Dead Effect 2 Review

Dead Effect 2 Review Screenshot 1

Dead Effect 2 is a first person shooter developed by BadFly Interactive. The game has some good ideas and reminded me of the Dead Space games.

You start out by choosing your character from a choice of three. Each character possesses slight different attributes and skills that can be helpful in different ways during the game. Also each of the players have different voices and dialogue that you will hear during the game. I haven’t played the original game so I went into this sequel knowing nothing about what happened before.

This is an FPS set in space and the main character I chose was Gunnar Davis. The story begins in the year 2045 when you’re woken from cryostasis as part of a security protocol around 170 days into your original mission. Things quickly become apparent that things aren’t how they were before. A man-made virus has infected the crew and turned them into zombies. Straight from the get go it becomes clear that you’re in terrible danger and things become even worse when you discover that you’re also infected and slowly dying.

Dead Effect 2 Review Screenshot 2

The game sees you progress through various sections of the space station, killing zombies and upgrading your character. You can also head back to previous sections if you wish to collect all the loot scattered about the environment. The zones can get incredibly tough, with hordes you zombies approaching you at once. As you progress though you will start to upgrade your character, get better armour and weapons and start to become stronger.

Controls are your typical first person shooter, using the mouse to look around and the WASD keys to move. You can also reload with R, use your flashlight and sprint. You aim with the right mouse button and the left is to fire. As you progress you will also start to obtain special abilities that are mapped to certain keys. These can include things like protective shields and force blasts. I instantly noticed that the mouse sensitivity was way too high and the first thing I suggest doing is turning this down. The game looks great and I have to say its a lot better than I expected. The atmosphere and style perfectly suits the overall tone of the game and instantly makes you feel on edge.

Dead Effect 2 is full of interactive objects and items, like doors, health chambers and finger scanners. The game doesn’t especially do anything groundbreaking but it does look great and the shooting feels satisfying enough. After the first mission, you can upgrade your character with abilities, all of which will help you to survive what lies ahead. The game was firstly a mobile game and I was surprised at just how good it looks for a small title. The textures, characters and environmental design is spot on and the use of lighting plays a big part in the game. I played on PC and it gives you plenty of options when it comes to adjusting the graphics settings.

As I said the game’s environment also has a similar feel to Dead Space, from experiments going horribly wrong to the dark and gloomy atmosphere, not to mention the horrific creatures that lurk in the shadows. Enemies are varied which keeps gameplay interesting. You first come across the basic zombie before coming across more powerful versions. There are also large dog creatures that roam the various sections. Expect to face some truly horrific and at times incredibly challenging monsters during your journey.

Dead Effect 2 Review Screenshot 3

The game only had a couple of issues that I came across but nothing that impacted my experience too much. Firstly, the voice acting is simply awful at times. It might just be the fact that I have recently played Uncharted 4 which has some of the best voice acting and dialogue in gaming. There are many lines throughout the game that seem unnecessary and just feel extremely cheesy. I also experienced some stuttering during the game but nothing too significant.

When you have completed a few missions, more missions become playable that give the game a good reason to go back and find loot to level up. This RPG side to the game was probably my favourite aspect and I enjoyed having a reason to go back. The story is actually very interesting despite the poor writing and awful voice acting. I wanted to keep playing and progress further to find out more and see what happened before.

Overall Dead Effect 2 is a game that doesn’t do anything new when it comes to the FPS genre, but it does look great and have a good story. I have always been a massive fan of the Dead Space series and this game certainly takes inspiration from that series in terms of atmosphere and setting. The upgrade system also has a good amount of depth and reason to collect as much loot as possible. The game does get particularly hard during certain sections and some enemies can be a real challenging to take down. I was pleasantly surprised with this game and I would recommend giving it a go.

Rating 7

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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