First impressions: Bulletstorm

Remember a few posts ago when I was talking about Duke Nukem and said that he’s the epitome of everything a teenage boy thinks is cool? Well, Bulletstorm is the game that kid would make when he’s all grown up. Bulletstorm is the kind of game Duke Nukem would play.

Some fairly lofty aspirations, I know, but I assure you Bulletstorm earns every bit of those qualifiers. This game is so unapologetically vulgar and violent, that, even though I don’t live with my parents anymore, I kept looking around to make sure no one who thinks I’m a responsible adult would see me playing a game like this. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is pretty much up to you.

The demo starts off with a video uniquely made for the demo, with protagonist (wouldn’t go as far as to call him the “hero”) Grayson Hunt giving a profanity-laden walkthrough of the demo – how to play and an overview of the only mode present, a score-attack mode called “Echoes.” It’s very evident that Bulletstorm doesn’t take itself too seriously – all the humor is juvenile at best and the most important element of gameplay is discovering every vicious “skill shot.” One skill shot, for example, is called “Mercy,” which you get by shooting an enemy in the crotch and then kicking him in the head as he doubles over in pain. And, honestly, that’s one of the tamer skill shots.

You get points for every skill shot, plus more for environmental kills as well as chaining/combining skill shots. And points are important, not just in Echoes but for the campaign (which isn’t playable in the demo). In Echoes, the points you earn will be your score that’s posted to a leaderboard but they also act as a currency to buy new guns, ammo and refill your charge shots at stores called Drop Shops.

Only one map is available in the demo (titled “Collapsed Building) which you can easily make your way through in under ten minutes. Fortunately, the whole point of Echoes is to play it over and over, refining your strategy and trying for a higher score. Somehow I managed to put up my best score the first time I played and haven’t been able to match it. Echoes is also playable over the internet, but I’m not quite sure if this feature is available in the demo.

Being made by People Can Fly and Epic (the studio that also develops “Gears of War”) you might think that it’s odd that Bulletstorm is a First-Person Shooter – and you’d be right. Bulletstorm doesn’t play like other FPSes on the market today – it almost feels like a first-person Gears. There is no focus on cover, no jump button and not really much strategy needed outside of trying to string together newer, crazier skill shots. Grayson can vault over objects with the A button, which also acts as a button for sprinting and initiating one of Grayson’s melee attacks – the slide kick. Melee attacks are invaluable for starting skill shots, namely because kicking/slide kicking or throwing someone with your leash (an energy beam of sorts) sends that foe into a bullet-time-esque slow-mo for a few seconds, letting you experiment for different skill shots. The controls mention that the back button is used for a skill shot directory, but it’s not available in the demo.

It’s pretty interesting that the world of Bulletstorm (an abandoned planet named Stygia) is as bright and colorful as it is considering how much the game encourages you to commit heinous acts of mayhem as often as possible. While the level Collapsed Building didn’t feature too many large, open areas for combat, the backdrop of the game hints that Stygia was once home to bustling metropolis’, with many, large (albeit wrecked) skyscrapers dotting the landscape.

The demo also features an outro video, where Grayson takes the time to explain a bit of the game’s fairly standard plot – Grayson and his crew are stranded on Stygia but Grayson is more focused on some revenge plot than actually escaping the planet. Bulletstorm is definitely one to keep your eye on if you are an FPS fan but its lack of competitive multiplayer, its over-the-top, cartoony violence and different control scheme may turn some off. It may not be a day-one purchase for me, but the taste the demo gave me definitely left me wanting.

Bulletstorm releases on February 22.

'Boot to disc' option back for Xbox 360

A few months ago I realized something. I didn't know how long it had been going on, but once I came to the realization, there was nothing to stop me from noticing. I tried fixing the situation, but my attempts were futile. Nothing I did helped the situation and I eventually gave up trying.


I'm, of course, talking about the random disabling of the 'boot to disc' option on the Xbox 360. I had always had that option enabled - call me crazy but when I put a disc in the tray of my console, I expect the disc to start running. At some point in time, that feature ceased working. I feel like it was something I absentmindedly notice but decided wasn't a big deal at the time, like, "Hey...I just put this game in...why am I at the dashboard and not the main menu? Oh well." After checking my settings and seeing that I still did have the 'boot to disc' option enabled, I basically just called the whole situation a loss and decided not to worry about it.


Apparently, the Dashboard update from back in November disabled that particular option and was only re-enabled with the most recent console update. Don't know why it was ever disabled in the first place, but man am I glad it's back. Do you know how much time I've wasted having to scroll to the "Play Game" button on the Dashboard and pressing it? Literally 10s of seconds that I'll never get back. Thanks, Microsoft.


Be sure to check out the other recent updates here at Grizzly Gaming - a review of Red Dead Redemption's "Undead Nightmare" and the latest trailer for "Duke Nukem Forever," complete with release date!

Review: Red Dead Redemption's "Undead Nightmare"

While I’m really surprised Rockstar hasn’t made any sort of mention about the next GTA game, I’m actually okay with it. The reason I’m okay with that is because their reboot of the Red Dead series with “Red Dead Redemption” is incredible. The setting, characters, gameplay, environments, the inhabitants (both human and animal) all made RDR one of the most engaging sandbox games I’ve ever played. Many people panned it for a perceived lack of things to do but those people are usually comparing RDR to GTA4 and of course, a game set in a modern day, big city is going to have a few more things to do in a game set in the Old West. Those people are also completely missing the point of RDR. Sure it could’ve benefitted from some sort of karma system (like in Fallout) to give your decisions a little more weight but honestly, I didn’t have any problem with the linear story of John Marston trying to redeem himself and his family for his past actions.

Rockstar has released a handful of DLC packs for RDR (like “Liars and Cheats” and “Legends and Killers”) but these packs usually added a handful of new multiplayer characters, a new weapon or other small add-ons. “Undead Nightmare” is unique in that it offers a brand new single-player experience. While it is not quite as deep as the regular single player story, Undead Nightmare’s story follows John Marston all over the Old West and into Mexico as well.

Starting on a night like any other, John and his family are unwinding at the end of the day and beginning to get dinner ready. John’s mention that Uncle hasn’t made his way home yet from town has an ominous feeling. Before long, Uncle does make his way back but is quite different from when he left. He immediately attacks Abigail who attacks their son Jack. John manages to tie up his family, leaves them with plates of raw meat and tells Jack to be kind to his mother, showing that Rockstar’s dark sense of humor will be prevalent even in the zombie apocalypse. From here, Marston sets out to discover the source of the infestation and put a stop to it.

The overall presentation of Undead Nightmare is astounding. The atmosphere, color scheme, music and sound design all do an amazing job of transforming Elizabeth, New Austin and Mexico into a land of the living dead. Undead Nightmare’s visuals are much more drab and have a more depressing feel than the normally bright, sun-parched lands of the Old West.

In terms of the gameplay, Undead Nightmare is much, much different than the standard single player story. Because Marston is battling zombies and not just outlaws, his tactics during hostile encounters tend to be more run-and-gun fare than getting into cover and carefully taking out threats. Often I found myself riding my horse in circles around zombies, using my Dead Eye to get clean headshots – one of the only way to permanently put down undead abominations. Early encounters with the undead are more difficult as you only start with a pistol, rifle and lasso and, being that the world is overrun by the living dead, there are no stores to buy ammo. You can search dead enemies but don’t always find ammo and when you do, it is only a few rounds at a time. You’ll need all the help you can get as even normal zombies can be quite a handful when surrounded by a large group. Different types of even more dangerous zombies show up eventually as well. Luckily, there are numerous new weapons to help you quell the undead uprising.

The first new weapon you get in Undead Nightmare is the torch and it’s exactly what it sounds like – a torch you can use as a melee weapon to set zombies ablaze and is also used to clear out graveyards. You’ll also get two new throwable weapons – holy water and boombait. During the course of your travels, you eventually come across an elixir that is rather good at attracting the undead. Combining this with dynamite gives you the incredibly powerful boombait which attracts any undead nearby and explodes after 5-7 seconds. Holy water performs similarly to fire bottles but illuminates the surrounding area with a bright flash of blue, holy flame. The only new firearm in Undead Nightmare is the blunderbuss, but it is a formidable weapon. Using part scavenged from fallen zombies, the blunderbuss unleashes a massive shot that will turn any zombie (or zombies) in your path to red mist. Having to scavenge the undead for various body parts to combine into ammo is a pretty disturbing idea and it takes a lot of zombie parts to make just one round, but you can’t argue with the results.

That also led me to another addition to Undead Nightmare – the ability to create ammo. I only found that you could create blunderbuss ammo and phosphorus ammo that sets zombies on fire but there could’ve been more. It was interesting that Rockstar would add an ammo creation system in an add-on but how to actually make the ammo isn’t presented very clearly. I only ended up making a handful of blunderbuss ammo anyway.

In between completing the various missions of Undead Nightmare, you’ll be charged with saving towns from the undead hordes. In each town there will be a handful of survivors, usually on rooftops trying (in vain) to fend off the undead. To make clearing out these towns easier, you can talk to survivors and offer them some of your ammo which goes a long way to thinning out the crowds of zombies. After a town is clear, you’ll be able to use that town as a save point (which also act as fast travel spots, since there is no more “camp” option in your kit). Offering aid to survivors also seems to net you more random ammo chests about the town but I honestly couldn’t tell you for sure if you’re offered as much ammo if you didn’t give up some of your own. (I always helped out as much as I could – I’m a hero, what can I say)

You’ll also find plenty of new animals to hunt in this DLC, many of which are of the undead variety. You aren’t able to sell your trophies and honestly, I’m not really sure why it’s even possible to search animals. Still, it’s quite a rush to take down an undead bear or mountain lion. You’ll also get new multiplayer skins as well as a new online, co-op mission called “Undead Overrun” which tasks you and your posse with surviving as many waves of zombies as possible.

I won’t spoil the ending but I will say it’s rather anti-climactic. There’s a rather large build up to the end and right when you think something big is about to happen, it’s just sort-of over. There is a free-roam of Undead Nightmare after you finish the missions and the game treats you with a pretty great surprise at its start that I don’t know how I didn’t see coming.

If you enjoyed the regular single-player element of RDR, you will definitely enjoy the challenges presented in Undead Nightmare. The 1200-point ($15) price tag might seem a little steep but there is a ton of content in this add-on that make the package more than worth the price.

Duke Nukem Forever...has a release date??

Gearbox Software is slowly becoming one of my favorite developers. The studio that began developing various “Half-Life” games and mods and moved onto the WWII series “Brothers in Arms” also gave the world the incredible “Borderlands” in 2009. Borderlands is a ton of fun, a really well-made game and offers a lot of gameplay. Not to mention there are a number of DLC packs for Borderlands that gives the already large game even more content.

But Borderlands isn’t what I’m here to talk about. Right now, I want to talk about Duke Nukem Forever, a game that up until just a few months ago, it seems, was nothing more than an inside joke among gamers – we all knew it was technically “still in development” but after more than a decade, everyone was positive the game was dead. Even after Gearbox announced at the 2010 Penny Arcade Expo that the studio would be finishing 3D Realm’s work on the game, it still didn’t seem real.

Earlier today, while scrolling through various gaming news sites I was greeted with some information I never in my life thought I’d see – a May 3^rd release date for Duke Nukem Forever. And I gotta say, DNF is looking like it’s shaping up to be everything I could’ve ever dreamed of. Duke Nukem is the very personification of a teenager’s idea of cool and nothing has changed since the flat-topped, orange tank-top enthusiast took our computers by storm in “Duke Nukem 3D.”

The basic Duke format stays the same – a bunch of ugly aliens take over the planet and generally start being pains and Duke Nukem shows up to kick ass and chew bubblegum – and he’s all out of gum. Judging from the new trailer (link can be found at the bottom of the page), DNF will feature the same crude, toiler humor and same over-the-top insane violence that the series has always been known and loved for. DNF clearly isn’t for everyone but for those who grew with the series (like myself), being able to actually play this game will be, I don’t know, on the same level as winning the lottery – something you always really, really wished would finally happen but deep down kinda knew it never would. And in just a few months, Gearbox will be making this dream a reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnFJXp_z_2w

Duke Nukem Forver – Launch Date (May 3) Trailer

Call of Duty: Black Ops afterthoughts

After I went back re-read my review for “Call of Duty: Black Ops,” I realized I left out a lot of key additions and improvements that Treyarch added to the COD formula. I really don’t know how I could’ve forgotten to mention some of these things, especially since some have big roles in how many play the game.

First and foremost, I wanted to revisit the Zombies mode. I’m still not sold on it, though I do have a firmer grasp on how the game is played. I never played “Call of Duty: World at War” so I wasn’t familiar with the mode from that game and from what I understand, the mode had been updated for Black Ops. You can play with up to three friends over the internet and there are two Zombies maps to choose from – Kino der Toten (Cinema of the Dead) and Five, which is unlocked after beating the campaign. There is also a top-down, arcade style game called “Dead Ops” but I haven’t unlocked it. In Zombies, you fight off endless waves of zombies and other ghouls as you earn points for kills, headshots, fixing barriers, reviving teammates, etc. With your points you can unlock doors to new areas, buy new weapons, perks and other helpful items.

While most of my friends who play Black Ops online are smitten with Zombies, I’m not that into it. Sure it’s a fun diversion but we can’t seem to make it past 8 or 9 waves and when I went online to try and get tips on how to get farther, I saw that people had strategy guides for getting to 50+ waves – which is just nuts. So not only is it frustrating to try different strategies with a full group of people only to be overrun before hitting double digit waves but you don’t earn a thing from playing Zombies. In the campaign you earn achievements and unlock the other Zombie map on disc and in multiplayer you earn XP and COD points (even if you are playing terribly and getting owned). You get nothing for playing (and ultimately getting destroyed in) Zombies. Okay, maybe I exaggerated a little – there are a few achievements to be earned in Zombies, but not many. I actually do remember unlocking one, “Sally Likes Blood,” which I got by headshoting three zombies with one bullet. Still though, if I want to play a game with zombies I’ll play “Left 4 Dead 2.” Or “Dead Rising 2.” Or “Red Dead Redemption’s Undead Nightmare.”

No, I’ll play Black Ops for the multiplayer, thank you, which as I’ve stated a bunch of times now stands heads-and-shoulders above COD: Modern Warfare 2. When I wrote my review for Halo: Reach, one thing I made sure to note was the Daily Challenges and how this addition to the multiplayer gave gamers a reason to play daily, or at least be online to check the challenges that day. Well somehow I forgot to mention that Black Ops introduced a feature similar to Daily Challenges called Contracts which come in different varieties and must be purchased to be completed. When purchased, you have a set amount of time to complete the contract to collect payment. For example, a contract I completed recently was getting 20 kills while looking down a reflex scope in 40 minutes of in-game time. I spent 20 or 25 COD points buying the contract and got 250 for completing it. So yeah, not a huge windfall of money but there are a large variety Contracts to pick from and you can’t complain about earning some extra money for doing things you’d normally accomplish just by playing.

Black Ops’ multiplayer offers, along with Core, Hardcore and Barebones (a variety of games that feature minimal use of classes and perks) offers new Wager Matches. Using COD points, players can chose to wager three different amounts (10, 1,000 and 10,000) on four new and interesting game types but you’ll need to place in the top three to earn any points. Wager Match game types are One in the Chamber (Everyone starts with a knife and a gun with one bullet. Each kill gets you another bullet but players only have three lives total), Stick and Stones (Everyone starts with a crossbow, tomahawk and ballistics knife. The catch in this mode is being killed by a tomahawk will set your score back to zero), Sharpshooter (All players start with a random gun and changes every 45-seconds. Kills award perks and killstreak rewards) and Gun Game (Everyone starts out with a pistol. Getting a kill will move you up a level to a different gun. The first person to get a kill with all 20 guns win but if you get knifed you move down a level). I picked Sticks and Stones the first time I ever tried Wager Matches and right as the game was about to end, I got gifted into third place by someone getting tomahawked with only seconds left in the match.

I feel like the only other major thing I missed is the updated Playercard, which keeps track of stats, your Kill/Death ratio (that all important KDR that COD players seem to care so much about), your winning ratio, various stats about gun usage, even a model showing you where you usually land hits on enemies. From the Playercard you can also choose from a huge list of banners and create your own emblem for your in-game Playercard (what others scroll through in game lobbies). Honestly, though, I haven’t bothered to mess with either. Backgrounds cost points (which I’d much rather spend on guns, sights and reticules) and you’re able to make an emblem consisting of different layers but that seems like it’d take waaay more time to get looking good than I’d care to spend on it. You can also spend money to put facepaint on your character put if you’re spending time checking out other people’s facepaint while playing Black Ops, you’re doing it wrong.

I think that about does it for Black Ops. I’m still playing the multiplayer (my goal is to Prestige at least once, for the first time in a COD game) but probably spending most of my time playing Zombies, even though it’s awful. I’ve been playing a ton of “RDR: Undead Nightmare” lately so look for a review of that soon.

Call of Duty: Black Ops pulls me back in

I thought I was out but they pulled me back in. After Modern Warfare 2, I pretty much wanted nothing to do with Call of Duty. MW2 was embraced by so many, I wanted to like the game – but ultimately I just couldn’t. The single play campaign was fun and Spec Ops was a nice diversion but the main draw, the multiplayer, annoyed and frustrated me to no end. I swore I was done with the series – MW2 killing any joy I once found in COD.

All while COD: Black Ops was being developed, I basically ignored it. Cold War era black op missions? A crossbow that fires explosive bolts? Exploding RC car killstreaks? None of it mattered to me – I was determined to stay away from the series. MW2 had tricked me, promising the same sort of balanced multiplayer that COD 4 offered only to deliver me a glitchy, twitch-fest that required people to play as cheaply as possible to be successful. Or it could’ve been that I was just bad at it. But seeing as how I’m pretty good (well, just good) at Black Ops and good at COD 4, being terrible at MW2 just didn’t sit well with me. I just couldn’t get into being constantly exploded by people using Danger Close grenades/grenade launchers who would just One Man Army and refill their ‘nades without stopping. (Danger Close and One Man Army were perks in MW2 – Danger Close made explosive damage more potent and One Man Army let you change classes without dying, letting you refill your grenades and launchers without dying first)

Well you know what they say about time healing all wounds. Recently, I’ve been playing Halo: Reach less and less and got Dead Rising 2 for Christmas but just didn’t get sucked in by it. After having it suggested to me that I buy Black Ops by a friend I play Reach with and after he told me about a few key changes to the multiplayer, I decided to go out and pick up the latest COD with what little Christmas money I had left. Though I’m still not sold on the Zombies mode (I didn’t care for the one in World at War either [Treyarch’s last COD game]).

There are three main modes in Black Ops – the campaign, multiplayer and zombies. In the campaign, you take on the role of Alex Mason, a soldier who took on numerous Black Op missions during the Vietnam War and Cold War. The missions player embark on are told through a series of flashbacks as Mason is interrogated by unknown captors. The basic plot remains the same (some evil guy[s] get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, you must stop them but not before uncovering a web of secrets) but the subject matter of the game and the manner in which the story is revealed gives this single player adventure an edge over the more-or-less straight forward WW2 or Modern Warfare games. A few missions feature unique moments of stealth or using vehicles but overall the action in single player is the tried-and-true COD formula where enemies will continue to spawn until you’ve fought past specific points on the map. Get ready for some ridiculous and outlandish plot twists as Treyarch makes full use of the “Black Ops” namesake.

I guess I’ll touch briefly on zombies right now before I dive into the multiplayer. I’ve heard tons of praise for the zombie mode in WaW and now Black Ops but honestly, I don’t know why. After playing Left 4 Dead, a mode where you run from boarded up window to boarded up window, replacing boards and shooting slow moving zombies in the face just isn’t that much fun to me. I guess it’s meant to be played with other people, except everyone I’d play that with is just playing the regular multiplayer instead.

So yeah, there’s a zombies mode. But now onto the real reason most people bought the game – the multiplayer, which is so improved and more balanced over MW2, it’s hard to know where to start. Even in the first game I played, I experienced many differences that made me hate MW2 even more for being wary of this game.

To start off, perks, weapons and equipment still unlock at certain levels but now must be purchased with COD points (earned along side XP). This simple, unassuming feature of the multiplayer helps balance the game immensely, assuring that people don’t abuse the same few weapons and perks – something far too prevalent in MW2 (as mentioned earlier). Making the n00b-tube (under-barrel grenade launcher) 3000 COD points was one of the best ideas they had.

There are still three different categories of perks to choose from but a few perks have been taken out. Perks like Commando, Danger Close and One Man Army (what do you know, two of the cheapest perks being taken out) have been removed but others like Last Stand and Deep Impact are still to be found (though under different names). The best perk removal, though, is definitely Stopping Power, which made all your bullets do extra damage. It boiled down basically having to use Stopping Power because if you didn’t you’d get torn up by everyone else who was using Stopping Power. Now in Black Ops, everyone does the same amount of damage and you don’t need to use a perk slot on Stopping Power just to be competitive.

Killstreaks are back but deathstreaks are out – though you do get an in-game reward of XP for coming back from a streak of deaths (I’m not sure how many deaths in a row it is, but I’m pretty awful so I see it all the time). Some of the killstreaks available are old favorites – like the Care Package and Chopper Gunner – and there are plenty new ones as well like the RCXD (Radio Controlled eXplosive Device) and SAM Turret. The Hardline perk is also back so all those of you who struggle getting killstreaks (count me among them – seriously, I’m really bad at COD for as much as I like it). Using Hardline, it’s not at all hard to get an army of RCXD cars, as killstreak rewards carry over after respawning. But the best change to the killstreak system is that kills you earn from your killstreak don’t count toward your next streak. Without the help of streak kills to earn more killstreaks, matches feature far fewer choppers, guided missiles and attack dogs destroying you and your team the entire game.

I’d like to congratulate Treyarch – they definitely made a believer out of me with Black Ops. After COD4 came out, I’d be the first to pan Treyarch and applaud the Infinity Ward side of the series – not so much anymore. After seeing and playing the absolute mess that was MW2, Black Ops is definitely right up there with COD4 for “Best in the Series.”

Not sure when or what my next post is going to be. I got “Dead Rising 2” for Christmas but haven’t finished the story once yet, still just trying to level up but I’m working on a review of that. Not only that, but I also recently downloaded “Red Dead Redemption’s ‘Undead Nightmare’” as well as two “Mass Effect 2” DLCs, “The Lair of the Shadow Broker” and “Overlord.” I plan on doing writeups for these as well but it’s gonna be hard to find time to do anything but play Black Ops multiplayer.

Dead Space 2 set to be the first blockbuster of 2011

Though it seems like a game better suited to be releasing around Halloween than right after Christmas and New Years, Dead Space 2 has been one of my most highly anticipated titles since I finished the original. The adventures of Isaac Clarke aboard the USS Ishimura seem to pale in comparison with what Dead Space 2 has in store for the engineer-turned-abomination slayer. Even though the demo recently released on the Xbox Live Marketplace only offers a small taste of what the final product will be like, every aspect of the game seems to be improved in some way.

Beginning the demo offers a rather detailed backstory that was left up to players to discover for themselves during and after playing the original Dead Space. The intro video explains the discovery of the Red Marker on a planet and subsequently brought aboard the planet-cracker Ishimura (the setting of Dead Space) and now, three years after the events on the Ishimura, Clarke finds himself in the middle of a new Necromorph outbreak on a giant space station known as The Sprawl.

I had been expected to be greeted by the wider-open spaces afforded by a gigantic space station but was confined to the same sort of narrow hallways and drab, vaguely-futuristic looking machinery found in the first game. Eventually I was treated to an incredibly ornate looking environment where the Marker was a central theme of the unsettling artwork. Hopefully the final game’s environments are a little more varied than the original’s.

While Isaac still controls like a tank, he’s a much sleeker tank than before and has a couple of new moves. Though melee combat isn’t recommended for fighting Necomorphs, it is useful for creating some distance. Isaac’s melee attacks are a little quicker now, especially the stomp which can be used to repeatedly stomp any nasty alien crawling on the floor to get you.

To start the demo, Isaac has a full compliment of weapons – the Plasma Cutter, Line Gun, Pulse Rifle and the new Javelin Gun. The Plasma Cutter and Line Gun are pretty much the same as before and the Pulse Rifle seems to do a little more damage. I’m a huge fan of the new Javelin Gun, which as the name suggests shoots giant stakes that nail any enemy it hits to the nearest surface. Its secondary fire is especially useful, sending an electric charge through the javelin which can set Necromorphs on fire. You’ll need all your weapons and more as there are some fearsome new enemies to contend with in Dead Space 2. On a side note, Isaac can still use Stasis and Telekenisis. Stasis is still finite but TK is unlimited this time around and much more powerful, making any item littering the station a potential weapon. Dual wielding powers and guns almost gives Dead Space 2 a Bioshock 2 feel with a third-person twist.

Part of the way through the demo, Isaac is contacted by a women who gives him advice on how to proceed and we find out that he’ll finally have lines beyond grunts and screams as he get ripped apart by Necormorphs.

The most noticeably different change from the original game is how Isaac moves through zero-gravity. In the last game, Isaac could only propel himself to different surfaces in zero-g. Now, his suit is equipped with boosters that allow him to fly around in weightless environments, which being aboard a space station could occur at any time. Controlling Isaac through zero-g is very simple, if a bit disorienting at times.

Also new to Dead Space 2, when it releases on Jan. 25, will be multiplayer. Though I’m only sure about one mode at this point, it’d be great if there were a horde mode or maybe even co-op in the future. The multiplayer will be similar to Left 4 Dead as a team of humans takes on a team of Necromorphs. In the few videos I’ve seen of the multiplayer, I only saw a few different monsters to play as but I’d assume there will be plenty to choose from.

From the little I’ve played of the single player campaign and seen of the multiplayer, Dead Space 2 is shaping up to be one of the first “must play” games of 2011.