the difficulty or durable enemies and everything to do with lack of proper aiming and the stop and shoot control mechanics (which ARE not bad in my opinion, 'cause it makes you feel helpless adding more horror to the titles).
And to completely render your argument and complaints moot: there's a hardcore mode on Dead Space 2 that's unlockable after you beat the game that takes away a metric sh*tton of ammo and health items, only allows you to save THREE times in the game, and every time you die you go back to your last save point.
Which is pretty close to my idealized version of "survival" horror.
1 up, 0 down
spiderboi
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 3:31:45 AM
Reply
3 up, 0 down
sirbob6
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 2:58:14 PM
Worst... Idea... Ever...
2 up, 0 down
MadPowerBomber
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 4:35:22 AM
Reply
they really go the distance of reminding me that not everyone has read what I've read or seen what I've seen, and since I'm a gorehound, horror nut, horror writer, and lover of all things Splatterpunk; challenging me to do something like playing this game in the middle of the night in the dark, is like challenging an alcoholic to another drink.
I just can't wait. Bring the darkness, bring the gore, bring the scares, and bring the horror.
I'm'a have a corrupt and deviant little smile on my face the entire time.
1 up, 0 down
Akuma07
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 5:26:26 AM
Reply
It is JUST A GAME.
I will ALWAYS see them as such.
I LOVED the airport level in MW2, I LOVE running around in normal games like Half-Life and 'accidently' shooting my companions in the head.
Why?......ITS VERY SIMPLE....
Because I can.
EDIT: I have this view, because I have 2 parents who made sure that I knew the different between reality, and entertainment. And because I simply know the difference between right and wrong. Maybe some parents out there should take a hint, stop blaiming other people for their bad parenting, and teach their child some ethics.
Last edited by Akuma07 on 1/25/2011 5:27:43 AM
4 up, 0 down
Snaaaake
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 5:50:26 AM
Come on, how can letting a kid playing violent video game will turn him into a psychopath?
If he does goes on a rampage, that means he's always been a psychopath, just needed something to unleash the beast within.
I have a cousin who was 8 when I taught him how to play GTA:VC, 7 years later he's not a mindless killer, he's an athlete in his school.
1 up, 0 down
SvenMD
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 8:30:45 AM
People need to realize that games are entertainment....and I don't care if I'm the one controlling the character or I'm watching it in a movie....IT'S NOT REAL....it's just FUN!
1 up, 0 down
Nickjcal
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 7:12:49 AM
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0 up, 0 down
sunspider13
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 7:45:31 AM
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From what i played so far the controls seem tighter and the game looks good. And the sounds yikes! Can't wait to get back in it.
2 up, 0 down
TheUglyBassist
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 7:57:46 AM
1 up, 0 down
Lotusflow3r
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 8:09:47 AM
Reply
Yes, it creates atmosphere at times, has suspense and build ups etc, but the game is too open to be scary, it's not intimate enough...something creators never realise. I don't mean, big environments btw, i mean intimacy with everything, it doesn't carry it just like every other "scary" game this gen.
Also, Siren still remains the scariest game this gen despite that even having flaws. That game never let you rest. It carried with it some of the correct tools to truly create dread...but it also came with today's common mistakes.
Truth is, no game is truly terrifying this gen because none realise what it is that truly scares us, no, not gore, not cheap jumps, grotesque monsters and fake suspense. It's tapping into the psychological side of things to mix up emotions and create illusions, all the while keeping the pacing to a mere trot and remaining intimate to everything seen. No orchestra soundtracks, no synthesisers or what not, just ambiance with ambient music, making sure it marrys everything from camera angles, environments or character movements (which all should be slow and sluggish, no screaming and running) Only one game ever achieved the title "truly terrifying" and we know which game and it's THREE follow ups it is.
Horror games today are just like hollywood horror films, eye candy, no substance. However, the games can be fun to play as is with Dead Space 2. But, i do sure get upset at missed opportunities.
David Cage might be one to watch. HR slowed down further to include all what i said in a psychological horror theme would absolutely win.
Last edited by Lotusflow3r on 1/25/2011 8:23:54 AM
1 up, 1 down
WorldEndsWithMe
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 10:04:50 AM
Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 1/25/2011 10:05:09 AM
2 up, 0 down
SvenMD
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 2:39:53 PM
I've never played Siren, so I don't fully know what you're comparing DS too, but I think it has alot more substance than just being grotesque.
1 up, 0 down
WorldEndsWithMe
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 3:12:31 PM
1 up, 0 down
Lairfan
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 9:14:33 PM
0 up, 0 down
Lotusflow3r
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 @ 9:38:20 AM
Also, perhaps i should of put more of my positive thoughts on DS out there as it does seem like im hating on it completely. It's a good game and a much better horror game than almost all else this gen.....actually that about sums it up.
I really wish i could show you guys what i mean though.
1 up, 0 down
Alienange
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 3:11:04 PM
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2 up, 0 down
fdgtyr568
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 @ 7:25:09 AM
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