WARNING! Introduction It's a generally-recognized fact that we, as a society, have a hard time talking about sex. We all know it exists (usually long before we even know what it's called), but we don't discuss it, we don't analyze it, and we certainly aren't encouraged to try and tell stories about it. This widespread repression, which often extends to encompass even the most ambiguous and innocent forms of sexual expression, has led to a collective knot in our psychic underwear, and it is from the sordid juices that stain that warped tangle of fear and desire that I think Lust for Darkness must've dripped, because I really can't explain its existence any other way. It's a bad game, which promises serious commentary and dark themes on the surface, but sadly seems to have been made by people who only wanted to try and spook the players with images of alien vaginas and sloppy writing (no not that kind you sicko). Whatever happened to him, it was probably more exciting than the experience I had playing this game. Chances are it was probably more painful, but that's not saying much. This is not meant to be an insult to the actual developers by any means (so please excuse my colorful language), because its clear the they tried to do their subject matter justice, what with all the lore and effort they put into building the background of the game's world. But alas, the key plot strokes they rely on (god, the innuendo is just everywhere, isn't it?) fall flat or else feel like they're trying too hard to be shocking, and the whole product is weighed down by the alternately boring and frustrating gameplay, which feels like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but without the polish, proper pacing, sound design, or indeed any part of what made Amnesia so good. It's a depressing disappointment, given the game exceeded it's Kickstarter funding goal by at least a factor of six times, but if you want to torment yourself by playing it, it's available on Steam for $24.99 at the time of this writing. If you want to know why you probably shouldn't bother though, read on... Story Like any horror game, Lust for Darkness places most of its weight on its story. And to be perfectly honest, the story is...not good. To be fair, the opening had promise when I first played it. The shock factor of waking up in a bondage dungeon after apparently being kidnapped is a truly nightmarish scenario. It only gets creepier after you realize the implied cult angle from the object on display. However, after this prologue concludes and the opening titles play, things rapidly slide downhill in terms of quality. The rest of the game has you playing as the husband of the woman from the prologue, who ends up receiving a call from his missing spouse telling him in roundabout terms that she's being held prisoner at a mansion out in the countryside. There's a lot to unpack in terms of problems with what happens next, and how it reeks of a writer who was sadly out of their depth, but I'll do my best to be concise. To its credit, the majority of the story does keep pace with the style and form of most Lovecraft stories. This is not necessarily a good thing, unfortunately, since many Lovecraft stories equate progress with reading unspeakable tomes of forbidden knowledge. There's a lot of reading to be done in this game, with most of the establishing lore for the setting and world being hidden around the environment. Some of it's good, but none of it is particularly 'unspeakable' or unsettling. This is unfortunate, because the main plot isn't much better at keeping the reader engrossed. It relies too heavily on shock value to try and motivate its characters, who often feel flat and unreal in their reactions (though that may sadly be the fault of the voice actors, who are also rather amateurish in their delivery). It's undeniable the game's lighting is quite beautiful. However, no amount of bizarre alien architecture with suggestions of phallic imagery can make up for the ham-fisted plot strokes that drive the main narrative. But the problems run much deeper than dull lore. Halfway through the game, the protagonist discovers that his wife was pregnant when she was kidnapped, and that the evil cult leader not only aborted his unborn child, but then sired a new one by raping his hostage spouse. This is, without a doubt, one of the most horrible things a villain could do. It's vile and reprehensible...and yet it in the greater scheme of the story, it carries almost no weight. There's no buildup, and the delivery is falls flat, consisting of a stilted, uncomfortable conversation between husband and wife. It's barely even brought up in the rest of the game. It's clear that the writer could've learned a thing or two from reading some analyses of Silent Hill 2, which deals with themes of sexual violence and trauma in fashion that is leaps and bounds above what this game tries to achieve. If you're going to introduce rape to your story, especially if said story has an overt focus on themes of sex and horror, there are three words to remember: SHOW, DON'T TELL. In fact, it could be said that the misunderstanding of this simple fact encapsulates everything wrong with Lust for Darkness' plot. I could probably write an entire paper on everything I noticed in hindsight that didn't jive with the game's storytelling goals, but suffice to say, where it was weird, it was largely softcore, and where it was shocking, it was poorly set up and poorly conveyed. The whole project sadly had the stink of a studio who wanted to do big things, but should've run through a few drafts before publishing their work. Sex and horror, when combined correctly, can tell some of the best stories out there, especially when your prime audience is a society where love, gender, and the human body itself are still closeted subjects for many, many people. Alas, Movie Games Lunarium never managed to find that proper blend to make their end product palatable, and so we are left with what can only be called a hot, sticky mess. Gameplay and Design The story isn't the only culprit of course in making this game a failure though. Games in general rely heavily on a balance between interactivity and experience, and nowhere is that more crucial than in games that slide further to one end of the spectrum or the other. An artsy game with frustrating design can still gather a cult following if its writing is good enough. Conversely, a game with a boring or hammy plot can be saved if its core gameplay look is sufficiently addictive. Sadly, Lust for Darkness suffers from the worst of both worlds in this case, as its floppy, twitching plot which never seems to find its pace, is dragged down by a very bland and often frustrating mode of gameplay. The majority of the experience is spent either wandering around looking at everything that can be interacted with for the sake of looking into the lore, or looking at everything that can be interacted with because the puzzle you're being confronted with is so brain-breakingly unintuitive that you HAVE to find a hint or give up and go look for a walkthrough. There's plenty of sexual imagery on display, but it seldom gets much stranger than this. There's a few moments near the end of the game that might nauseate you if you've got a weak stomach, but it's no SAW film, that's for sure. There are parts that involve hiding from monsters of course, because the player needs to face some form of threat if the atmosphere can't delivery. Unfortunately, the stealth system is finicky at the best of times, and the often cramped levels and slow pace of the character themselves makes fleeing and hiding uncertain prospects at the best of times. Being pursued isn't particularly terrifying in any case, which speaks volumes about how unprepared the developers were for a large-scale horror experience. The sound design and music are nothing to write home about either, which might as well be a death-knell for any chance of actually scaring players. A horror game without good sound is three steps down on the road to obscurity, and it takes a monumental effort to overcome that handicap, which devs sadly did not. The worst part of the game might just be the final boss fight (hard to say, given how much of a chore it was up until then; also, a boss fight in a horror game? Come on, man!), which was anticlimactic and downright enraging. When the credits finally roll, it's almost a relief. FINAL VERDICTSex, as ever, is a touchy subject. Confronting it in a serious fashion is often a scary subject, especially given how repressive modern society still is in its discussion. Telling meaningful stories about it is a daunting prospect, and one not lightly approached. Sadly, Movie Games Lunarium did not consider that fact when trying to make Lust for Darkness. It's one thing to try and sell your game with sex appeal (looking at you Haydee), but if you're going to try and scare people with the thought of intimacy, you need to do more than slap a pair of tits on some monsters. Don't get me wrong; there's some decent ideas here, buried under all the half-finished detritus. But until the devs learn from their mistakes, I have to recommend that they stick to shorter, more condensed pieces. It doesn't do to try and rush to third base after all. FINAL SCORE: 3.9/10
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IntroductionThe development history of the Penumbra trilogy is one fraught with risk, betrayal, and disappointment, much like its story. After the successful release of Overture, the first installment in the planned saga, unexplained issues arose between the developers at Frictional Games and their publisher at the time, Lexicon Entertainment. Faced with the reality that their story might be cut short, the two planned sequels to Overture were condensed down to one major installment which would serve as a definitive climax and conclusion. This was the game that came to be known as Black Plague, and while Frictional would later release a third game in the series, dubbed Requiem, it would remain their crowning success until the release of Amnesia: The Dark Descent two years later. Now, with over a decade of age weighing on its visuals, overshadowed by its successors and lost in a sea of obscurity thanks to the creative explosion it helped trigger, Black Plague has been largely forgotten. For most games, this sort of fate is inevitable, as newer releases build on what makes them unique while carrying their identity into the future. However, in this case it's largely unfair, because while it might not look cutting-edge any more, Black Plague was never about the fidelity of its visuals. This is why so many more modern games have quickly dropped off the map, as they relied too much on flash and dazzle and not enough on being immersive. Atmosphere can keep a game alive long after its graphical shelf life expires, and in that respect, Black Plague is still alive and well. If you want to see for yourself, the whole trilogy is available for just $9.99 on Steam, a bargain price for such an engrossing experience. If you'd rather hear a bit more before deciding however, then read on. After all, knowing too much never hurt anyone, right? StoryPart of the big appeal of Penumbra's story is the narrative. which is ironic, since from the start, you know how it ends. The game opens with a text message from Phillip LaFresque, the protagonist, making an unspecified request for aide from an unidentified acquaintance. This vague message is accompanied by a warning foretelling the potential doom of humankind. This simple but clever setup establishes a very clear tone, one of dread and lurking horror which suggests that whatever happens, it can only end badly. However, despite this grim and preordained outcome, enough mystery remains to keep the player engaged and moving forwards, even if only out of morbid curiosity. The game's grasp of lighting and setting help to build a sense of immersion that sinks in quickly. The dirty and dimly-lit chambers of the Shelter seem haunted and full of secrets, even without the various bodies scattered across throughout: all nameless and forgotten as the purpose they once served. Continuing the pursuit of answers by Phillip regarding the fate of his recently deceased father, Black Plague picks up not long after the conclusion of its predecessor. After a tragic climax involving the mysterious miner Red, and the discovery of an even more mysterious facility known simply as 'The Shelter', Overture closes with the wayward hero resolving to penetrate the secrets of the strange and forgotten edifice, only to be clubbed over the head and dragged into the dark. Black Plague picks up not long after that harrowing conclusion, with Phillip trapped in a makeshift jail cell, awaiting deliverance to an unknown fate. One hasty escape later, he finds himself lost in the bowels of the Shelter, where it's quickly revealed that whatever the facility's purpose might have been, something has gone very, very wrong. From there, things get progressively more spooky and sinister. Gaunt and vicious creatures stalk the abandoned halls of the facility, which are littered with the decay of decades and the corpses of scientists. These unfortunate cadavers are quickly revealed as adherents of a secret society, one that counted Phillip's father among its members and which built the Shelter to study the mysterious incidents and legends surrounding the area in general, and the mine in particular. As you move from one hub area to the next, you gather more details as to what that research entailed, while keeping enough questions unanswered to maintain the air of dread and confusion that is the core of the game's atmosphere. In this way, it's a truly Lovecraftian game; compelling the player on with the hope that new information might provide hope, while more often than not it just compounds the mystery, or else opens terrifying new vistas of reality that make ignorance truly seem like bliss. It's easy to spot how Frictional learned from their past mistakes with Overture in Black Plague. Where the former relied on lengthy and often out of place notes to communicate its narrative, the latter employs visual storytelling and new characters to advance the plot, including one that resides entirely in Phillip's head. Clarence, an enigmatic and somewhat sadistic secondary personality, abruptly turns up about thirty minutes or so into the game to provide commentary on events and occasionally torment his host in exciting and frightening ways. This is actually rather genius, as Phillip remains a silent protagonist throughout the entire trilogy. By giving him a companion, it deepens and enhances the narrative, as well as adding an extra element of danger, as it quickly becomes clear that your new passenger is sliding back and forth between getting you killed and helping you survive. The often callous and sadistic monologues of your invisible friend Clarence provide a second, often-misanthropic opinion to Phillip's own observations. Most of the time they're harmless, but throughout all of them is a sinister layer of almost playful hostility that now-and-then blooms into efforts to deceive and destroy his apparent host. Another example of how the writers clearly learned their lesson is the character of Amabel Swanson, the Shelter's last human survivor. As you progress further and risks increase you're also given the motivation of rescuing her, serving as a counter-balance against the disheartening foreknowledge imparted by the game's opening message. While her involvement in your misadventures is sporadic, it's frequent enough to keep Clarence's mind games from becoming stale. The most cunning part of this setup however, is the way in which Clarence and Amabel serve as foils to one another. While the Doctor urges you on with encouraging words and emotional support, Clarence drags you down with his nihilistic monologues and petty, trollish behavior. It's a wonderful dichotomy that does a lot to simulate the mental workings of a Lovecraftian protagonist, or indeed anyone faced with the vast and fear-inspiring void of the unknown. It's a serious step up from the more one-sided relationship in Overture, and speaks to the evolution of the skills of the game's creative team as storytellers. Gameplay and Design Gameplay is probably the one place to experience the most improvement in the gap between Overture and Black Plague. The clumsy combat and sneaking system is gone, replaced by a smoother and more terrifying experience which offers you the choices to either hide or die. While this forms the core of the game's action sequences, the rest of the experience is taken up by puzzles, which are generally improved and somewhat less laborious this time around. Still, many still rely on lengthy and ponderously-written notes to solve, eschewing intuition for reading ability, which is never much fun. Thankfully a fair amount physics-based conundrums help spice up the intellectual segments, which keeps the experience from feeling like a chore. Ultimately exploration remains the core principle the game is built around, with every dark corridor and dirty, abandoned chamber offering fresh secrets and mysteries (or at least a place to hide until the monsters give up looking for you). The visual style of the whole experience is actually rather clever, as Phillip's surroundings become progressively more dilapidated and shadowy in accordance with the growing control of Clarence, whose mental abuse remains a constant motif throughout the descent into the Shelter. New discoveries raise new questions, and also usually herald new dangers, in accordance with the title's Lovecraftian themes. Similarly, darkness offer the only safety from enemies, but at the same time hides them as well as it does you. It's a double-edged sword that plays magnificently into the game's themes of knowledge bringing danger as easily as it does understanding. Some foes make a return from Overture, such as the giant worm that served as part of the previous game's finale. This time, however, things don't end as well as they did before. Just goes to show: never bite off more than you can chew. When all is said and done though, the real star of the show is the sound design. If there were a class on how to properly design horror games, the soundscape of Black Plague and indeed, all of Frictional's games, would be required reading for any aspirant. Menacing creaks and drips help reinforce the dilapidated nature of your surroundings, while the overwhelming silence in between leaves you braced for the sound of shuffling footsteps that herald your discovery by the monsters just a wall's-thickness away. Meanwhile, Mikko Tarmia once again lends his masterful skills to the soundtrack, with its pitch-perfect and haunting tunes that perfectly sell the ominous setting and dread=soaked atmosphere the game strives for. Moody corridors are graced by tense tracks, while minor choral pieces denote the brief moments of success amidst the endless creeping, hiding and pondering over what to do next. Final Verdict All in all, Black Plague remains a heavy improvement over it's predecessor, and a milestone in the survival-horror genre. The creative story-telling and masterful sound design alone make it worth your time. Does it have it's issues? Absolutely; it's over ten years old, after all. Setting aside the aging visuals and occasional hilarious physics glitch, the excessively-long notes required for some of the puzzles are probably the game's biggest sin. Too much reading can spoil the atmosphere, and frankly, nobody in their right mind sits down to read five pages on how to program a computer when there's a monster in the hall outside. However, all that being said, the soundscape, the story, and the gameplay all serve to overshadow almost any potential flaws. If you love survival-horror, you owe it to yourself to experience this, if only to see how far we've come, and how far we've yet to go. Final Score: 9.0
TItle: Penumbra - Necrologue Developer: Counter-Current Games Music Composed by: Julien Hauspie, ScoreStorm, Drex Wiln, Tiero, and Valentin Parhomenko Release Date: October 31, 2014 IntroductionBack before Amnesia: The Dark Descent was king of the horror scene, Frictional Games was busy experimenting with horror through its groundbreaking Penumbra trilogy, a saga set in the dark beneath ice and snow of northern Greenland and rooted in a descent into mystery and fear not unlike its eventual successor. However, due to a hectic development period, the series, which was meant to be spread over three equally scary installments, instead came out as something more like two and a quarter, with the final part, Penumbra: Requiem, providing an unsatisfying capstone to what should've been a much darker and complete experience. Of course, now Penumbra is old, and fast fading from memory. That doesn't mean it's been completely forgotten though. In fact, it's quite the contrary. The folks at Counter-Current Games were so incensed by the lackluster finish to the story that they went and created Penumbra: Necrologue; an alternative vision of what the trilogy's final installment should have been. Obviously, it's not for everyone, but if nothing else, for those of us who found Requiem to be more of a fart than a final trumpet call, I would say that Necrologue is definitely worth a peek. You can snag it for free on Steam, where it comes bundled with another mod in the same vein: Twilight of the Archaic, which I will be reviewing separately. You'll need to own The Dark Descent if you want to play it though, given it's a community-made mod, rather than an actual full game, but if you're a fan of Frictional Games, and interested enough in their work to be looking for this kind of thing, that shouldn't be an issue. StoryPenumbra: Necrologue pretty much requires that you have played the rest of the trilogy to understand it's plot, given it picks up right where Black Plague (the middle installment which was actually more of the real ending) finished up. Given that's the case, I'll be writing on the assumption that you've played said games, and already know most of what I'm talking about. The plot initially kicks off by stating that the majority of final couple hours of the second game was actually an elaborate mind-fuck perpetrated by your unwelcome cranial cohabitant 'Clarence', who as it turns out is not dead. No sooner do you awaken on the damp, dirty floor of the Shelter, right where you passed out at the end of Black Plague, but he gets back to simultaneously insulting and goading you. Shortly after your rude awakening, you also learn that Amabel Swanson is not dead (or so it seems) and that the message you sent calling for reinforcements at the end of Black Plague was not a hallucination. With this in mind, your driving goal becomes escape, rather than intrusion, though given the labyrinthine nature of the Shelter and the surrounding subterranean environs, this becomes harder than it sounds. What starts initially as a struggle to reach the surface soon goes awry, and Phillip again finds himself bravely running for his life and sanity in the finest tradition of Lovecraftian protagonists. There's lots of fan-service moments echoing events of the trilogy, and the game also even tries to make Requiem a bit more relevant, though how well it succeeds in that is up to you and whether or not you had the stomach to play through that travesty of a puzzle-pack The game mostly sticks to the rusty subterranean environments of the past three games, though later on it spices things up with a few outdoor sections. Regardless of the setting, the visual storytelling is pretty spot-on. Honestly, I'm not sure how to feel about Necrologue's plot. Right off the bat, it's clear the story is something of a work of fanfiction, although a reasonably well-crafted one. How well you're likely to take it depends on how dissatisfied you were with the endings that Requiem and Black Plague provided. Truthfully, the story is more of an 'expansion' on the lore of the trilogy than a stand-alone tale, with a vast majority of content being borrowed from the original series in order to pad things out. There are some subplots delivered via collectible notes, but none of them are very engrossing, and serve little function beyond enhancing the atmosphere Of course, being a mod made by fans for fans, that's to be expected, but I can't help but feel that the great tragedy here is that while they stayed true to the spirit of the narrative, they failed to do anything really original with it. That said, I much prefer the two-choice ending the mod provides by comparison to the despair-laden authorized ones. Both are much more ambiguous, in the spirit of Requiem's conclusion, but with a potential dash of optimism, if you have the will to see it. I suppose that's counter to what a Lovecraft story is supposed to engender, given that cosmic horror is all about existential terror, but frankly, I like the occasional spark of light in my dark stories; otherwise, what's the point of telling them? People play games to escape our depressing reality, not confront it. GameplayThe gameplay of Black Plague is the DNA of Necrologue, and it does almost nothing to differentiate itself. Stealth is crucial to survival, though more time is spent solving puzzles than hiding and running from monsters, which is something the game could've done with more of. Exploration is crucial for locating vital materials such as flashlight batteries and painkillers, as well as key items for resolving various logical conundrums. Of course it shouldn't be said that Necrologue is a direct clone, as it does stand apart in some small ways. There is no glow-stick in this game, only flares and your flashlight. It also plays around with your access to these sources of illumination later on, which is kind of fun since it makes a nice change of pace to have to rely on your other senses and memory to get around in the dark. There is also a new monster that makes a recurring appearance, which is faster and tougher than the old Tuurngait zombies, but not noticeably more bright. Like much of its source material, Penumbra: Necrologue is heavy on long stretches of corridor. Something about that length always helps engender dread, mostly of backtracking constantly. For those of us that love the gameplay style of The Dark Descent and the other Penumbra titles, all this is old hat, albeit a beloved and floppy one. My chief complaint I suppose is the puzzles. While clever, many of them are incredibly difficult to solve. My chief example would have to be the chemical-mixing puzzle that turns up about a third of the way in, which relies on the player looking at a map of the periodic table (ironic, since Clarence erased that from Phillip's brain in Black Plague). It's poorly explained, and relies too heavily on the player knowing what compounds are which. Compared to the explosive-mixing experiment that was the finale of Overture, it's downright cryptic. Of course the puzzles should be hard, but they should also be at least marginally intuitive and sad to say, that doesn't appear to be the case here. Sound & DesignOn the subject of sound, Necrologue gets things mostly right, switching back and forth between Mikko Tarmia's menacing soundtrack from the original Penumbra, as well as new tracks made by the mod's authors, and dead silence. For all their missteps in other departments, it sticks close to the themes of Lovecraftian horror that made the original trilogy such gold to play. Monsters are rarely deployed, but always given weight when they are. The developers have actually added a couple that didn't appear in the original games, including one that was only seen during the original tech demo for the HPL engine the game runs on. Sadly, that monster specifically seems to have the WORST sound bug, generating ear-splitting screeches fit to ruin your speakers. I can't tell if its intentional or not, but it's certainly quite horrible, and while it's probably a little late to expect the makers to do anything to fix it, it would be nice if they could. It's also clear the writers weren't native English-speakers, so if bad grammar really hurts your immersion like it does mine, you might want to be wary. Granted, the voice acting is pretty great compared to the trashy performances you often get with independent titles of any kind, but good acting can't cover bad linguistics. It's like those silly Youtube videos where people try to sing the direct translation of a Disney song from a foreign language and it comes out as word-salad. It's just a tragedy the writers didn't put more effort into translating their material for a foreign audience before hiring the voice actors to do their part. Flares make a return as a useful, yet noisy light source that should only be employed in the absence of monsters. The fact that you can never be entirely sure if there's one in the vicinity always made me hesitant to employ them, yet given there's no middle ground in the form of a glowstick, it's a risk you're forced to take this time around. In terms of the mod's graphics...well, it's Penumbra, a game made on an engine well over a decade old. it runs smoothly despite that, though there is another huge bug that the developers don't seem to have fixed yet on that front as well, near the conclusion of the game. It's not game-breaking, but it's certainly perfect for ruining immersion. Level design is more linear than in the Penumbra series, but still manages to keep things moving along at a relatively speedy pace. Overall it took me about five or six hours to finish the entire mod, though that's a rough estimate, given I took frequent breaks. It does reuse portions of Requiem's levels, which actually helps engender a sense of uncertain sanity for those of us who might've actually played it, though whether that's intentional is up in the air. Final VerdictCompared to most Amnesia mods, Necrologue is something special. It has production values, an actual story and a strong atmosphere that doesn't rely on jump-scares. Unfortunately it also still feels very much like an amateur production in some ways, plus the added downside of suffering from something like what I call 'foreign film syndrome', which I use to describe good work that sadly loses something in translation (sometimes literally). I would recommend it for the dedicated Penumbra fan, or for those interested more fun with Amnesia. Otherwise, you might want to steer clear. This is, at its core, a fan production. It was made by the fans, for the fans, and its design shows that to a considerable extent. I still enjoyed it, and I hope you do too, if you choose to look it up. And if you need another reason, well...it's free. And isn't that a reason in itself Minimum System Requirements
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Operating System: Windows XP, Vista, 7 Processor Capacity: 3.2 GHz DirectX: Version 9.0c RAM: 2 GB Hard Drive Space: 2 GB --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 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 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- |
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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
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