First Impressions: Dead Space 2 (PC)

I've started Dead Space 2 twice.  The first time, I made it 1h48m in then discovered that the Dead Space 2 game sold through Steam comes with three DLC packs pre-installed, which I did not know about, although it does not contain the Severed DLC which is a standalone prequel to Dead Space 2; Severed was apparently only released on PS3 and XBox 360 with no word as to a PC release.  The reason I restarted was because I had thought that all of the free items in the store (as a result of the DLC weapon/armor packs) were supposed to be there and I equipped myself to the teeth right before a mini-boss fight.  I would rather not play the game that way, so I started over with the intent of only buying items from the store as they become available in-game.

Always be wary when the best items for sale are free.

Dead Space 2 is fun at the present.  There are a number of jump scares with necromorphs bursting through walls or environmental elements springing to life as you walk by, minding your own business.  There are a number of modifications from the original Dead Space that I feel like I have to come to terms with in order to fully like this game.  

The first major change is that the game is no longer told in separate chapters.  In the first game, each time you boarded a tram to a different part of the USG Ishimura, you began a new chapter and you knew what your objective was.  In DS2, at least up to chapter 4, you are following the guidance of a voice on the other end of your radio as you make your way through Titan Station (built around the remnants of Saturn's moon Titan) with no clear break between chapters.  I recall seeing a "Chapter 2" pop up at one point, but I have not seen anything to denote that I had entered a chapter 3 or 4.  I personally liked the individual chapters as part of a larger whole that made up the first game as well as the mobile game.  The current less structured narrative makes me feel like I am just going from one area to another and killing hordes of necromorphs along the way, because that is what you are supposed to be doing in a video game.

"Oh hai dere!"

I do like the present variety in necromorphs compared to those in DS1.  It would make sense too (does it really!?) that not all off the mutated/transfigured humans would look like the same sprinting blood thirsty brute.  You are on a space station that is full of residential living areas as well as industrial, religious and private sectors so the population is going to be different, which is something that I appreciate.

Maybe it's just me, but so far, I am getting a very Bioshock feeling from wandering around the Titan Station residential and commercial areas.  It could be due to wandering through living quarters and that a space station with super-security-gorilla-glass would be somewhat akin to the glass used in an underwater city and the necromorphs are more perverted than the splicers, but they are still often sprinting monsters that jump out and want to annihilate you just because you have a prettier face.  The point is, I don't want to be playing Bioshock, I want to play the sequel to Dead Space and I am not getting that feeling with only four hours in.

A physical representation of a Marker that size is never a good thing to come across in this universe.

I was talking to Conklederp the other day about this and I decided that I am going to reserve my final judgement of the game until after I reach the end.  I am still enjoying the game, despite how I have sounded through half of this article and I am also interested to find out if I have been intentionally mislead and that my impressions of the game will change later on.  I am also interested to see how the previous stories from Dead Space: Aftermath, Ignition and Mobile all fit together and how they are presented, if at all, in this game that is a cumulation of all of those individual parts.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Awake From Madness

Book Review: Dead Space: Catalyst

Dead Space: Catalyst is the second book written by American novelist Brian K. Evenson who had previously written Dead Space: Martyr, being the first in the chronological timeline for the Dead Space universe.  And since we are bringing up chronology, let us put the books into context with the first game.

2214 - 2215: Dead Space: Martyr

2285 - Events in Dead Space: Catalyst take place, although since the book spans roughly 25 years, it can be assumed (Yes? No? Maybe?) that the events at the end of the book take place in 2285.

2508 - Dead Space

So as you can see, if you are looking to read about Issac Clarke's back story, or about what happened on the USG Ishimura during its 60 years in service before it came to Aegis VII or anyone/thing else directly connected with the what you played in the first Dead Space game, then you might be a bit disappointed.

All of this aside, I thought Cataclysm was a well told story that was very well written.  As I stated at the end of my review of Martyr, I am now even more interested in reading other works by Mr. Evenson, although I am afraid that it would be like reading anything else that George R. R. Martin has written that was not A Song of Ice and Fire related.  I guess I would just like to read more of what Mr. Evenson has to say about the Dead Space universe.

What will follow from here may contain spoilers to both this book as well as the first game.  Y'all have been warned.

Dead Space: Cataclysm follows the lives of two brothers, Istvan and Jensi Sato from their early teenage years, up through, what I would assume to be their early thirties.  While reading the book, I cannot recall having any issues with Jensi Sato, the main protagonist and how the reader is introduced to the majority of events in the book.  Looking back now, while I still do not have any real issues, I think I feel that Jensi existed primarily to take characters to important events and to be witness to what happens to Istvan.  But that is the way some narratives work, that is how this narrative worked and it worked well to serve its purpose.

With Istvan Sato, I really felt that B. K. Evenson really excelled as an author.  At least in the first half of the book.  I am not one to diagnose anyone with any type of developmental disability, which is the extent to which Istvan's "mental problems" are described in the book.  In the story, Jensi never states if his brother was diagnosed with any type of disorder or developmental disability, but Istvan's rational for seeing patterns or wanting objects to be in a particular order struck me as exhibiting actions similar to those who find themselves on the autistic spectrum.  How Mr. Evenson justified Istvan's actions to himself was instrumental for allowing the reader to (hopefully) understand why Istvan was acting the way he was, that he was not the bad guy.  It was just that people did not understand the obvious reasons why he did the things he was doing and he personally could not understand why it was not at all obvious to them as well.

One thing that always strikes me with a series that involves really bad things that always seem to be happening, especially when events are instigated by people, is why they keep letting these events happen over and over.  This was a question that I had after finishing the first Dead Space game regarding the devotion of Unitologists.  When your religious icon/object only seems to reanimate corpses into horrible machines of whirling death, why keep worshiping it and how did/would the church maintain its status as a powerful growing religion?  Seriously, how/why do people keep seeing The Marker as a benevolent source of do-gooding?  I feel this is where Brian Evenson has really excelled both in Martyr and  in Catalyst.  A lot of characters, when the story is being told from their perspective have said that the appearance of loved ones creates a overwhelming feeling of contentment and that they may be doing something unrelated to the knife in their hands that ends up killing them.

The last act of the book is where Dead Space the game comes into the story telling; as in necromorphs.  Everything leading up to Act III is primarily character development with premonitions of all the bad things that I have come to expect from the video game franchise.  I imagine this is where some people who want to read a written down account of the game, but this is a different medium all together where you can do things you cannot do elsewhere.  Reading about someones inner thoughts and the reasons why they are jabbing a fork into their face while mumbling something about their grandmother whom they loved as a child is easier in book form than it is in any other format.

Going through the first Dead Space again after having read the first two books gives the characters in the game a lot more depth that I had not realized was not there.  When I come across someone banging their head against a wall or slitting their own neck with a surgical saw, I no longer wonder why they would do this.  Now I wonder who they were seeing that "convinced" them that doing this particular act was what The Marker wanted.  Having read both Martyr and Cataclysm only fleshes out the Dead Space universe and, I feel, has only made the games better.

If you are not into science fiction, then this book probably is not for you.  But, as a well written semi-psychological look at someone with a "mental disorder" who you might end up feeling for by the end all of which takes place in a science fiction setting, then you might find yourself reading a good book.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Deep In The Shadows You Won't Find Peace

Book Review: Dead Space: Martyr

Dead Space: Martyr is a novel written by American author Brian Evenson that chronicles the finding of the Black Marker and  the "rise" of Michael Altman culminating in his founding of the Unitology religion.  The book takes place in the early 2200's, roughly 300 years before the events in the first Dead Space game.

I really enjoyed this book, despite the obvious stigma of a book being written that was based from a video game.  Keep in mind that I don't really have a problem with this media even though I don't have a real history with fiction based from a pre-existing movie or video game.  I never read any of the Star Wars books.  I had no interest in any of the Star Trek fictions and  I'm not a real fan of fan-fiction.  I understand their appeal, it's just not for me.  On the other hand, I do read the comics that continue the twice cancelled show Jericho and I am two thirds of the way through the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy that takes place after the film Willow.

With all of that in mind, when I found out that there were novels that took place in the Dead Space universe, I was mildly intrigued.  I loved the universe and the lore that I was introduced to in the first Dead Space game so the desire to find out more about this storyline was very tempting.  I was, however, a little trepidatious about the quality of the books.  I will admit that I was skeptical about how well the books would be written.  If the story would be just a wordier rehash of the games (having only played the first game mind you).  That was when I resorted to a resource that I rarely ever use.

I looked at reviews of the books, specifically Martyr on Amazon's page.  I don't often look at book reviews and I can't really say why.  (Is it hypocritical then that I'm writing one now?)  I feel like there are people who will love a book, people who like it, and people who don't.  And reading about someone not liking a book won't mean that it's a bad book, just that that one person didn't like it.  What other books don't they like.  What other books do they like?  I feel like I want to know their background as a person before knowing if their review of a book will be relevant to my own tastes in books.  Obviously I'm not going to actually do all of that background research on a single person before seriously considering their review, that's just too much work and I'm just too damn lazy.

So the reviews that I had looked up for Martyr were very favorable, and having now finished the book myself, I can agree on a number of points.  First and foremost being that it is a very well written book.  I was a little concerned during the first sentence when I was questioning if the author should have used "dove" instead of "dived."  Once I got beyond that, I was able to fully enjoy both the story and the complexity of the overall story.

Dead Space: Martyr is basically the origin-messiah story of Unitologist founder Michael Altman.  If you think of it as an author being told to write a Jesus Christ story in 374 pages and keep it interesting for the target audience who have most likely already played any one of the existing games, that's quite a feat.  The story that B.K. Everson wrote was a good one.  I was entertained throughout and once the book began to turn into an almost play-by-play of Dead Space footage, I could forgive this quick turn of events.  Having already gone through Dead Space, I knew immediately which of the necromorphs were being described, the way they moved/attacked so I had a pretty good image of incidences in the book.  I don't know what those passages would be like for someone who has never played any of the games.

I will say that the end of the book came up on me rather abruptly.  I wish that there was an additional 50 pages that took place before Altman's martyrdom took place.  There were a number of times that I thought I could see the direction Evenson wanted to take with Altman's supposed founding of Unitology that just didn't pay off in the end.  Even interactions with some of the necromorphs I thought were playing a larger role than just a monster in the way.  In the later chapters of the book, various characters are found to be using plasma-based tools/weapons that may not seem out of place in the 2200, but the fact that in 300 years, nearly the same tools are being used.  You'd think that some advancements would be made by 2500 or maybe they should not have existed yet in 2200.  One character does use a chainsaw (a nod to Doom maybe?), but it makes sense where it was introduced and it's application.

In the end, how successful was the book?  Successful enough for me to have purchased the next book in the Dead Space chronology which was also written by B.K. Evenson, Catalyst.  Additionally, I am now interested in reading other works that Mr. Evenson.  Success.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Still Alive