In an instant, everything changed. Sirens went off, the bad guys were sucked out, and Isaac fell on his back. Inch by inch, the engineer was being pulled down the hall and out to certain death. To save himself, Isaac needed to shoot an airlock switch located above the blown out glass. When he pulls off the shot, a metal window shade shoots up and shields him from the cold darkness of space. When he misses, Isaac claws to keep himself in the station – half of his body in safety and half exposed -- but eventually the metal door slams shut and cuts him in half.
Space could be the coolest weapon in Dead Space 2.
Missed the breakout hit known as Dead Space? Head over to your local game shop this instant. In 2008, EA introduced us to Isaac the engineer as he headed to the USG Ishimura to see why the massive ship was in distress and what had happened to his girlfriend. Instead of a broken valve and an attractive lady, Isaac found hundreds of reanimated corpses known as Necromorphs. To beat'em, Isaac had to blast off their limbs, fight massive monsters, and deal with a creepy marker/statue thing that was at the center of everything.
When the adventure was over, Isaac took a deep breath, his now-Necromorph girlfriend attacked him, and the game went black.
What we know about Dead Space 2 doesn't fill in exactly what happened after the credits in the original rolled. Isaac's alive – although the first and only trailer opens with an ominous flat line sound – and he's on "The Sprawl," a city on a shard of Titan, one of Saturn's moons and the first planet ever cracked in the Dead Space Universe. My demo didn't give too many story details beyond that, but there's still plenty to talk about.
For starters, let me tell you how frickin' good this game looks. Now, the original game was no slouch, but Dead Space 2 appears to be on a different level. When the game booted up and the action began, I found my eyes constantly drawn to Isaac's armpit. It might sound weird, but fans of the first game know that the action is told from the behind-the-back perspective, so players end up knowing Mr. Clarke's shoulder blades pretty well. I never thought that Isaac looked stiff in the first game, so it's actually a bit shocking how impressed I was with such a little detail. He moves so naturally now -- as he walks, his arm swings and you can see the weight in his back shift as his muscles and frame react. The same can be said when he raises a firearm or stomps a crate (which is way quicker and actually useful this time around).
Still, you don't care about armpits, do you? You want to know about monsters and the different ways you can kill them. My demo showcased two new foes and two new tools of destruction Mr. Clarke will use in his "murder everything that moves" mission. The first bad guy, a "Stalker," actually debuted in the trailer a few weeks back. At about the 34-second mark, you see a monstrous dog roaring on the screen – this is a Stalker. What these beasts do is skulk around in the shadows and attack in packs.
The level showcasing these creatures had Isaac descend into a mine with large, concrete pillars similar to a parking garage. As Isaac moved down, you could see the occasional Stalker shift in the darkness, and then – BAM – the creatures took off in a dead sprint at our hero. They're fast, and they'll screw Isaac up if they make it to him. Luckily, our engineer has a new weapon known as the Detonator. Basically a trip mine, Isaac tagged one pillar with the mine, which spit out a three-laser barrier. If one of those Stalkers crossed the barrier, boom. If Isaac took them out without using the detonator, he could just walk over, deactivate the device, and take it on his merry way.
The second monster added to the fray is the Crawler. These are reanimated babies that really aren't more than knee-high. They're creepy, they'll swarm if you give them the chance and it seemed like their little limbs made dismembering them tougher than the big baddies. The good news? You can use Isaac's telekinesis – yes, it's back and it's faster than ever – to pick one of them up, fire it back at foes, and cause a mini-explosion. At least, that's what happened in the specific instance I saw. Maybe the baby hit a propane tank or something, but the bigger story is that telekinesis is fast and useful this time around – especially considering the amount of destruction in this game.
Part of my demo included the developer just blasting chairs around a waiting room-esque area. See, objects have physics this time around. Shoot a support of a hanging lamp and the fixture will swing from its remaining support and cast the light in whatever direction it's pointed. If you blast a window pane acting as a room divider, it'll shatter and the pieces will fall to the floor. Out of ammo? You can grab one of those shards of glass with your telekinesis and turn enemies into minced meat. Miss your target, and the glass will be embedded in the wall. Although you can use glass this time around, it wasn't the second weapon I mention earlier. That honor goes to the Javelin Gun, which shoots bolts at enemies and then finishes them off with a shock of electricity or burst of fire.
Now, I wouldn't classify these as monsters, but there are new gooey cysts that spit out exploding seeds. If the saliva connects with you, it'll ruin Isaac's day. However, you can grab the exploding spit with telekinesis and use it against foes, and the cysts themselves aren't that hard to stop. What makes these things a threat is their placement. A couple of the ones I saw were tucked around corners, so if you run around the world carelessly, you're in for some pain.
If you're a fan of deep space dismemberment, it's going to be a long wait until 2011.
source:IGN
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