Dead Space 2

While the horror ambience building routinely lacks subtlety and nuance ("I don't want to die" scrawled on the wall in blood is such a cliché it has the opposite of the intended effect), the AI design of Dead Space 2's enemies is nothing short of frightful.

The stalkers stand out as particularly fearsome creatures. These jaundiced quadrupeds dart from pillar to post, peering at you around a corner with one feral eye before leaping at breakneck speed to break your neck. In these moments Isaac's non-weapon based abilities become keys to survival, lending combat a distinguished, thoughtful edge.

Once again Dead Space 2's style benefits from a HUD integrated into the world. Isaac's health bar is rendered in lights on the back of his suit. Guns display their ammo total in blue holograms beamed from the shaft of the weapon, eliminating the need for on-screen furniture.

Nevertheless, the move from space ship to space station for this sequel has had less of an effect on the experience than you might expect. The game primarily consists of a series of dark rooms, interconnected by dingy corridors or shafts through which you must crawl.

The Sprawl allows Visceral's environment artists chance to explore new types of area, from the stained glass walls of a high ceilinged church and the warm breeziness of a tube station to the Mass Effect-esque space vistas seen through the occasional window. However, the ambience is consistent with what has gone before.

Two economies exist within Dead Space 2's world. Currency is used to purchase new weapons (added to the shops' inventory when you stomp the relevant schematic from a crate), ammo and med packs. Nodes, meanwhile, are used to upgrade your equipment or gain access to item-rich 'secure unit' side-rooms.

Each weapon has its own tech tree, a set of upgrade nodes to improve reload times, ammo capacity, or damage efficiency, which can be advanced at a cost of one node per upgrade. The choice then, is whether to spend all of your nodes on a single gun to create a super weapon early on, or to spread your nodes evenly across your inventory - increasing your power at a slow but universal rate.

The game is at its best during the set-piece moments, when you're jumping into zero gravity from one carriage to the next as a train breaks apart, or taking down a roomful of Necromorphs while hanging upside down from the ceiling. A battle against a Tormentor that spills out from the spacestation into the crushing silence of space and back again is effortlessly memorable. Visceral strings together just enough of these set-piece moments to sustain the plod of moving from corridor to corridor.

The horror, however, struggles to shake off a Disneyland flavour. The linearity and reliance on set-piece shocks can often make Dead Space 2 feel like a multi-million dollar Ghost Train ride at a funfair. Overuse of 'mash-the-A-button-to-escape-the-monster' moments jars with the more distinguished mechanics elsewhere.

Nevertheless, this is an exemplary game. The sound design is second to none, the gurgle of unseen enemies raising the tempo of fear. Isaac himself now enjoys his own dialogue and has become a more knowable protagonist, with cutaways revealing the face under the helmet on multiple occasions.

Meanwhile, the mental visions invading his consciousness on top of the horror of his reality lend the game a Jacob's Ladder feel. These add depth and sit well alongside the one-note Scream-style shocks elsewhere.

Considered in isolation, Dead Space 2's ambience, brute frights and player toolset are good rather great. But in combination, these three elements prove as irresistible as the pull on Isaac exerted by a malfunctioning airlock. For once, you'll want to let go.