The Dead Space 2 story resumes three years after Isaac Clark’s first encounter with the blood thirsty, contorted humanoid Necromorphs and the occult iconography of the obelisk-like Marker totem.

If this is your first venture into the world of Dead Space fear not. Upon loading Dead Space 2 you will be offered the option to launch a “Previously on Dead Space” video. This video will quickly and comprehensively bring you up to speed on the entire events from the first game, the characters and universe. So when you are thrust into the action of the opening chapter you shouldn’t be totally confused. The same can’t be said for Isaac.

Awoken injured and restrained by a straitjacket, Isaac is confused, disorientated and left with only a fuzzy idea of where he is and why. Isaac is stationed in a medical facility on Titan station, a space station orbiting one of Saturn’s moons. He is being treated for various physiological effects he suffered after his previous encounter with the Marker. But it quickly becomes apparent that Isaacs’s medical well being (or lack there of) isn’t the only reason for his confinement.

Isaac quickly finds he must run for his life as the same horrifying events that took place years earlier on the USG Ishimura are now happening on Titan station. The Necromorphs are somehow back and are infecting the inhabitants.

The game moves away from the claustrophobic corridors and elevator shafts of the USG Ishimura to the colonized inhabitations of ‘The Sprawl’  on Titan Station. With this come larger environments and bigger, more aggressive enemies that are just baying to kill Isaac in a myriad of gloriously gory ways. The larger levels open the game to bigger set pieces and large scale combat against waves of multiple enemies in terrifying encounters.  That being said the game doesn’t totally neglect the tight, dark corridors  of its predecessor entirely but they are used sparingly for moments of true tension and terror.

The most drastic deviation from the original Dead Space is that Isaac Clarke is no longer your archetypal silent protagonist. When he isn’t removing the limbs from Necromorphs he has time to stop and talk with the few lucky survivors. His helmet will lift, rotate and separate in a single fluid motion revealing his harrowed, haunted face. Isaac’s ability to converse with and console fellow survivors has added an emotive capability as his expressions are no longer limited to grunting, screaming and heavy breathing. With Clarke being a physiologically fragile character with schizophrenic tendencies this doesn’t result in a very rich or deep character, rather what you get is a stereotypical brash hero who rarely manages to be any more than the one dimensional and clichéd cretin you’ve seen in countless other games. If anything I found him to be a less likable version of the mute Isaac who was in Dead Space.

From living quarters to shopping malls to the eerily unsettling gothic design of the Church of Unitology complex, the level of detail in the game is sublime. Despite the uniqueness of each individual area you’re still reminded that you are part of a much larger complex. There is a simplistic, near utilitarian design to common everyday items regardless of their location. Information notices, doors and the ever-present upgrade store are minimalistic and uncluttered while retaining a real world practicality. Visually, Dead Space 2 is impressive from top to bottom but it’s the sound that deserves the highest praise. The ear piercing shrieks, the muffled, distant scuttling of creatures and the dull, hollow echoing of the emptiness of space, all sound are just some of the highlights and all are appropriately unsettling and spine tingling.

Alongside Isaac’s new voice he also has a few new weapons to aid his survival and the slaughtering of Necromorph. Players now have the option to use more conventional weapons together with all the tried and tested weapons from the first game. Not to be forgotten are Isaac’s periphery abilities; Kinesis, where you can move, lift and fire objects and Stasis, and its time manipulation powers where you can slow down enemies. Both powers return practically unchanged.

Overall the game feels more refined, polished and has a better pace and flow. Controls have an effortless snap, Isaac’s movements no longer evoking a clunking Frankenstein’s monster feel. Whilst in zero gravity environments Isaac previously felt unwieldy and awkward with only the ability to do straight-line thrust jumps.  He now has a little grace as he flies weightlessly through the areas of zero gravity. Improvements in the engineering suit Isaac is enclosed within mean all variations are fitted with small thrusters, used for small orientation changes or to propel Isaac rapidly from place to place.

The story mode wraps up nicely at a well fleshed out ten to twelve hours of game time. Additional features and difficulty levels make multiple play-throughs engaging if only to feel like a god when you can carry over fully equipped weapons and engineering suits.

Dead Space 2 is a thorougly enjoyable survival-horror game.  It may not reach the levels of tension and horror that the first game in the series achieved but it surpasses predecessor in almost all other areas. The addition of multiplayer is a nice touch but it’s unlikely that you will glean any long term satisfaction from what appears at first glance to be a shallow and limited mode. I haven’t yet played enough of it to judge, but on the basis of the single player alone, Dead Space 2 gets a recommendation.

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