Dead Effect 2

Dead Effect 2 is the kind of game that kicks down the airlock, shotgun in hand, screaming “You’re gonna love me!”, and you just might, if you like your sci-fi shooters extra pulpy, heavily upgraded, and deeply weird.

Picking up where the first Dead Effect left off (read: floating in a stiff, clunky void), this sequel goes all-in on a Borderlands-lite progression system, adding randomized loot, upgradeable body implants, and a base full of quirky survivors to chat with between zombie dismemberments. It’s a Frankenstein of genres and platforms, a mobile game with console aspirations, dressed in the gritty skin of a B-movie FPS.

You choose one of three characters, two shootpeople and one stealthy slice-person, and dive back into the infected bowels of the ESS Meridian. A mysterious woman with distractingly obvious character design helps you set up shop, and from there, it’s off to mow down space ghouls while leveling up your skills, looting color-coded gear, and wondering what exactly the plot is (don’t worry, it won’t interrupt you much).

That’s the real hook here: progression. Dead Effect 2 piles on RPG systems like a paranoid doomsday prepper, skill trees, loot tiers, weapon mods, cybernetic implants, and most of it actually works. It’s a gear-driven dopamine loop wrapped in a very gray corridor shooter. Combat may be simple, but popping a zombie head never gets old when your revolver shoots fire and your arms are made of titanium.

Unfortunately, the game still carries baggage from its mobile roots. The UI is a chaotic mess clearly designed for touchscreens, menus are slow and unintuitive, and the animations occasionally lurch like they’re controlled by a drunk Roomba. The voice acting? Let’s just say you’ll hear the word “professional” used more convincingly in the game’s marketing than its script.

Still, Dead Effect 2 never pretends to be prestige sci-fi. It’s a janky, juicy loot grinder, a Diablo made of guts and guns, and if that’s what you’re after, it delivers.

Dead Effect 2 is the video game equivalent of a gas station burrito: weirdly satisfying, messy as hell, and way better than it has any right to be.