At first glance, the original Dead Space appears a simple mash-up of Alien and Resident Evil. You’ve got your narrow hallways, a dormant space vessel, and freaky looking alien monsters popping out of nowhere aiming to make you lunch. But Visceral Games got it right. With an erudite team of skilled designers and producers, EA’s Visceral Studios’ first game sold more than enough to warrant a sequel, tip-toeing along that borderline of steady pacing, intriguing storyline, and zap-attack horror, and putting Dead Space on our “Best Games of E3 2010.”
Dead-On
After having seen the game in several demos and having played it, we’ve come to a simple conclusion. Dead Space 2 is frightening, beautiful, and engaging in all the ways the first game delivered, but now it’s filled with new gameplay twists, more horrific monsters, and surprises. And, the balance of fear, discovery, and action that’s so important in a survival horror game, is right on the money.
Dead Space 2 follows the plight of Isaac Clark, the every-day space engineer who suits up in mining gear, and confronts freaky space alien after freaky space alien in the game’s new environment, the Sprawl. The vastness, complexity, and function of the Sprawl, a giant mining colony, changes just about everything in Dead Space 2. The game’s visual design is grand, moving beyond the single design of the first game’s USG Ishimura. Right in line with this visual expansion is the broadening of architecture, level design, and combat.
In the first “reveal” trailer, EA displayed its intention to build a psychological intensity and sense of fear in players. The video below taps into Clark’s supposed psychological instability, questioning his perspective and judgment, and provides quick clips of horrendous “visions” (i.e. new aliens) to lay down more questions than answers.
Alien to Aliens
Visceral’s sequel is, in some ways, like Aliens is to the original Alien. Now that the studio has scared and snared you, it’s turning to guns and action. Having seen a few demos and played a small section of the game, I can tell you personally that none of the anxiety, fear, or worry from the first game is diluted in Dead Space 2. At EA’s Studio Showcase, I watched the playable demo, which debuted at E3 2010, and despite seeing it three times, my playthrough was nerve-wracking.
The new variety of weapons and upgradable suits certainly is encouraging, but the TK (telekinesis) powers are probably what elevates the game’s ability to engage players in new sophisticated ways. The new speargun is just plain mind-blowing. The slow-to-reload speargun plunges through an enemy body and pins them to the nearest wall. The new shotgun is wider and more damaging than before. But using telekinesis in conjunction with a simple weapon, the laser cutter — a fast-firing handgun — creates a fantastic mixture of skill-based shooting and satisfying alien-blasting fun. With newly introduced enemies like the Pack — child-sized infested humanoids — that appears in hordes, TK attacks explore the meaning of “killing spree.”
EA’s introduction of interactive environments adds another layer of subtlety in Clark’s array of tools with which to defend himself. Some areas are filled with glass walls, riveted panels and furniture, all of which can be turned into weapons. In fact, the aliens themselves can become “interactive.” If you see an enemy with piercing limbs, you can kill them, stomp off their limb, TK it, and then use it as a weapon to spear other enemies.
When You’re Strange
In and of themselves, the aliens in Dead Space weren’t all that scary. They generally looked like your average insectoid monsters with occasionally spear-like hands. Nothing out of the ordinary. It was the way they appeared and attacked that made them scary. The aliens in Dead Space 2 are scarier than the first partly because of the way they attack–some boss fights take place through multiple sections of a mission–and partly because of their size. This time around they’re much bigger. The E3 demo makes this point abundantly clear. (NOTE: If that humungous monster that chases you through the ship and takes you into outer space isn’t a nerve-wracking mother-f*&^cker, than your nerves are frayed beyond repair.)
So for gamers who played the first title, the new necromorphs are bigger, scarier, and attack in stranger ways than before, bringing a deeper level of skill and fright to the game. Visceral has revealed at least a half dozen four new necromorphs: the Stalker, the Crawler, the Cysts, and The Pack; and more will soon be revealed. The Stalker is like a skinless Raptor. It teases you from behind pillars and corners, feigning curiosity and harmlessness, but secretly it’s flanking you. Just like a Raptor was believed to work in packs, the Stalker does too. The Pack is self-explanatory. Humanoid-”like” children — infested and evil– attack en masse. They’re fast, they jump on your back, head, and shoulders, and they slowly wear you down until it’s too late.
The Crawler is sick monster-baby that crawls toward you and the only way to stop it is with a headshot. Then there are the Cysts, which act like organic remote mines that blast an explosive pod upon approach. These appear on floors and walls. One clever approach with these nasties is to TK their explosive pellets mid-air. You can blast their pods back at them to destroy them, or hop over and keep their pods with the assumption that something bad is coming around the next corner (which, you know, is a pretty good assumption).
And then there is the Puker, who, you guessed it, hurls until you’re dead. This video shows exactly how it’s done.
One last thought before we sign off. I’ve been itching to get a deeper look at this game since it was introduced late last year. I got an early demo I got in March, but no hands-on. The EA Studio Spotlight event, however, was the frosting on the cake. I stood in line for about 30 minutes to play it. During that time I watched the same demo four times–I saw where the enemies could attack from, what they looked like, and how to handle them. Despite all this, when it came time for me to play, I was nervous and scared and excited during every turn. If a game can scare you even when you know all the details, something has got to be right.
