TItle: Dead Space 2 Developer: Visceral Games Publisher: Electronic Arts Music Composed by: Jason Graves Writers: Jeremy Bernstein Release Date: January 25, 2011 IntroductionOf all the games in the Dead Space franchise, the second, Dead Space 2, is widely held as the best of the bunch. Developed by the newborn Visceral Games, the second entry in the series took the lessons of the first game and improved on them on a scale that few sequels ever accomplish. It's no Mass Effect 2, but that's an unfair comparison to make in any case, given the different themes Dead Space runs with. Regardless, it's a vast improvement, and despite being almost seven years old at the time of this writing, it remains a fun, exciting and spooky experience. You can pick it up on Steam for $19.99, where it comes bundled with a bunch of integrated extra material that was originally only available as paid downloadable content, such as extra RIGs, weapon variants and more! Of course a lot of other DLC isn't available or supported for the PC version, but having looked into it myself, I can safely say you're not missing anything by getting this edition. The scares are just as scary and the combat is just as gory, so don't listen to anyone who says it's better on consoles. StoryFor those new to the universe of Dead Space, a handy synopsis of the original's plot is immediately available from the main menu, and provides a rapid means of catching up for those who need it. Isaac Clarke, protagonist of the first game, is once again the hero, with opening scene placing him in a government-run mental ward, where he has been kept for the past three years, wracked with guilt over the death of his girlfriend Nicole on the Ishimura and haunted by the lasting mental scars of his contact with the mysterious Red Marker. Of course, it's not Dead Space without Necromorphs, and this time the game skips most of the build-up, with Isaac's unlucky rescuer getting skewered and infected right before Isaac's eyes seconds into the plot. The initial chase scene as Isaac flees the ward, with Slashers bursting out of cells and other creatures lunging out of side passages while he struggles with his straight-jacket is heart-pounding, and is an excellent example of what sets the second Dead Space apart from the first. Where the original relied on dread, a heavy, oppressive atmosphere and a somewhat slower pacing, Dead Space 2 is like the second half of Pitch Black, where horror is still present, but takes on a more 'thriller' vibe. The game's no less scary of course, and while the action is more intense, it retains a uniquely Dead Space vibe that no amount of shooting sequences can detract from. The whole plot of Dead Space 2 ties very heavily into Isaac's decaying grip on sanity.The first quarter of the game places you at the mercy of two unreliable narrators; Stross, a mental patient from the same lab Isaac was held in, and Daina, partner of Isaac's unlucky would-be rescuer, who seems trustworthy, but quickly begins to project the sense that she has a hidden agenda. This battle of trust is overlaid on the fact that the Marker pattern in Isaac's brain is taunting him with hallucinations of his dead girlfriend who mocks and degrades him for his guilt over his self-perceived involvement in her demise on the Ishimura. A heavy emphasis on eye imagery also helps set up the player for one of the most knee-knocking and nail-biting end sequences I have ever seen. On top of that, Isaac has to fight to stay alive in the midst of a massive Necromorph outbreak while at the same time being hunted by the forces of EarthGov. This layer cake of lunacy is delicious, and makes for a rich, engrossing experience Hey baby! Long time, no see! Hey, I was meaning to ask you this question about that thing you said last time we spoke on th--OH GOD WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE!!!? Of course, there are some things that could've been done better. The involvement of the followers of Unitology (an in-universe religion rooted in the worship of the alien Markers) only lasts for a small portion of the game, and the game's primary antagonist seems cartoonishly two-dimensional at times. It's not until the last few minutes of the game that he gets any kind of real characterization, which is unfortunate, given how hard he seems to be trying to kill Isaac. Despite this, all the actors make stunning performances, including Isaac himself, who now has a voice despite being mute for the entirety of the first game. Normally when a silent protagonist gets a voice, it doesn't go well, but Isaac is an exception, and comes across as a genuine human character with problems you can relate to. His voice actor does a great job of conveying the sense that he's an everyman hero, an engineer caught in the midst of extraordinary events. It's a great performance that only adds to some already-great writing. Overall, the whole plot works well to retain the sense of Lovecraftian mystery of Isaac's situation while balancing it on top of a heavier diet of action than his previous adventure. Its human and sci-fi aspects still stand strong even today. GameplayDead Space 2 retains much of the play-style of its predecessor, with all the old weapons making a comeback, though many now have new alternate fire-modes that make them less situational and more versatile than in the previous game. This is refreshing, since while Dead Space had a creative and brutal arsenal, only the Plasma Cutter ever seemed to remain usable throughout the campaign. New weapons make an appearance as well, with my personal favorite being the viscerally-satisfying Javelin Gun, which when fully upgraded shoots yard-long spikes that can then be triggered to electrify and explode impaled enemies. Furthermore, as if it wasn't enough fun nailing thing to other things with a high-tech nailgun, the game vastly improves on Isaac's Kinesis power, letting him grab and toss all sorts of environmental objects to stun or kill attackers. This includes ripping the bone blades off of slain Necromorph Slashers, which can then by launched like a spear. There's nothing quite as satisfying as turning the enemy's weapons against them, especially when that weapon is part of their own body. The game also introduces new enemies, which mix with the old roster in a remarkably well-crafted system of encounters that strive to test your tactical flexibility. Chief among these are Stalkers, crafty, almost alien-looking creatures that, as their name implies, take a stealthy approach to fighting you. They hide behind crates and attack in a hit-and-run fashion, working to unnerve you with their whale-like vocalizations while peeking out occasional to confirm your location. Another is the Pack, which is among the more controversial of the game's already gruesome creature designs. These nasty critters are made from the adolescent and pubescent humans that fell to the Necromorphs, and charge at you in large numbers with bald, child-like faces set on lanky pale bodies with razor-sharp claws. They serve to occupy and distract you from the more heavy-hitting enemies, weighing you down in a frenzied dog-pile of death whole a Slasher or Leaper winds up for another attack. Of all the things you could find humping your leg when you turn on the lights, this is probably among the absolute dead last you'd want to see. Luckily, your armor is childproof. Dead Space 2 also introduces a multiplayer component known as Outbreak Mode, where two teams of four human players compete against a third team of Necromorphs and each other in a race to complete objectives before time runs out. The mode contains much of what you'd expect to see from many modern multiplayer modes, with outfits, weapons and boosts to existing abilities locked behind a level-progression system which awards players for completing objectives and killing enemies in matches. It's mostly defunct now, having never been hugely popular to start with, but it does make an interesting addition to a game that is chiefly action-horror. It's not without its own element of terror either. As a Necromorph, players can use vent-access to ambush other players, making matches a tense affair, with environments seeming overtly hostile at every turn. Again, it's not going to win any awards, and it never did, but it is an interesting experiment in trying to expand the series' repertoire from a single-player focus. Sound & DesignDead Space 2's art design is probably one of the best things about it. Despite being five years old at the time of this writing, it looks better than many other triple-A games, with its careful application of lighting, its butter-smooth frame-rate and its jaw-dropping scenery all well up to spec. Its a testament to what good environmental design can do for a game over the long term. Furthermore, the environment itself again feels like a living character, even moreso than the Ishimura of the first Dead Space. The game takes place on Titan Station, otherwise known as 'the Sprawl', a veritable city in space made from the ruins of Saturn's titular moon. Text, audio and video logs all lend a bit to fleshing out the lore and helping with puzzles, but most of the character of the world comes from the visual and auditory storytelling you experience as you progress. An excellent example is the segment after Isaac's harrowing escape from the secure government wing of the station's hospital at the game's opening. Once outside the facility, he ends up in the Cassini Towers apartment complex, where he bears witness to the full-scale madness of the Necromorph outbreak sweeping the station. Panicking crowds flee from the swarm of the risen dead, while others lock themselves in their homes in fear. The sounds emanating from the sealed apartment units are like a window to the apocalypse. A man threatens to shoot anyone who tries to remove him from his home, while across the way, an abandoned infant screams and cries for a mother who isn't there. Overlaid on this is an unusual amount of ominous Unitology imagery, with bloody alien writing that was established as the Church's calling card in the original Dead Space scrawled all over the place in blood, hinting that the area might be thick with members of the pseudo-religious order. The Sprawl is full of some magnificent vistas for you to admire. You know what else it has? Thousands of angry Necromorphs hankering for a bite of your tender flesh. This kind of artful design is a thing to be cherished, as it so rarely appears in games these days. Like the first game, Dead Space 2 is heavy with metaphors. It even continues the series' tradition of spelling out a message in an acronym composed of the first letter of each of the game's chapter titles. The sound and voice acting also shine, with the Necromorphs providing suitably creepy and disgusting audio cues. It also features one of the earliest forms of dynamic musical cues, with the various creatures all having signal sounds and themes equipped with dynamic triggers to help synchronize the soundtrack with the scares. It's simply amazing, and deserves to be appreciated since many developers today still use the same techniques. Final VerdictDead Space 2 is to Dead Space what the later Resident Evil titles are to the first (though without the silly over-the-top convoluted plot). It's a take on a similar scenario, but compensates for the lack of that special first-time scare you get from something original and terrifying with an increase in the action. While it can't truly capture the spine-tingling terror of that first time on the Ishimura, it still handles itself well, with a dread-filled atmosphere, a rip-roaring pacing and plenty of gruesome action in between. It also plays off the last game in a novel and heart-breaking manner, with Isaac's emotional struggle serving to make him a very human and fragile character despite his swearing and zombie-stomping abilities. I actually feel it outdoes the first game in many areas, and for that reason, I highly recommend it, both for fans of horror and action. It's rare a sequel does so much to improve while staying original. It deserves appreciation; your appreciation. So what are you waiting for? Put on your RIG and m̲͔̮A̞̝̰̺̘̖͔k̵̬͍͈̳͉̻̬e͇̦̠͕̙̹̮ ̼̼͖ͅu̪̠S͙̼̬͝ ̡͍̠͓̙̣w̹̗̝̭͠H͚̹̖̦̖O̧̰̹͙͇̪̤͖l̝e̬͖! Minimum System Requirements
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Operating System: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 or 10 Processor Capacity: 2,8 GHz DirectX: Version 9.0c RAM: 2 GB Hard Drive Space: 10 GB --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
0 Comments
So as part of my work at KeenGamer.com, I was recently gifted a developer's demo of the upcoming title Agony, a very interesting indie game I've had my eye on for a while now. While I realize this does not line up with my object to review mostly last-gen games, I feel I should still post all my work here as well as there, for your viewing benefit. So without further ado, I now present my preview of Agony a production by Mad Mind Studios. Oh also, fair warning, the images within are not for the fainthearted. IntroductionIn my opinion, the horror genre has become stale in terms of environment. It's not often these days an original choice in venue is there to lend a new dimension of terror to a title, be it AAA or indie-developed. Five Nights at Freddie's took the world by storm with its frightening look at what happens after dark in themed kiddie restaurants, but soon wore out its welcome after spawning four sequels and an army of clones. Good news is on the horizon however, as next year we are geared to receive an onslaught of unimaginable terror, and not just from what America's next political administration will be up to. 2017 is looking to be chock full of scary titles, ranging from indie titles like Gray Dawn to more well-known releases, such as Outlast 2. Welcome to Hell, rendered in full Unreal Engine 4 and mountains of body parts. Here you can win a chance to flee from vile demons from your deepest, darkest nightmares, wander aimlessly for hours, and die scared, tired and alone...over and over and over. Enjoy your stay! Among this parade of spooky adventures is Agony, product of the fittingly-named Mad Mind Studios, which promises to take us to the granddaddy of all horror settings: Hell. This isn't the slightly cartoony hell of this year's DOOM either, but a true, festering, stomach-turning pit of perdition, the likes of which I haven't seen since Visceral Games' take on Dante's Inferno. Having been granted the chance to peer into the abyss with a developer demo, I now come to you to recount my journey into the burning depths, and reveal what makes me feel that Agony is worth every cent it'll cost when released. Graphics & DesignFirstly I will speak on the graphics. It goes without saying that the game is fabulously beautiful, and I mean that in the sickest sense, because the art style in itself is enough to make those with weak stomachs flee from their desks in nausea. Hell is built out of the damned. Ever step you take is upon a foundation of flesh and bone, mixed sparsely with rock. This nightmare realm is rendered in Unreal Engine 4, and in some places it lives and breathes, making the body-horror you face and the environment itself often one and the same. The walls are lined with teeth, and mounds of corpses fill every space nook and cranny. Pagan idols wrapped in thorns serve as pillars, and every chamber is home to a grisly tableau of supernatural suffering. The amount of detail put into the world is absurd, and to say it takes immersion to a whole new scale is a sore understatement. The demons in Agony bring a whole new meaning to the term 'man-trap'. Don't be fooled by the naked breasts, the only thing they're interesting in penetrating is your chest cavity. Their malevolent chirruping echoes a lot, making it hard to be sure where they are unless they're moving. The game ran incredibly smoothly as well, with my frame-rate not once dropping below sixty FPS. I found this very impressive, considering this was mostly a bare-bones demonstration, here to showcase the mechanics and spirit of the game rather than be an actual demo. It's clear that the people at Mad Mind Studios are putting as much thought into efficiency as they are into vanity. I hope they continue to optimize and improve of course, but kudos to them for producing such a well-oiled product even after obviously pouring so much work into just making the game look fantastically grotesque. Hell in Agony is pure chaos. It's easy to get lost in the winding and crooked passages, which are often lit, but in strange ways. There was no direct route to the objective in the demo, and I found myself wandering like a true member of the ranks of the damned, cowering and hiding amidst cages made of femurs or under piles of corpses from demons with rat tails and fly-trap heads. On that account it should also be noted that Agony does not shy away from nudity. The majority of the forsaken and wicked you meet are clad in either loincloths or nothing at all. Furthermore, both genders are equally represented among those in suffering, setting the game a full tier above Outlast in terms of how far outside your comfort zone it's willing to go, especially since the demon I mentioned also had breasts, not that that improved things when it ripped my head off and stomped my body to mush Whoever they hired as an interior decorator needs to be fired. Those chairs do not match the drapes at all. And in the name of all that is holy, put in another window! It's too damn dark in here! Seriously, y'all need Jesus and some feng-shui training! The environment also plays a big role in defining the pacing, as well as atmosphere of the game itself. Sobbing wretches dot the corridors, all of whom felt like a potential threat, especially since disturbing them could attract demons, though at the same time I couldn't help but wonder if a wrong step would cause them to attack me all by themselves. Odd noises generated by the hodge-podge mess of compacted viscera that serves as a floor makes you struggle not to run on principle, which is something else that can get the attention of Satan's watchdogs. Bones crackle and pools of blood splash underfoot, while the walls shiver and pulsate, instilling a dread that you might just be eaten by Hell itself before any of the demons get you. It is a truly terrific soundscape made all the more spine-tingling by the fact that it's sometimes hard to separate the sounds the demons make from those of the living structures around you, making it all the more intense. Thankfully music cues prevent it from being unfair, and provide you with some warning as to whether or not you've been seen, but it's very nerve-wracking, especially since unlike Amnesia, your light source can't be extinguished on a whim. GameplayOf course, the meat of Agony's gameplay is the same as every other first-person survival-horror game, though with a few key twists. As ever, the goal is to reach your objective or solve puzzles without being caught and killed. This is actually harder than it sounds, since despite a few minor AI hiccups which I presume have yet to be ironed out, the demons in Agony are surprisingly intelligent. Though they appear to have no visible eyes and ears, they are quite sensitive to your presence easily picking out your footfalls over the constant wails of the wicked. As previously mentioned, you can hide under corpses or in dark corners, and even hold your breath to try and keep from alerting them, but really it's best to avoid them altogether, since none of these are sure-fire ways of staying alive. If they spot you, there's very little you can do, since they often run faster than you. This all adds up to a an experience that's not exactly frustrating, but certainly more challenging than your average spook-a-thon. There are ways to throw them off the scent of course. Once you have a torch, if you get caught in a dark area, you can fling it in another direction and take refuge in the corner. With luck, your flaming stick will act as a healthy distraction while you either retreat at a cautious crawl, or else until they get bored and go find some other sad soul to maim and murder. Hell is crafted out of eons of the wicked, not all of whom were apparently human. There's quite a bit of demon mixed in with that human mortar. There also might be a few biblical giants in there as well. On that note, and given we're on the subject of gruesome death I feel the need to talk about the game's death system. In Agony, you actually play as an ethereal spirit, or at least you start out as one. As you progress, you possess flesh and blood sinners who are trapped in the halls of perdition to act as your body. If you die, you have a limited amount of time to find a new body or else face spiritual dissolution. This actually ties into the game's objectives in a rather neat way, since the chief goal of the demo was to descend through the environment in order to possess a demon chained up at the bottom of a central pit. That said, while the controls in this spirit-mode are a little wonky (in a good way), and you are gifted with a limited amount of time in it, I feel it could use some tweaking. Getting a second chance on death is all well and good, but I found it too easy to bypass large amounts of content with this mechanic, which is terrible since just exploring the world is half the fun. Hopefully they reduce the amount of time your allowed to stay incorporeal a bit, or else make it harder to skip past things. Purposely getting killed as a means of avoiding enemies is an interesting idea, but not when it detracts from the overall experience. Initial VerdictAgony is amazing. True, there are parts that need polishing, but that's to be expected from a game currently still in beta. Taken overall, however, the world, the level of grisly visual and artistic detail, the sound design; all of it adds up to a very powerful, fresh and dark experience. Unfortunately I was unable to discern anything about the story. While you do seem to have the ability to talk to NPCs, it was disabled in the demo, and no dialogue of any kind was present to put things in context. With this in mind, I sorely hope that the people at Mad Mind Studios pay their writers as well as they pay their modelers and programmers, because it would be a crying shame (with a side of gnashing teeth) to have the final product be weighed down by a lackluster narrative. That said, on the gameplay and visuals front, they seem to have got a good grasp of direction and purpose. I for one sincerely look forward to playing it when it's ready. For now though, we'll have to curb our sins and practice patience, at least for a little while longer... So there you have it folks: my initial feelings on Agony. What did you think? Send me a comment either here or on face book! I'm always open to feedback!
|
About Me
I'm a blogger. I review games, mods, or whatever else I feel like, and voice my thoughts for your entertainment (and my portfolio). Reviews
All
Archives
January 2021
|