Impressions: Dead Space 2 Multiplayer (PS3)

October 19th, 2010 | Categories: Smash Pad, Video Game Reviews

Dead Space proved to be one of the most shocking titles of 2008…in more ways than one. Not only did EA and Visceral successfully create a new title in the vaunted horror genre, but they scared us half to death in doing so as well. While the first game focused solely on the campaign and the fright that went with fighting off hideous creatures alone in the dark, Dead Space 2 is adding a multiplayer component that looks to ups the ante in the way you play the latest game. We recently got our hands on the multiplayer beta for Dead Space 2 and things are looking just as scary as before.

The best way to describe the multiplayer in the Dead Space 2 beta is to compare it to Left 4 Dead. The gameplay is similar to how both teams take turns playing as both humans and necromorphs, and even some of the necromorph attacks are ironically similar in both name and style. There is only one map available in the demo, called Titan Mines, where the objective is for the human team to find parts to a generator scattered around the map and bring it back to the starting position. Activating this generator successfully closes the mine preventing more necromorphs from getting in. Simple right? Wrong.

This mode that we played is INCREDIBLY one sided in favor of the necromorph team. Sure the humans have their share of plasma cutters and powers at their disposal but whenever we played as the necromorphs we were on the winning side 90% of the time. Playing as the necromorphs is always more fun than running and gunning as a human, and since human players lose their sprint ability while carrying items needed to win…killing necromorphs or escaping is not nearly as fun as it should be.

The battle consists of two teams of four fighting over an extended period of time. The human’s main goal is to collect the various bombs and parts needed to fix the generator while the necromorphs have to simply stop them. What makes this scenario so daunting for the humans is the way the necromorphs can go about their attacks. For starters the necromorphs can see through walls and can view the heat outlines of all humans. Secondly, they can respawn at any available ventilation shaft in the level (by simply zooming out with the camera) making it incredibly easy for the necromorphs to spawn with another for double team kills or in the opposing teams spawn for easy deaths.

That’s what makes this a one-sided affair. The inability for the humans to say at any point they have a solid shot of winning a match. That’s not to say I never won when I was a human but every time I played as a necromorph my team always won by a large margin. What makes the necromorphs so much fun to play are the diverse groups of creatures you can control, each with its own specific abilities. The Pack are small, human like necromorphs who have a powerful melee attack and can leap onto a human and scratch and claw at their face. Lurkers are tiny, baby-like creatures with tentacles that can swipe at you from the ceiling and fire their tentacles from a distance, and spitters…well spit. You can charge up a spit attack that will encase humans in acid that slowly eats away at their health. Teaming up with other necromorphs is always fun to combine attacks and because it is so easy to respawn wherever you like, sometimes humans really have no chance at all to survive.

There are some nifty new moves that you can try out in multiplayer such as curb stomping, which humans can do once they shoot off the limbs of necromorphs and a lunge attack for the Pack necromorphs, which involves both players pressing X rapidly to either bite away at the humans face or shove the Pack off and melee him to death. Initiating this sequence as a Pack was really hard to manage and I found the only time I could activate the lunge attack was when the opposing human player was directly staring at me and not doing anything…basically with no resistance. It takes almost perfect precision to land and once you do it is left up to chance on who becomes victorious.

I might have spent most of my time discussing the cons of my experience, but I still understand it’s a demo and things are bound to change. I loved the points system awarded for kills and objectives completed and the ability to improve your weapon set, character look and skills set by earning experience points is a neat way for players to truly try their hardest on both sides of the field. A neat idea included in the multiplayer actually has segments from the single player embedded in, meaning you will hear portions of Isaac’s adventure over your intercom, sometimes letting you know of his current situation and how you fending off the necromorph attack is vital to his completion.

Perhaps it is the fact there is only one level available in the demo and the inability to level up which makes this demo feel ultimately drab, but for the most part the multiplayer experience does successfully recreate the terror and brutality that Dead Space is known for. Blood spews everywhere, guns are blowing limbs off constantly and the necromorphs look as gruesome as ever. Visceral took a chance by adding multiplayer to Dead Space 2, and after a little more time refining it I feel it could be a welcome addition to the series and one that fans will no doubt enjoy.