14 DAY TRIAL // A lot of things are different for Dead Space 2 main character, Isaac Clarke, from his newly found voice to the arsenal he can use to dispatch Necromorphs, but one thing has not changed from his first video game appearance: he is portrayed as a man that stands on the border that separates normality from madness.
But there's no variety to his madness in Dead Space 2, no feeling that he is flirting with a different reality.
In the first Dead Space, at the end of the game a player could question what was real and what not in his playthrough, but there are no questions here, with a shift in the color palette and creepy voices clearly indicating when the “crazy” stuff is taking place.
The whole concept would have been much more effective if each madness interlude manifested itself differently, blending it seamlessly at points with the reality of the game and creating wholly disruptive sequences after that, making players question their reactions and where the border lies between Clarke's two sides.
What's worse is that the mental condition of the main character does not significantly impact the gameplay, and it only serves a purpose for the developers at Visceral, giving them a chance to pull off some more, mostly cheap, horror sequences.
I could have cheerily gone through Dead Space 2 with a perfectly sane and balanced Isaac Clarke, taking out necromorphs, saving the day without feeling that there's something I have failed to experience, that there's something central to the game I was not enjoying.
Electronic Arts and Visceral will probably create a Dead Space 3 at some point in the future and it would be interesting to see them exploring more of what goes on inside Clarke's head in it, focusing more on the battle inside of him than on the carnage that goes down outside of his skull.