Destructoid: Dead Space 2 Review

Jim Sterling: Dead Space 2 is a ludicrously intense, graphically gorgeous, thoroughly atmospheric game that takes everything the first title did and ramps up the absurdity to dangerous levels. It's cheesy to say that "if you liked the first game, you'll love the sequel," but in this case, I think that's a very fair assessment. Dead Space 2 is Dead Space with the tuning at its finest and the scares at their most delicious. Action horror has reached a new peak with Dead Space 2.

[Digitaldude]

A game Jim actually likes?

[cool cole]

No kidding. God I hate that guy.

[VenomProject]

That score is about as worthless as the site it hails from.

Regardless, Dead Space 2 will be amazing.

[ikkokucrisis]

Jim says, "I love Death, Violence, and anything multiplayer"

Jim also says, "I hate New, Creative, and anything I have to figure out on my own"

[ALFAxD_CENTAURO]

Well, I will buy this game, simply because is Survival Horror.

Also a Surround System to play with this.

[gorebago]

He is growing on me. At least he writes way better than any other reviewer.

I wouldn't want to hang out with him though. I'm sure he smells and he looks like Chaz Bono.

[Magris]

A lot of the hate towards Jim Sterling is because people are afraid of being wrong. For many people, reviews are a source of reinforcement of a person's opinions. When someone gives a differing opinion, they all go defensive instead of admitting that other people see things differently.

And guys, don't be butt hurt that LBP2 got a 7.5. THAT'S AN ABOVE AVERAGE SCORE. IT'S A GOOD SCORE. NOT ALL GAMES HAVE TO HAVE PERFECT 10s. YOU GUYS ARE INFLATING THE SCORES. I DON'T EVEN TRUST 9 or 10 SCORES ANYMORE.

[mantisimo]

@ Magris, boy you sure are a Jim sterling fan Magris approximately 10 out of your 30 comments on N4g since joining are defending Mr Sterling over different articles weeks apart.

Mainly when something is just published by Mr S.

If you are Jim Sterling then that's a little sad.

If you are not then you are a pure destructoid/sterling fan and should be wearing a monocle.

[Magris]

Any counter arguments to my post instead of just insulting me?

No?

Okay then.

[Kon]

Finally a game that this fat f*** likes

[DigitalAnalog]

I usually tend to side with the guy even though I dislike him for the fact he reviews his games very well. However in this case:

"That said, Dead Space 2's somewhat tepid multiplayer does not drag the game down in any way, shape or form. The single-player campaign is so superb that even if the multiplayer was bad, it wouldn't have taken anything away from the experience. The game already justifies its $60 asking price before it goes online, and if you happen to dig the multiplayer as well, that's just icing on the cake. It feels like a bonus mode more than anything else, and the fact that it's at least "okay" is more than enough. "

That's selective reviewing right there. I can't believe someone of his standard will stoop to this level. The game should be reviewed in it's entirety and not extrapolate the positives. I can't even tell if a bar was raised or the score was indicative of the reviewers enjoyment.

Nevertheless, I'm going to constantly monitor reviews in the near future. It seems reviewers are having selective standards to the scores as opposed to sticking to the same format.

-End of Line

[Magris]

Why shouldn't anyone weigh the positives over the negatives? Look at Fallout: New Vegas. It's one of the buggiest games of the decade, yet majority of people agree that the game is so good that one can overlook the bugs.

Its like saying Super Mario Galaxy 2 story sucked and was non-existent, so it deserves a 5/10.

And to review a game - with multiple subjective artistic elements - as a product is absolutely absurd. It's impossible for people to universally agree on something that everyone will have a different experience with.

And yes, Jim does review games on his enjoyment. On a technical level, Deadly Premonition sucked balls. But because it was technically atrocious and made him laugh his arse off, Jim loved it to death.

But as with games, people also have differing philosophies on what a review should be. In a perfect world, I would much agree with yours, but human beings have an infinite amount of ways to experience something.

[DigitalAnalog]

Nobody is implying that you can't bring out the positives above the negatives. When you review a game, it's best that you keep your feelings whether or not it can favor the games overall score. Let's say I were to hate WRPG's in general - therefore, in context, I can give an obligatory lower score because I did not enjoy the genre itself. You can literally see the flaw right there - regardless of quality, a games score is set in stone the moment said genre doesn't appeal to a reviewers "taste".

Going to his review on DP:

Yes, the game's falls short in technical aspects, it was one of those "it's so bad that it's so good" type of game. But if you were to read his review, it was based on the game ENTIRELY; from the soundtrack, down to the poor voice acting, etc. In his POV the negatives are the POSITIVES. Therefore, I have no issue with this particular point.

If i were to use his standards (on his DS2 review), I can LITERALLY give a game 9.5 score to almost any game possible. You see, there should be two points to a review: One - is that you separate the chaff from the good. Two - when a bar has been raised by a "certain" game, any upcoming game that was supposed to have a set score before the bar was raised must be lower, henceforth - determines how well it stacks up to the best of the best. We can't stick with "enjoyment=positive" reviews (that's HHG's territory) because then that all falls into a category of "subjective text hands-on" rather than a review in itself. Which brings the real question:

What's the point of the review then?

-End of Line

[floetry101]

Destructoid is a game review site for people over the age of 18. If you can't handle Jim Sterling's scores, feel free to read Greg Miller's IGN review.

[CrzyFooL]

Funneh comment gets teh bubblez!

[Threesix]

For all the hate Destructoid gets on this site (FOR STUPID CHILDISH REASONS) I'm surprised people can stand reviews by the main stream websites like IGN anymore. The quality of the writing is night and day when you compare the review of Destructoid which goes into greater detail on the specifics of the game's good and bad features as well as insights on how the game throws something new in with the environments at different times and some of the scarier enemies you'll encounter. This is compared to IGN whose review feels significantly dumbed down to appeal to a wider audience from the vocabulary used (Issac is a "badass" with "pimped out" guns) to the sentence structure looking like it's been written by a third grader at times, and whose review does not contain nearly as much detail in these insights.

[Ahasverus]

I still can't satnd Jim but the IGn review was simply chilsih. Gamesradar FTW!