Impressions: Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii) # 2

Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii)
Pub: Nintendo/Dev: Monolith Soft
ESRB: T/Players: 1

Yes, I did do impressions for this before. You’re not crazy. That was for a very brief hour and a half. I’ve put in several more hours (42 if I remember right) since that write-up, and wanted to update you on how I’m feeling about the game as a whole.

I think I can just let loose and say this game is astounding. I’ve been completely wowed by the quality and gloss Monolith Soft applied to every facet of the gameplay. Combat is invigorating and requires more attention than you might think, given that your standard attacks are automatic. Between proper positioning to best utilize your Arts, rallying your comrades, dodging attacks and landing critical strikes, linking up chain combos, and occasionally getting whomped by some massive brute of a foe, I’ve gotten my fair share of rewarding gameplay goodness engaging in battle. The game throws enemies way outside the player’s league in many of the areas, which is quite novel. I’ve had battles with run-of-the-mill foes go south once some monstrous baddie notices the fray and decides to participate. The overall lack of punishment beyond backtracking makes this style of enemy encounter work, and I hope more RPG’s consider doing this in the future.

Even more enjoyable than the combat is the overall pleasantness of wandering around. Xenoblade is enormous, and part of the reason I’ve logged in 42 hours is through side-quests, exploration experience bonuses, and the sheer thrill of poking around such beautiful locales.The Colony 6 subquest manages to make tedious item hunting worth doing, and the extensive sidequest list per village is staggering. You won’t be without things to do in this game. The game’s soundtrack is incredibly suited to each area, with day and night themes that vary up the instrumentation but maintain the melody of its opposite. The writing is overall top-notch, and the voice over work by the British cast hasn’t gotten old. Visually and aurally, this is a lush, positively riveting game. Ignore people who poo-poo on the game’s look, because they are blind. This pushes the Wii hardware and it does it with class. Occasionally slowdown will rear its ugly head, but it’s trivial thus far. Any inconveniences like being slaughtered or a nasty plummet are easily negated with fast travel and the ability to freely save anywhere on the field.  Do I have any complaints? Not really, no.

Xenoblade Chronicles may be the perfect hybrid of RPG design philosophies of the east and the west. It addresses so many nitpicks I’ve had with RPG’s of old, and has yet to disappoint me in any substantial way. I’ve got a long way to go before I reach the end, but I eagerly await seeing what else this lovely game has waiting in the wings.

Impressions: Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii)

Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii)
Pub: Nintendo/Dev: Monolith Soft
ESRB: T/Players: 1

Before I begin proper, let me say that it’s surreal having this game.  I didn’t expect to be able to play Xenoblade without importing and modding my Wii, and I had just about given up on its announcement when Nintendo suddenly dropped the word that it was indeed coming to America.  I haven’t quite shaken off the awe that it’s in my hands.

Anyway, I’m sure you’d rather know what I think about the game instead of what I felt getting it. :p  Xenoblade so far meets up with the hype.  It’s gorgeous for the Wii, stunning in its environments and its fluid animation.  The music is incredible and perfect for the game’s actions.  The English voice work is sharp and awesome (save one line of Fiona’s concluding a battle, which should have been cut short.  I don’t quite remember the whole line, but she tacks on “and on and on” when it wasn’t necessary.  Otherwise she’s golden), and it works so well with this game’s well-translated dialogue.  The battle engine takes some adjustment to get used to, and I’ve succumbed a few times in battle to some tough baddies, but I do like it a lot and want to master it.  The menu system is a little convoluted, but once you become accustomed to it the design makes sense.  Lastly, the ability to freely save, alter time at will, fast travel and pause cutscenes shows great appreciation to the player.  I put in about an hour and a half last night, and I was really invigorated by the game’s quality.  I hope it continues…on and on and on (GAH).

Impressions: Shadow Hearts (PS2)

Shadow Hearts (PS2)
Pub: Midway/Dev: Aruze/Sacnoth
ESRB: M/Players: 1

Shadow Hearts is among the more memorable JRPG’s I’ve played.  It’s got a catchy soundtrack, a gripping battle system, some insane monster designs, quirky characters (Margarete is freaking awesome), and offers a fairly compelling story.  However, it does suffer some unfortunate nuisances, too.  So far, though, I’ve been really engaged by the game.

Let’s get my griefs aired first.  The English voice acting isn’t spectacular.  Margarete gets a pass because the voice is somehow perfect for her, but nobody else seems to be relishing their parts or the script.  For some wacky reason, Midway only dubbed the cutscenes and maybe a line or two in the battle engine (Margarete, for example), so the hodgepodge of languages and voices merging into one incoherent whole is a little jarring.  Secondly, the cutscenes are…mostly awful.  The introduction wasn’t bad (although those models look a lot like mannequins), but the Sea Mother speech?  Dear god, was that necessary?  I may have nightmares of that one thanks to the vocalized sound effects of a corpse splatting its way around (SPLAT…), narrated by a woman who can’t quite commit to being an elderly woman.  It’s terrible.  And that particular example was partially explained in the game’s text before it even started.  Why reiterate if you don’t have to?  The third problem is there’s a frequent bunching of boss encounters with no save point to be found in between.  The game isn’t too tough, mind, but it’s really aggravating to have to sit through the same dialogue more than once, fight the first battle you previously won a second time, and then tweak your inventory so that instant death effects don’t ruin your efforts to bypass the final boss of the sequence.  I hope this is remedied a little in Covenant and From the New World.

Otherwise, this game is a gem.  I adore the battle system with the Judgment Ring.  It makes each attack matter.  It can make or break an effort to win.  It makes each battle, even trivial, much more entertaining than merely hammering a button and sending in the drones to perform your actions.  I always tend to prefer having a little more involvement in my RPG fights, and Shadow Hearts delivers it in spades.  Hell, it even uses the Ring in shops to discount bought items and raise the price on sold items.  This is the most fun I’ve ever had shopping in a RPG.  So gameplay wise, Shadow Hearts soars.  Each character brings their own special attacks to the table, and protagonist Yuri has a plethora of forms he can transform into.  With the Ring backing each command, I have to reckon this is one of the finest engines in the genre.  Another facet that makes fighting fun is the horrific enemy designs you run up against.  There’s some disturbing shit in this game, and it flaunts its “M” rating with pride.  I’ve really been stunned at how incredible the enemies look.  I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.  Corpse dogs with a human’s arm emerging from their mouths which support their weight, creeped out frogs with skulls for eyes, and so many others that would take sentences to describe…these devs knew how to design, no doubt about it.

I’ve put it a fair amount of time into the game, and so far I am mostly digging the ride.  I’m looking forward to seeing where the game takes me from here.

Impressions: Blast Corps (N64), Jet Force Gemini (N64), Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (N64), Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space (Wii)

Time to start detailing out some of these games I recently acquired and tested out (beyond Batman, anyway, which I plan on doing an opinion for at some point). Alas, Space Station Silicon Valley is freezing up on me, so I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to try it out. I hope a cleaning will help it last long enough for me to try its gameplay at least. Anyway, onto what I could play:

Blast Corps (N64)
Pub/Dev: Rare
ESRB: E

This was among Rare’s earliest N64 efforts, but it remains one of the more engaging titles the console has in terms of immediate gameplay satisfaction.  I only dabbled with a stage or two briefly (I needed to reset the whole game over to play it proper), but I had recollections of joy flood over me as I zoomed around with my bulldozer and tore apart the landscape the prior owner failed to mow down in their playthrough.  In short, initial impressions seem fairly close to my joyous memories, and now that I know how to reset the game data, I doubt I’ll be selling it off again (the time trials are not as fun as the core game for me).  More as I get time to properly replay it.

Jet Force Gemini (N64)
Pub/Dev: Rare
ESRB: T

Jet Force Gemini is a colorful game – I forgot how vibrant it looked.  The controls are a little nitpicky – I wish it had an inverse setting for the control stick’s vertical aim.  I’m running with the “simple” controls, but I think that they’re more troublesome than the “expert” variant. XD  At any rate, my initial hour or so reminded me of the pleasure I had playing this as a kid, but it’ll take more time to rediscover that sense myself.

Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (N64)
Pub: Acclaim/Dev: Iguana Ent.
ESRB: M

I forgot how over-the-top the violence is in this game. XD  Man.  And I haven’t even gotten any of the gory weapons yet!  Thus far, I am enjoying this revisit quite a bit, although it suffers the same inverse issue that JFG does – I would be even more engaged if I didn’t have to fight with the vertical aim. XD  Jumping is a little wonky, but I’m sure I’ll come to grips with it in the near future.  I like the enemy AI and the occasional “BOO” moments the game throws at you, and it looks pretty nice for a N64 game as well.  So far, so good.

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space (Wii)
Pub: Atari/Dev: Telltale Games
ESRB: T

Let’s get the complaints out of the way first, and it’s a hefty one – this is a terrible port.  The game is choppy, the frame rate skips all over the place, the Wii pointer is nowhere as functional as the PC version of earlier Sam & Max adventures I have from Telltale, and ultimately it ruins the overall greatness the game has thanks to its shoddiness.  It’s tragic because Sam & Max is so well written, so well voiced, and so well crafted that seeing that hard work so poorly implemented is a tragedy.  Luckily, I only paid $7 for it, but if I paid full price I’d be pretty irate.  I imagine that the Wii is up to the task of the game’s engine – it’s nothing that spectacular.  I just feel that Telltale didn’t optimize the engine for the hardware, and it shows.  Shame, really.  Unless you can get this for cheap, I’d suggest enjoying this series on the PC.

Impressions – Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3), Rayman Origins (PS3)

Batman Arkham Asylum (PS3)
Pub: Eidos/Warner Bros. Interactive/Dev: Rocksteady
ESRB: T

I’ve put in three hours or so into Rocksteady’s first interpretation of the Batman franchise, and so far I’m really digging the quality.  The controls are incredibly smooth and flow like water (sorry, Steve Blum’s voice is in this, and I was suddenly inspired to make a Spike Spiegal reference), which makes combat, exploration and stealth an absolute joy.  The game looks very sharp as well, with a twist to the Batman regulars that give them their own unique vibe but keeps them identifiable (I, like most, however, would have preferred Harley Quinn to be in an outfit more like her original one – she looks a little too…oversexualized here).  The music is fantastic and moody, and the voice acting is phenomenal.  Mark Hamill in particular is deserving of incredible praise for his portrayal of the Joker.

In short, I’m really enjoying this game, and I am looking forward to getting further into it when school reading isn’t quite so heavy.

Rayman Origins (PS3)
Pub/Dev: UBI Soft
ESRB: E10+

The demo was a decent barometer into how awesome Rayman Origins actually is in full – three (well, two and a half) stages gave a tantalizing glimpse into Michel Ancel’s latest endeavor, but the full game is infinitely better than those fragments could convey.  This is a high-class, gorgeous, fun platformer with a lot of replay and a ton of charm.  It’s packed full of secrets, neat visual and audio moments, and it controls very well.  The level design is also incredible, especially in the second world you explore.  And the music is just mindblowing.  I don’t know how you keep doing that, Christophe Heral, but you need to be hired by more people to do music.  No joke.

If you like platforming games, you should look into this one ASAP.  I need to dive back in myself.

Impressions: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
Pub/Dev: Nintendo
ESRB: E10+

For some bizarre reason, Skyward Sword didn’t really trigger my interest in its development phase.  I love the franchise, that I do, but I had to remember this was in the works, and that’s unusual for me.  I think the news Nintendo put out on the game was far too minimal until like two months before it came out, and then it went insane.  Spread it out a bit more next time. :p

Anyway, I’m sure that’s not what you’re reading this for.  So far, my time with Skyward Sword has been a bit mixed, although now things are looking up.  Why do I feel mixed about it?  It’s because the tutorial aspect of the game is way too heavy handed.  It’s almost as if Nintendo themselves forgot how Zelda games work, because they are all a bunches about repeating unneeded information like “Heal yourself when you get low on hearts”, “There’s a map, you know – let’s remind you how to use it”, “Hey, remember that map?  It’s still here, and we want you to have to look at it!”, and so on and so forth.  I would highly suggest in the future that Nintendo consider the fanbase.  It’s been through Zelda games before, it knows the mechanics, and even though there’s some radical shifts in gameplay…there’s no need for Fi to assail players every time the map updates, questioning their knowledge of the controls or reminding players their health is a tad low.  It’s obnoxious.  (Fi is an interesting design, too, but the nagging aspect of her character is not doing her any favors in terms of likability).

The Wiimote Plus 1:1 controls are nice, although there are times that it would just be nice to push a damn button and get an action done with.  Bombs in particular.  The novelty of rolling and throwing bombs with the Wiimote gets old when the instinct to press a button kicks in and that press leads to a drop in front of Link, and the odds of that bomb blowing up his tootsies are quite good.  The swordplay is fun, but, again, sometimes the waving around doesn’t quite work right (or, in my case, I bang my hand into the fan because I couldn’t rotate the sword well enough to solve a puzzle).

Lastly, there’s been a time or two that despite all that tutorial pandering and dead-obvious commentary…there’s been no concrete explanation of what exactly I need to do to progress somewhere.  This happened early on in the beginning when I wasn’t quite sure what I needed to do to find my Loftwing (finding a sword may seem straightforward, but the old man by the gate confused me with gem talk nonsense for a nearby statue with red eyes, and my bird is red, so I thought there was some connection) or to rescue the little girl (apparently I needed to roll into the tombstone to trigger its lock mechanism, but the game didn’t state that as necessary), which can cause unnecessary frustration.

Those are my nitpicks.  Now that I’ve moved into the second major phase of the game, the motherly nagging of Fi has quieted down (and I hope I can enjoy her computer-esque personality now), the tutorials are fading out, and I’m beginning to appreciate the game’s mechanics and design choices.  It feels good to wander around and explore these lands, to fly the skies on your Loftwing, to feel like I’m finally playing a Zelda game.  The artistic design is gorgeous, colorful and perfect for this world, the cast is fairly likable (when they’re not lecturing you, anyway), the gameplay is solid (when the Wiimote doesn’t wack out), and the enemies are actually a threat and are engaging to fight.  The music is sensational, too.  So despite my initial apprehension towards the babying of the player it begins with, it’s starting to soar into awesomeness.  And I hope it continues to rise.

Impressions: Super Street Fighter IV (PS3)

Super Street Fighter IV (PS3)
Pub: Capcom/Dev: Capcom/Dimps
ESRB: T

I spent some time in between Skyrim marathoning with Super Street Fighter IV, tackling Arcade Mode with Cody, Cammy and Juri.  I didn’t intend on pushing myself much, preferring to focus on understanding the new mechanics and learning a new character (Juli).  So, from a novice’s point of view, I enjoyed the game to a point.  I surprisingly breezed through the Arcade mode with Cody (perhaps all that training in Street Fighter Alpha 3 GBA paid off?), not losing a match and breezing past Seth, even in his obnoxious second “full-power” phase.  I was struggling with the new super/ultra moves – it may be the PS digital pad causing my slides to not register properly, but I could not pull off a single super/ultra whenever the match truly called for it, which was a little annoying.  It would either drift into a special move or not fire off anything of consequence (but would leave me in an unblocking state open to rebuttal).  That I’m not digging too much. And I don’t fully buy into it being the pad’s fault, as my experience with PS2 fighters hasn’t made me feel this inadequate at fighters.  Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, a fellow PS3 fighting game from Capcom, also didn’t give me this issue.  So maybe it’s not quite my fault or the game’s, but it’s something to figure out in time.  The choice to use three buttons for ultra moves kind of sucks, too.  But that’s a personal beef. :p

So, as I said, Cody went through the game without much sweat.  I tried out Juli next, and I had more problems with her, which I expected due to not knowing her playstyle.  Seth in the end proved to be too much for me to conquer with her without further practice, so I gave up on that and decided to see how Cammy worked here.  I’m fairly good with Cammy in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 and Alpha 3 (note – I am NOT a professional player or tournament guy, so when I say I’m “fairly good”, I mean that I know what her moves are and can react well enough to the match at hand to not lose horrifically to the CPU), so I didn’t predict I’d have too tough of a time with her.  And beyond her Hooligan Combination being tweaked control-wise, I felt pretty at home with her, but I still had difficulty with certain opponents and didn’t quite click with her moves the way I expected to.  Again, I chalk this up to not being fully competent with the new system, but it is a tad annoying to have matches not pan out the way they could have if I wasn’t so baffled. :p

Anyway, as of now I’m digging the game and it is nice to have this finally at my home, but I’m not 100% sold on its new features and flow quite yet.  More to come.

Impressions: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PS3)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PS3)
Pub/Dev: Bethesda
ESRB: M

So, I’ve put in some considerable (i.e. most the weekend) time into Skyrim.  I had hoped the game would combine the best parts of Morrowind and Oblivion (see here) along with incorporating new elements that would help make the game feel fresh.  Thus far, I can say that my expectations have been mostly met.

Skyrim takes from Morrowind the greater variety.  Oblivion played it safe, reusing a lot of the same assets for its vast continent, rehashing a lot of fantasy tropes for its enemies, and felt very confined and specifically programmed.  Morrowind on the other hand felt more hand-crafted in terms of its design, had much more locale variance, and trotted out a bestiary that was mostly unique.  As I’ve wandered through Skyrim’s mountains, valleys and rivers, I’ve found the entire world to be significantly different in the few areas I’ve explored thoroughly (Solitude and Windheim, primarily).  There’s a sense that a human put these objects together, not a randomizer.  There’s a lot of alteration in the world, too, so I’m not ALWAYS marching through snow-capped mountains or fields of infinite grass – it’s much more organic and real.  The enemy lineup combines Oblivion’s fantasy swipes with Morrowind’s uniqueness, so there’s a mix of say, trolls and wolves with the dreugh (the zombie-like defenders of the Nord crypts) and Hagravens (which are vicious bird-women hybrids).  Enemies are also no longer leveled in the same manner as Oblivion, so you will be able to slaughter weaker enemies quite a bit (and damn, does it feel good).  I can’t comment on the dragons yet, as I’ve running from the main quest to explore and get a feel for the world, but Grace has encountered quite a few and they do look fun to engage.

Combat is based off of Oblivion’s engine, which is fine for me, as it’s one of the key advantages it had over Morrowind in my opinion.  Dual-wielding is a nice addition that gives the player options – wield two blades, for example, or throw out a spell with one hand and slash with the other, or sling destruction forth with both hands…all are viable and I’ve utilized them all in my playtime.  It’s nothing complex, but I’ve never expected an Elder Scrolls game to have that aspect, so I’m happy thus far.  The new leveling system that throws stats aside for perks is a nice change, although fans of agility and acrobatics may be disappointed that those are pretty much out of the picture.  The shouts I haven’t touched yet (no dragons have fallen by my hand, as I’ve said), so I’ll hold off on commenting there.

The world within cities is much improved – the addition of many voice actors is very welcome, yet there’s still a lot of hearing the same voice (probably should have gotten more Nord actors and actresses, considering how many of them there are).  The “urban” life seems more varied and more true-to-life – blacksmiths work their forges, innkeepers fuss with the inn’s cleanliness by sweeping and dusting off the counter, and there’s CHILDREN (wow) running around doing nothing of consequence.  These all build highly on believability and make cities much more inviting to loiter around in.  Gear is leveled still, but it’s much more fair (I got an ebony sword at Level 12 for conquering a REALLY TOUGH dreugh), so it again is a marriage of conceptual design from the prior two games.  Dungeons also share this philosophy – it features Oblivion’s traps and hidden passages but manage to copy Morrowind’s diversity and unique layouts, making each cave or ruin a thrill to poke around in.  There’s usually something (or many somethings) that make each dive its own special place, and that is a very much needed improvement over Oblivion’s monotony.

All that being said, the game is a glitchfest.  It’s not surprising – Bethesda is known for this, and with a game of this magnitude, it’s bound to happen.  The game autosaves A LOT, and it has proven itself a valuable tool in minimizing frustration, as I’ve had two system resets, one game freeze and several little quirks that have affected goings-on to some extent that would have been terrible to redo the last hour plus thanks to some mechanism failing to work right.  I am expecting a patch, but the bugginess has not dampened my spirits too much.

All and all, Skyrim is the sweet marriage of Morrowind and Oblivion I was hoping for.  I wish the leveled aspects of Oblivion were truly sent packing, but they are much improved and less noticeable than before, and risktakers will discover good stuff for their troubles (I can vouch for it!).  In fact, I’m going to get back into my quest now.

Impressions – Rayman Origins (PS3)

Rayman Origins (PS3)
Pub/Dev: UBI Soft
ESRB: E10+

Michel Ancel created Rayman long ago, but had left his creation in the hands of other UBI Soft devs as he worked on Beyond Good & Evil, King Kong and the still-in-development BG&E2.  UBI Soft too had ditched Rayman this generation as the Rabbids took over the spin-off minigame franchise Rayman pioneered for the Wii.  After determining that BG&E2 would be better served waiting a bit longer, Ancel and a small team resurrected Rayman and his kooky world for a new 2D platformer, and judging from the demo, the results seem very promising.

The demo allows you to take on at least three stages of the game (I’m assuming – I’m working on the third one)- one features straightforward platforming, another is a horizontal shooter, the last a swimming/dashing level (which I haven’t finished – I’m assuming there’s a boss in there somewhere by the menu’s representation for it).  All four characters are accessible from the start – I fiddled around with Rayman and Globox thus far, and both are quite responsive.  Their attacks and controls are similar, but Globox is a bit larger a target.

The first stage’s platforming is well done, with gorgeous visuals and plenty of hidden paths and secrets to sniff out.  It smacks of an old-school platformer but with modern artistic trappings, which is a great combo.  Rayman falls awfully fast, though, so keep that in mind when you’re attempting some of the trickier bits.

The horizontal shooter section I took on as Globox, and here you can spit or inhale enemies in an attempt to make your way through an inferno-fueled stage.  This was a lot of fun – inhaling gives Globox a larger projectile to hurl, which also can plow through more than one foe.  A fine balance is needed to conquer this stage.  Again, visually lush.

The last stage features swimming away from giant centipede-like enemies, and I really am digging how the stage works, but I haven’t beaten it yet.  It requires some precise timing to pull off, and I haven’t quite memorized the best way of escaping these guys yet.  Still, it’s entertaining figuring it out!

On the whole, I’m quite impressed with Rayman Origins, and wish I had the money to pick it up next week.  I’m not sure which is the best version – I may go for the Wii one if it’s identical gameplay wise (the PS3 rev pans the camera a little too far back for my liking – not sure if the Wii one does the same), but so far I’m pretty happy with it.

And BTW, the music is freaking incredible.  Christophe Heral has done it again!

Impressions – Dead Space 2 (PS3)

Dead Space 2 (PS3)
Pub: EA/Dev: Visceral Games
ESRB: M

Dead Space this, Dead Space that…I seem to have acquired an upsurge of interest in Electronic Arts’ blockbuster franchise, haven’t I?

For the sequel, Visceral kept the key aspects of the first alone for the most part, improving on Isaac’s melee commands, adding in a new “impale” feature, and expanding upon Isaac’s character significantly (mainly by having him, you know, talk in this game).  In keeping with tradition, Isaac’s opening moments for the player to control are awesomely tense and horrifying (you’ll find out why), and once you survive that, the tried-and-true Dead Space goodness kicks right in.  Isaac feels smoother to control here, although Visceral relocated some of the buttons like the RIG menu (now select), which takes some readjustment to get used to (why not allow some control changes for the controller, I ask?).  The backdrop is no longer on a massive spaceship but on a bustling colony on Titan, Saturn’s moon, and the locale switch is very welcome (there’s a part in Chapter 6 I will consider one of the most surreal segments of any game I’ve played, so a tip of my hat to you guys at Visceral).  Several new Necromorph types also appear alongside the nasties from the first, and they are very cool additions to the bestiary.  The terrors are there in spades, although my runthrough with the first game has made me less timid than before.  Luckily for me, there’s a heap of new twists on the frightening formula, so it’s not too formulaic.  Hordes of enemies (especially the new “child” variant) can and will overwhelm you, and oftentimes the strategies that worked in the first game aren’t as effective anymore, which is good.

I must mention the dynamic interactive cutscenes, which, as Grace notes, are seamless transitions from gameplay to movie and back again, and these usually involve Isaac attempting to take down some massive Necromorph in the midst of sheer chaos.  These are awesome to watch and incredibly fun to be a part of, so I welcome the increase of these encounters.  The game also likes to suddenly open up hatches that suck out all of the contents of a room into space, and a quick shot to a switch must be fired before Isaac joins the rest of the enemies, corpses and objects.  These appear right when you don’t expect them to, and it’s a nice little scare that spices up the gameplay.

The game also has fixed my nitpicks from the first thus far – the storyline is much more personal and intriguing thanks to Isaac’s sudden shift into having a personality, and the plot is rolling right along at a crisp pace that feels much smoother and less fetchy than the first game.  Some may not like Isaac being so dialogue-heavy, and that’s understandable considering the silence he provided in the prequel, but I think EA did a nice job with him so far – he’s believable and has a solid VA doing his lines, so I don’t mind the change.  I am also digging the hallucinations he’s suffering from, as it adds a lot to the already terrifying atmosphere that didn’t lose a beat from the last two games (if anything, it’s even crazier here).  The first game tended to send Isaac off to complete some magical task only to do another – this go-around he’s much more focused on just getting the hell off of Titan and much less about being a savior, so I’m glad to see Visceral address that.  He may still be trying to reach someone, but it’s not a dead horse well beaten thus far.  Also, there’s no turret minigame as of Chapter 6 – it’s all Isaac doing what he does best.

It’s too early to tell if Dead Space 2 is the better game, though.  While nearly everything seems to be an improvement, and I’ve enjoyed the hell out of the game thus far, I’ve got 3/5 more to conquer before I can give it an edge over its predecessor.  I predict it may win the contest and even enter my Essential list provided it doesn’t falter.  I’m hoping it doesn’t.