Ever wondered what happened to Isaac Clark at the end of the first Dead Space? Well in 2001 Visceral Games released the second game in the franchise with a lot more horror and A LOT MORE ACTION.

Dead Space 2 takes place 3 years after the incident on the USG Ishimura. Isaac is residing in an insane asylum on Sprawl, Saturn’s moon, Titan and is being interrogated by Earthgov. After the session Isaac awakes to a man named Franco frantically trying to release Isaac from his straight jacket. Then the best moment in video games occurs; Franco is gruesomely converted to a necromorph in front of Isaac. What gives Dead Space the right to be so bad-ass so early on? Realizing that a necromorph outbreak has begun on Sprawl, Isaac frantically runs through the asylum with the conviction that the Marker needs to be destroyed, starts his journey. The pacing is really good this time around, because there are never slow points, it is always action.

What makes Dead Space 2 the best in the series is the atmosphere. The architecture that the Church of Unitology, for example was breathtaking. A lot of work was put into the section and it shows. Everything felt real and spooky, for instance: The sounds of necromorphs making their way through the ventilation system, the sculptures that portray unity and “Convergence.” The monoliths to Altman, the informational section that teaches the religion, the advertisements that litter the area selling the Teachings of Altman and the overall church design is just damn good. Plus it is the first time the religion is seen in a physical form, rather than through audio logs.

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Titan Elementary school is some spooky shit. That shit is ridiculous, borderline unnecessary. Stupid sections gives me the chills every time. The schools teachers in their psychological break, attempt to care for the necromorph children and explode, and the adolescent children that scream and travel in packs that have claws that easily can rend flesh. The moment that the player is trapped in the gym and the creepy ass music starts to play while dead children are running at you is stupid creepy.

The game still revolves around the systematic destruction of the limbs. Dismembering necromorphs is still fun with some of the previous iterations of weapons and with the introduction of a single shot rifle, the rivet gun, the detonator and the javelin gun. All of these weapons can still be upgraded through the use of power nodes to make them stronger, shoot and reload faster. all in all, shooting things in the arms and legs is still fun.

Stasis still plays a vital role in Dead Space 2’s gameplay because it still slows enemies to a halt for a brief moment to make it easier to dismember them, allows Isaac to pass through certain obstacles.

Even though Isaac is tasked with saving all life in the known galaxy, he still does in fact need to fix shit every once and a while. Isaac fixes elevators and realigns solar arrays to be able to progress. Sometimes Isaac needs to fix these issues while in zero-gravity which still fun and the freedom does not break the pacing even in the slightest.

All in all, Dead Space 2 is better than its predecessor in almost every way even though it does not specifically bring anything new to the table. The corridors are tight and dark, the look of the game makes the enemies more gruesome looking, the shooting feels great and the atmosphere is dark and mystical. The campaign’s pacing is consistent and stays exhilarating until the very end.

The only gripe that I have with the game is Isaac’s voice, my God it is bad. I understand the idea of giving the protagonist a voice but if the only things that are going to come out of his mouth are shitty action movie quips, then just leave him to be silent

The fucking train gets derailed and all this bloke can come up with when asked what happened was, “it made an UNEXPECTED stop.”

STOP.