Dead Space 2

Do you like survival horror? Do you like outer space? Did you like Dead Space? Then have I got a game for you: Dead Space 2. EA and Visceral Games' sequel to one of the better games of 2008 splatters back onto the screen to keep trying to make you soil yourself.

Protagonist Isaac Clarke wakes up in the aftermath of a Necromorph outbreak in a destroyed and nearly deserted city on Saturn's moon, Titan. He can't remember anything since he escaped the Ishimura at the end of the first game, and he keeps hallucinating horrifying images. As the plot progresses, he discovers that three years have past since his nightmare on the Ishimura, and he's apparently been working with the Church of Unitology to build a new Marker, which is what caused the new outbreak. Now he has to navigate the city to find the Marker and destroy it.

Perhaps the greatest improvement this sequel brings to the table is that Isaac now has a face, a voice, and a personality! So now it's easier to connect to the main character, which makes the story more engaging. Seriously, what was Visceral thinking when they made the first game?

The gameplay doesn't feel too different, which isn't entirely a bad thing. You still get to dismember enemies and make blood spray all over the place. The zero gravity areas, however, have gotten better, because it's now easier to reorient yourself when you get lost. Hacking into computers has also been added, but it never seems to get progressively harder. One thing I noticed was that it's only a survival horror game if you play on a harder difficulty, because an experienced gamer playing on Casual difficulty won't need anything other than a fully upgraded plasma cutter and the advanced suit. The extra guns and ammo are only necessary if you feel like challenging yourself.

The environments and enemies are just as creepy as their predecessors, and the gore has been kicked up a notch. Even though playing through story mode is pretty straight forward, it's still a lot of fun. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of boss battles though.

Multilayer mode is also available in Dead Space 2, but it's pretty much worthless. The only game available consists of two teams: humans and Necromorphs. The humans need to complete objectives within the time limit, and the Necromorphs need to stop them. All you do is fight as long as you can until you die, then respawn and do it all over again. Sure, you can upgrade your human equipment, but it won't take long till you find yourself yawning.

If your a survival horror fan who loved the original Dead Space, then there's no reason not to grab Dead Space 2.

Available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. Rated M for Mature.

Image provided courtesy of Wikipedia.org.

Season of the Witch

I think it's safe to say that Nicholas Cage has accepted that he isn't the most popular actor in Hollywood, so he'll do just about anything for a paycheck these days. Therefor, it's not that surprising that he took the lead role in Season of the Witch, a fantasy/horror/buddy/road trip hybrid of a snoozer.

Set in 14th century England, Cage and Ron Perlman play two Crusaders who've gone AWOL after realizing they've spilled too much innocent blood in the name of God. Unfortunately, the first town they stop in back home is suffering under the shadow of a deadly plague, a plague that the town has blamed on a young woman who happened to be passing through. The woman is accused of witchcraft and needs to be escorted to a monastery in the mountains where the monks will use their holy magic take her powers from her. Cage and Perlman are promised absolvement for their sins if they assist in the witch's transportation. But wait, isn't that what they went to the Crusades for? Ironyyyyyyy...

There's nothing particularly special about this movie. It's not completely horrible, but it's also not that great. It's just a boring waste of money that you probably won't even remember six months from now.

The plot in general is sadly predictable, and while the filmmakers want you to spend the whole time wondering whether the woman is a witch or not, the trailers kind of spoil it. That being said, Claire Foy does do a good job as the title character. So if you see this movie without having seen the trailer, her performance would probably seem a bit better.

Whenever Nicholas Cage was on the screen, I thought to myself, Thank God he's not trying to use an English accent, and whenever Ron Perlman was on screen, I thought, When is Hellboy 3 coming out? The pair does have a descent amount of chemistry in the film, but it's that cliche kind of chemistry that you see in any kind of buddy action movie. Their performances were pretty straight forward, cookie cutter, badass personas that plenty of lesser known actors could have done.

Speaking of English accents, how amazing is it that non-American actors like Christian Bale, Sam Worthington and Daniel Day-Lewis can play convincingly American characters, yet Americans can't be convincing as anything but Americans? Seriously, we have a huge outsourcing problem in this country. And I'm not talking about factory workers or call center employees, I'm talking about mainstream film acting jobs. It's kind of bizarre that the two main characters of a movie set in Medieval England are played by the only two non-European native actors in the cast.

Cage's character also keeps bringing up the fact that he no longer believes in the church and the imperfect men who run it. It's a common thing to see in religious themed movies these days; a protagonist who once believed in what preachers have told him who begins to question the church, due to an inner conflict of logic or emotion. I mean, sure, Christianity doesn't exactly have a model resume, and perhaps the church made a few mistakes over the last couple millenniums, but how much more anti-religious symbolism do we need? Then again, I guess a straight forward, zealous character would be too dry and politically incorrect for today's audience, wouldn't it?

While the technical side of the movie is good, including the special effects, Season of the Witch is an easy skip to make. It's a new year with plenty of other great stuff on the horizon, so just save your cash and ignore this one.