Xbox Reviews

Dead Effect 2 review

Review Dead effect 2 | Mobile games that come out for consoles, I get scared with the thought alone. Luckily you have exceptions like Dead effect 2. Read in this review why I hope more good mobile games like this will show up on Xbox One! 

To my regret I have to comment on the controversy first, I don’t want to damage LifeisXbox honest reviews impression for my readers and I had a hard time deciding if I had to post this review. I am giving a higher score than other media channels (Xbox) but this has absolutely NOTHING to do with the warning messages (“review or preview of Dead Effect 2 is very negative, you won’t receive any keys from us in the future.”) from publisher Badly Interactive. I was not afraid to get black listed for writing a low scored review. That said, as you can see with my other reviews I’m not afraid to score something low, some of those Publishers are now ignoring me completely, sadly enough. That’s how the gaming industry sometimes works…

THE GOOD

  • At first the gameplay reminded me a little about Mass Effect, Doom and Dead Space but after a while Dead Effect 2 finds his own personality. The mix from horror, light RPG elements, storytelling and shooter gameplay makes Dead effect 2 something truly unique.
  • One thing I really loved about Dead effect 2, that not many other games have, was the use for the Achievements. A whooping 100 are available to earn, each mission has four special achievements, requiring you to play the mission a little differently. Most of them will be earned right away but you can always go back and replay a mission to earn a specific one. Fantastic work though Badfly Interactive, more developers should pay attention for this kind of Achievement work!
  • Considering we are dealing with a mobile game port I was really shocked by Dead Effect 2’s visuals. Sure, you’ll immediately notice the lower quality from some textures but if someone told me it was a mid cycle Xbox 360 game I would have totally believed them. They have created a thrilling atmosphere with some pretty good lighting and level design, combined with quite a few original art pieces.  In short, Dead Effect 2 looks pretty nice for an indie game.
  • The mission set up is a clever way to make the game stand out a little more. For some weird reason it reminded me about Bastion, you always come back to a “Home base” and choose what to do afterwards. In your home base you can interact with other characters. Content enough too with story missions and all the extra bonus missions, you are only paying €12 for over 30 hours of content. Not bad if you ask me.
  • One of the reasons why I liked Dead Effect 2 a lot was the level design, the interior from the interstellar vessel looks believable. Things are very linear but the levels are full with detail and things to collect (although they don’t always have benefits) You’ll come across some (easy) puzzles too that require some math skills. The enemy design and AI seems to be built around the level design too, I loved some of the game set pieces with turrets or big bad ugly monsters!

Mixed Feelings

  • Dead Effect 2 isn’t shy for trying to give the player a deep and meaningful story, they succeed and fail with that. It starts of pretty well but takes a couple wrong turns towards the ending. Some story elements that seem important are left unanswered and the ending is just a big “Please get excited for Dead Effect 3”
  • The idea behind upgrading items and all the different weapons is pretty neat but the execution could have been better. It’s fun to use the upgrade system but the rewards aren’t really worth it.

THE BAD

  • Dead effect 2 has a particular issue that most mobile game ports have, bad sound and terrible, but really terrible voice acting. It’s super obvious that voice actors are reading lines and side-character Minikin beats Marumaro from Blue Dragon as my most annoying voice-character in a video game. Sound frequently mutes for no reason, and overall sound is very compressed. I’m hoping that Badfly Interactive can invest a little more time (and probably money) for future console projects.

Score: 81% | For me Dead Effect 2 on consoles is the first positive surprise from 2017 on Xbox One. I never thought that I would like this mobile port so much, the game has so many light elements from so many genres and brings it together into something pretty special. The only thing that drastically lowers the experience is the sound.

 

Related Posts