Dissection Imminent: First Look at "Dead Space 2"

Well, out of curiosity, I played the demo for Dead Space 2. I liked the first, was underwhelmed by the rail shooter, and the movies are terrible. So, I went into this one with trepidation, but still tried to keep my mind open. Here's a list of good and bad things I noticed.

Good:

- Monster design is more organic. Instead of being mutants with pustules or random limbs growing out of their bodies, they have the feel of mutilated human bodies. I also noticed that detail such as different rates of decomposition were easily seen.

- Wounds on the monsters appear when you don't dismember one. Likewise, blood splatters on you when you step on one, too.

- New weapons do feel balanced, taking you out of the "tools," and steadily introducing "actual" weapons to the game.

- For the most part, same gameplay that made the first game fun.

Bad:

- Who in the right mind makes a mini-game use a 1"X 1.5" view, off centered from the screen and character? Especially when most of the screen is available to use.

- The first half of the demo is walking through the same room no less than five times. It's not suspenseful when you go through the same exact area, and nothing happens. This could be attributed to the fact that the demo takes place in the middle of the game.

- Speaking of that, the demo has no tutorial, unless you want to sit down and read every backlog you have "collected." This is bad form for a demo seeing as, well, it's a demonstration of a new game. It also hurts players of the first game because they changed the entire control scheme without any notice other than the backlogs.

- It's not scary. A lot of the jump scares are predictable. And the rooms, for some reason are mostly well lit.

- Controls... Isaac moves incredibly slow, for some reason. The new Zero-G mechanics are a pain to control, and feel clunky.

- Why did they give Isaac a voice? The purpose of him being a silent protagonist was so the player can put themselves in his shoes. When you here his voice, it takes all of that away. He didn't say a word in the first game, why does he speak now?

All in all, I'm hoping that this is just demo jitters, but I'm not really impressed. While I'm not ready to write it off as a failure, it feels unfinished, unpolished, and a big step back instead of forward. Again, though, this is a demo, and the final product may be a lot better than this. Figuring the final product is coming out next month, I hope it does. The improvements that are made are noticeable, but some of the glaring flaws and design choices push those back, too. Also, it's impossible to tell what is going on when the demo puts you in the midst of everything, yet, puts plot points in it anyway. Show off the gameplay without spoiling the story. In fact, in a game like this, don't make the demo segments from the game. Show off the game, but make the demo different to keep the player on their toes.

Give it a try if you really want to play Dead Space 2, early. But, I think you'll appreciate the final product more if you try the full game out.