Posted Mar 8, 2011 10:27 pm
Game Review
Dead Space 2
Dead Space is an over the shoulder third person survival horror game set in dystopian space, following the story of the engineer-turn-survivor Isaac Clarke as he tries to escape another necromorph outbreak.
In Dead Space, Isaac discovered on a repair call that the planet cracking spaceship the Ishimura was dead, and its inhabitants being transformed into gruesome necromorphs, twisted aberrations of flesh and claws. Isaac destroyed the ancient artifact that created them, only to find that his girlfriend he was trying to save had committed suicide weeks prior.
Isaac wakes up in a mental facility three years later on the Sprawl, a city built on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. The government has recreated the marker from his memories and another necromorph outbreak has ravaged the city.
The original Dead Space was on the vanguard of publisher giant EA’s new initiative to develop new IPs and branch away from its declining sports franchises. It was notable for a realistic weighted feel to gameplay and a fairly novel idea of using repurposed engineering tools as your weapons. It also turned the survival horror trope of headshots, pardon the pun, on its head. “Strategic dismemberment” was the most effective way to dispatch the aberrations.
Dead Space 2 keeps most the innovations and works to refine the gameplay. Many of the weapons and tools remain the same with minor tweaks. Zero-G jumping environments have been replaced with a Zero-G rocket booster system that is a significant improvement to maneuverability and preventing the feeling of vertigo that those sections invoked.
The variety of enemies also has been improved, including the childlike horde of the Pack, and the velociraptor evoking Stalkers (who may or may not be able to open locked doors and do not know fear). The new regular enemies actually highlight one of the flaws of the game: the lack of variety and memorable features of the bosses. All of them were just larger, armored versions of their more numerous brethrens, and most boss battles play out less like fights and more like interactive cinematics. But what impressive cinematics they are. Dead Space plays out better than Hollywood horror. The tension is palpable, even in the lulls between necromorph encounters, where parts rattle, scratching can be heard, and visions of Isaac’s dead girlfriend haunt you as you go. Adding to the tension is a notable decrease in the availability of ammo. Certain sections became extremely frustrating not due to challenge of the creatures, but stretches where no ammo could be scavenged. The necromorphs also emerge from even more locations than just the vents in the wall and floor now, walking the fine line between surprising and cheap.
Perhaps the biggest gamble on the developers part is the decision to give Isaac a face, voice, and personality. This works out fairly well for the most part, and gels with the previous experience of Isaac being a silent protagonist. Such a character can work very well (see thequintessential Gordon Freeman), but with the new understanding that Isaac is in fact an unreliable narrator of sorts, it makes sense to watch Isaac struggle with his grief and guilt as he slowly goes insane.
Dead Space delivers a strong horror story with strong, if not entirely unpredictable, twists throughout its 15 levels. Maintaining the tension through the 8-10 hours of gaemplay lends to an at times nervewracking and very enjoyable experience.
Nerd Culture
-My ramblings about the state of nerd culture today, spanning pretty much any related topic.
EA’s Dead Space 2 marketing fell far short of the game it promoted. EA has been known to make questionable advertising decisions previously, notably Dante’s Inferno’s “Seven Deadly Sins” ad campaign that promoted fans to partake in photo quests related to the sins. This time they used a particularly silly gimmick of videotaping mothers watching gameplay footage and reacting with horror. It was promoted as “Your Mom Will Hate This.” It was moronic on many levels. It was demeaning to gamers that we would buy a game based on our mothers’ negative opinions. Secondly, it sets back all the progress of games as a credible “mature” form of entertainment by advertising a Mature rated game towards a young teenage mindset. With all the controversy in the media and legal systems to limit sales and development of adult games, this kind of stunt gives rhetoric spewing pundits the ammo they need to influence the masses unaware of the potential for story telling and artistic expression in videogames.
You need to grow up EA. We already have.
Movie Pick
-This section will focus on a movie for its merits in production, acting, writing, or history.
Watchmen
Since Zack Snyder’s new movie Sucker Punch is releasing this month, now seems a good time to revisit his adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen.
Watchmen was written in the 80s as an iconoclastic take on the superhero genre, where all the costumed heroes have serious issues, personal or psychological. It deals with a realistic world where the people who would dress up in latex and run around on rooftops are generally messed up one way or another. It was a radical story that sparked a revolution that allowed characters to be dark and flawed. It was named to Time’s top 100 novels list, the only graphic novel to be named.
Studios have attempted to make the movie for years, but repeated fumbling of Alan Moore’s other works (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta, From Hell) coupled with the dark an immense nature of the story mired the film in production hell for decades. Finally Zach Snyder got took control of the project and was able to release it in 2009.
Superheroes have been forcibly retired by the government following their use in winning the Vietnam war. One of the few government sanctioned superheroes, the Comedian (Jeffery Dean Morgan) is murdered. His death triggers a chain of events forcing the retired or renegade heroes to investigate the unusual circumstances surrounding many of the heroes and their families and foes.
The film sticks meticulously to the story and style of the graphic novel. Some minor plot points, and the controversial ending has been slightly rewritten to better fit reasoning of today’s world. Period music from the eighties is perfectly arranged to set an appropriate atmosphere in the alternate history where Richard Nixon has been elected for a third term and the Russians are preparing nuclear strikes. The casting choice is also excellent. Jeffery Dean Morgan does an excellent job showing the development of the Comedian through the years, and Jackie Earle Haley is absolutely perfect as the radical fundamentalist sociopath turned vigilante Rorsach.
If anything, the movie’s greatest flaw is that it sticks too closely to the graphic novel. The cinematography, the dialog is all meant to recreate the movie almost scene for scene. This leads to the movie having no ability to stand on its own. The graphic novel had impact because it was so unique and radical, now in a modern age where all superheroes have to be tormented and flawed (see the failure of Superman Returns and the popularity of Iron Man) the movie sits squarely in the middle of the “edgy” crowd.
Star of the Week
-This section will highlight a lovely lady or talented gentleman in film, television, music, or nerd culture. As often as possible it will be related to one of the sections of the entry.
Watchmen’s new Silk Specter, Malin Akerson. She plays a latex clad superhero torn between her extradimensional boyfriend who is losing touch with reality, and her attraction to her old friend Night Owl. She had her first mainstream movie role as the wife of a creepy redneck in Harold & Kumar. She is filming for the role the storied adult film star Linda Lovelace in “Inferno,” replacing the legally plagued and downward spiraling Lindsay Lohan (a wise decision in my own humble opinion).
Dead Space 2
Dead Space is an over the shoulder third person survival horror game set in dystopian space, following the story of the engineer-turn-survivor Isaac Clarke as he tries to escape another necromorph outbreak.
In Dead Space, Isaac discovered on a repair call that the planet cracking spaceship the Ishimura was dead, and its inhabitants being transformed into gruesome necromorphs, twisted aberrations of flesh and claws. Isaac destroyed the ancient artifact that created them, only to find that his girlfriend he was trying to save had committed suicide weeks prior.
Isaac wakes up in a mental facility three years later on the Sprawl, a city built on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. The government has recreated the marker from his memories and another necromorph outbreak has ravaged the city.
The original Dead Space was on the vanguard of publisher giant EA’s new initiative to develop new IPs and branch away from its declining sports franchises. It was notable for a realistic weighted feel to gameplay and a fairly novel idea of using repurposed engineering tools as your weapons. It also turned the survival horror trope of headshots, pardon the pun, on its head. “Strategic dismemberment” was the most effective way to dispatch the aberrations.
Dead Space 2 keeps most the innovations and works to refine the gameplay. Many of the weapons and tools remain the same with minor tweaks. Zero-G jumping environments have been replaced with a Zero-G rocket booster system that is a significant improvement to maneuverability and preventing the feeling of vertigo that those sections invoked.
The variety of enemies also has been improved, including the childlike horde of the Pack, and the velociraptor evoking Stalkers (who may or may not be able to open locked doors and do not know fear). The new regular enemies actually highlight one of the flaws of the game: the lack of variety and memorable features of the bosses. All of them were just larger, armored versions of their more numerous brethrens, and most boss battles play out less like fights and more like interactive cinematics. But what impressive cinematics they are. Dead Space plays out better than Hollywood horror. The tension is palpable, even in the lulls between necromorph encounters, where parts rattle, scratching can be heard, and visions of Isaac’s dead girlfriend haunt you as you go. Adding to the tension is a notable decrease in the availability of ammo. Certain sections became extremely frustrating not due to challenge of the creatures, but stretches where no ammo could be scavenged. The necromorphs also emerge from even more locations than just the vents in the wall and floor now, walking the fine line between surprising and cheap.
Perhaps the biggest gamble on the developers part is the decision to give Isaac a face, voice, and personality. This works out fairly well for the most part, and gels with the previous experience of Isaac being a silent protagonist. Such a character can work very well (see thequintessential Gordon Freeman), but with the new understanding that Isaac is in fact an unreliable narrator of sorts, it makes sense to watch Isaac struggle with his grief and guilt as he slowly goes insane.
Dead Space delivers a strong horror story with strong, if not entirely unpredictable, twists throughout its 15 levels. Maintaining the tension through the 8-10 hours of gaemplay lends to an at times nervewracking and very enjoyable experience.
Nerd Culture
-My ramblings about the state of nerd culture today, spanning pretty much any related topic.
EA’s Dead Space 2 marketing fell far short of the game it promoted. EA has been known to make questionable advertising decisions previously, notably Dante’s Inferno’s “Seven Deadly Sins” ad campaign that promoted fans to partake in photo quests related to the sins. This time they used a particularly silly gimmick of videotaping mothers watching gameplay footage and reacting with horror. It was promoted as “Your Mom Will Hate This.” It was moronic on many levels. It was demeaning to gamers that we would buy a game based on our mothers’ negative opinions. Secondly, it sets back all the progress of games as a credible “mature” form of entertainment by advertising a Mature rated game towards a young teenage mindset. With all the controversy in the media and legal systems to limit sales and development of adult games, this kind of stunt gives rhetoric spewing pundits the ammo they need to influence the masses unaware of the potential for story telling and artistic expression in videogames.
You need to grow up EA. We already have.
Movie Pick
-This section will focus on a movie for its merits in production, acting, writing, or history.
Watchmen
Since Zack Snyder’s new movie Sucker Punch is releasing this month, now seems a good time to revisit his adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen.
Watchmen was written in the 80s as an iconoclastic take on the superhero genre, where all the costumed heroes have serious issues, personal or psychological. It deals with a realistic world where the people who would dress up in latex and run around on rooftops are generally messed up one way or another. It was a radical story that sparked a revolution that allowed characters to be dark and flawed. It was named to Time’s top 100 novels list, the only graphic novel to be named.
Studios have attempted to make the movie for years, but repeated fumbling of Alan Moore’s other works (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta, From Hell) coupled with the dark an immense nature of the story mired the film in production hell for decades. Finally Zach Snyder got took control of the project and was able to release it in 2009.
Superheroes have been forcibly retired by the government following their use in winning the Vietnam war. One of the few government sanctioned superheroes, the Comedian (Jeffery Dean Morgan) is murdered. His death triggers a chain of events forcing the retired or renegade heroes to investigate the unusual circumstances surrounding many of the heroes and their families and foes.
The film sticks meticulously to the story and style of the graphic novel. Some minor plot points, and the controversial ending has been slightly rewritten to better fit reasoning of today’s world. Period music from the eighties is perfectly arranged to set an appropriate atmosphere in the alternate history where Richard Nixon has been elected for a third term and the Russians are preparing nuclear strikes. The casting choice is also excellent. Jeffery Dean Morgan does an excellent job showing the development of the Comedian through the years, and Jackie Earle Haley is absolutely perfect as the radical fundamentalist sociopath turned vigilante Rorsach.
If anything, the movie’s greatest flaw is that it sticks too closely to the graphic novel. The cinematography, the dialog is all meant to recreate the movie almost scene for scene. This leads to the movie having no ability to stand on its own. The graphic novel had impact because it was so unique and radical, now in a modern age where all superheroes have to be tormented and flawed (see the failure of Superman Returns and the popularity of Iron Man) the movie sits squarely in the middle of the “edgy” crowd.
Star of the Week
-This section will highlight a lovely lady or talented gentleman in film, television, music, or nerd culture. As often as possible it will be related to one of the sections of the entry.
Watchmen’s new Silk Specter, Malin Akerson. She plays a latex clad superhero torn between her extradimensional boyfriend who is losing touch with reality, and her attraction to her old friend Night Owl. She had her first mainstream movie role as the wife of a creepy redneck in Harold & Kumar. She is filming for the role the storied adult film star Linda Lovelace in “Inferno,” replacing the legally plagued and downward spiraling Lindsay Lohan (a wise decision in my own humble opinion).
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