Across the street from the San Diego Comic-Con, a cute girl motioned to me, told me to check out EA’s setup behind her. Curious, I followed her instructions and went up the steps behind her to be greeted by a giant dragon statue for Dragon Age 2. Immediately I become all giddy, realizing Dragon Age 2 was actually playable here, but my excitement disappeared upon seeing the long line into the building. I was not about to wait more than forty-five minutes to play this. Another girl working noticed my disappointment and noted that the Dead Space 2 line was completely empty.
So no, this hands-on preview is about Dead Space 2, not BioWare’s next installment of Dragon Age (didn’t you read the post title?). The first Dead Space was one of the better titles of 2008 that unfortunately did not sell as well as it should have. At the time of Comic-Con, Dead Space sat unfinished on my hard drive, but I figured I could take Dead Space 2 for a spin since I was nearly complete with the first. The lack of a line definitely pulled me into the Dead Space 2 room (which was considerably larger than the Dragon Age 2 play area). Shoving the inflatable Dead Space 2 plasma cutter given to me by an EA representative into my pocket, I stationed myself at an open station and started up the demo.
For those familiar with the original Dead Space, the sequel should feel no different. The controls feel a little tighter, the game seems to run smoother, and the visuals are fairly pretty. The HUD remains neatly packed away on Issac’s back. The stores at which you buy, sell, and upgrade have returned, and the monsters are still disgustingly ugly and horrifying. So what is new and different with Dead Space 2?
The zero-gravity controls are now awesome. In the original Dead Space, Issac was able to launch himself from the ground to the wall or the ceiling, from point to point. Unfortunately, this was the extent of his ability to make use of the zero-gravity. He could not float around, making his way to wherever he wanted in the room, like one should be able to where there is no gravity. For me, this made these sequences become annoying ordeals that sometimes proved confusing when the orientation of a room wasn’t clear. I guess Visceral felt this way too, because now Issac can do exactly what he could not do in the original. Although Issac is rather slow in his zero-gravity movement, there is a lot of potential with this. The demo only contained some trivial use of the new controls, with the main purpose being to pass through some fans after using Stasis to stop them.
Different is Issac: he speaks! This may be an issue to some, but I didn’t mind the change in his character. The acting and voice (from what I’ve heard) wasn’t bad, so unless you really care deeply for silent protagonists like Gordon Freeman, this won’t hurt the experience for you.
Issac gains some new weaponry for his arsenal. Most notable from the demo is the oh-so satisfying Javelin gun. Sure you can use your trusty Plasma Cutter or any of the other returning weapons from Dead Space, but don’t you want to pin enemies to walls? Also in Dead Space 2 is greater use of limbs to damage and kill enemies. With Issac’s Stasis ability, you can fire detached limbs at enemies, some more effective than others. It’s a nice, little addition that may prove to be handy if it fits into your play style.
Throughout most of the demo, enemies kept coming, and I kept shooting. Dead Space 2 successfully brought back the intensity and worry I felt in the first Dead Space as I constantly moved about, trying my damnedest to avoid the Necromorphs from chomping my limbs, puking on my face, or killing me in some other bizarre way. The first stretch of the demo brings back the familiar, slightly cramped and claustrophobic, hallways with metal pipes and large, frozen tubes. With the familiar Plasma Cutter in hand, I treaded carefully, only to be met by the typical Necromorph resistance (although Pukers, which… puke on you, are new). When fighting them, it’s the same old routine: shoot their limbs as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, even for a demo, the game seemed a bit tough. They burst out of the tubes, emerged from the ceiling, and reanimated when thought to be mere corpses, and I’m trying to shoot them but I miss and pew pew pew but oh crap suddenly one attacks me from behind and tries to eat on my neck and I run away to pew pew some more but omg now there’s two more and- perhaps it is a bit exaggerated, but it can certainly feel that hectic, especially if you are adjusting yourself to the controls.
The trek through the laboratory ends with a puzzle involving a revolving contraption that implements gravity in the room. Using your Stasis and Kinesis powers, you solve the puzzle and disable the gravity which then leads to the zero-gravity state (which, if you didn’t read above, is awesome). Once the zero-gravity is in place, every object not attached to the wall or floor begins to float, and Issac himself must now proceed upwards. A huge revolving fan must be paused with stasis, and Issac can then move to the top of the room (an otherwise unreachable area) and re-enable the gravity to go forward.
Awaiting Issac is a large cathedral-like room belonging to the Church of Unitology, complete with candles and stained glass windows. When one thinks Dead Space, the thought is usually of dark space stations and abandoned laboratories, not ominous locations out of Resident Evil 4 or Devil May Cry. However, there’s little time to admire the architecture and design as immediately after walking toward the center, a “Tripod” boss Necromorph descended and pinned me down. I was forced to shoot a yellow, glowing area of the boss a few times to escape. As the creature retreated, many more small Necromorphs appeared and attempted to swarm me. These little guys (or kids?) are called “Packs,” because they basically attack in large numbers. These new Necromorphs are rather easy to kill when fought individually, but the sheer number of them can prove to be overwhelming. They’re also super creepy. They look like bald children.
Eventually, I reached another elevator which led me to the second of the quick-time event sequences, the first being the fight with the tripod earlier. I entered a room, very much like what someone’s living room might look like in the future. On the other side of the large glass windows was a space station (apparently on one of Saturn’s moons). Moving to the other room, I saw another large windowed room. Emerging from below the window was a gunship that didn’t hesitate in firing at me. Being in space and all, the shattered windows caused the vacuum of space begin sucking out everything inside the room. Quick-time event! Mashing some buttons that appear on-screen allowed Issac to hold on and escape through an escape hatch on the ground.
It was not much of an escape, as Issac landed on some blood stains on the ground and was greeted by a large, charred Necromorph that attempted to kill him. This is similar to the tripod fight, in that the monster holds you in a certain position and you must shoot the pulsing, yellow limb. A few shots caused the beast to squirm and reposition itself, making me to shoot another part of its body. A couple of more rounds of this forced it to launch Issac across the room. From here, I began a mad dash before the monster reached me. Although I was able to make it to the end of this sequence without interacting with it, you can optionally use stasis to slow it down or you can shoot it (although I don’t think the latter does much in this situation).
At the end waited another large window, at which the gunship reappeared and resumed shooting at me. Again, the vacuum attempted to suck me out, and this time it was successful in pulling both the monster and Issac out into space. The volume immediately decreased as Issac was wildly propelled from the station. Issac managed to hold onto a floating container of sorts, to which the Necromorph also went. Despite being in space with no oxygen, the Necromorph still tried to kill me, but some suspicious looking barrels floated behind it. Logically, when you see a barrel in a video game, you shoot it. Doing that caused an explosion and… that was the end of the demo.
Overall, the demonstration was a very exciting ride that left me wanting more and more. The game was fast-paced and most importantly, fun. Dead Space 2 seems to fix any issues that the original had and proves that EA’s studios still have life in them. January 2011 can’t come any slower.
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