Dead Space 2: First GOTY candidate of 2011

“We’re all going to burn for what we did to you, Isaac.”


2011 is going to be a tough year for video games. Not for fans of video games, but for the games themselves. Why, you ask? Because Dead Space 2 was only released at the end of January but could easily be a Game of the Year contender. Even with other big name titles like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Gears of War 3 due out this year, they already have stiff competition in EA’s third person action/survival-horror game. DS 2 improves on its predecessor in virtually every way and includes multiplayer to the formula as well.

Taking place on the Titan Space Station (also known as the Sprawl) Isaac is awoken to some startling news – a new Necromoprh infection has begun on the Sprawl. He can’t remember how he got on the station or how long he’s even been there but you’re not given much time to contemplate your surroundings – the first chapter of the game is one of the most intense since you don’t begin with any weapons or even your engineering suit. In fact, you’re strapped into a straight jacket and the person who came to get you out gets turned in right in front of your eyes.

The first few minutes of the game show off some new features to Dead Space – the addition of other NPCs Isaac will encounter and interact with, as well as the greatly enhanced visuals, giving facial expressions an eerie realism. Everything about the character models and animations in Dead Space 2 seem much, much smoother than the original. In addition to improving the graphics, Isaac Clarke is no longer a silent protagonist. He’s developed quite a personality since the first game and it’s great to finally hear something from the only man who has survived the Necromorphs.

Though you only have Kinesis at first, it has been upgraded very nicely from the first game and is a great option to have in battle. You’ll need every advantage you can get in DS2 because this game is very intent on outdoing the original in every way possible. In the first few minutes of the game alone you’ll be horrified and terrorized and soon realize it’s only the tip of the iceberg. DS2 features not just some of the most disgusting enemies ever imagined or the most grotesque gore, but also ups the ante with psychological torment. Exposure to the original Marker left Isaac with a degenerative dementia – a condition that manifests itself as Isaac’s lost love, Nicole. Throughout the game, Nicole will harass Isaac in a number of different ways, each new way as unsettling as the previous.

The combat hasn’t changed much from the original. New weapons are available, like the Detonator Mines and Seeker Rifle but still can’t top the “big three” – the Plasma Cutter, Pulse Rifle and Line Gun. The Plasma Cutter is still the all-around best weapon, useful for nearly any enemy. The Line Gun is the heavy-hitter, its wide shot and timed-mine alternate fire are really helpful when surrounded or being advanced on from multiple sides. The Pulse Rifle is still the standby weapon – great to fend off enemies to switch to your PC or LG and also works wonders against weaker enemies like the Pack.

Speaking of new enemies, devising new tactics for the new Necromorphs you’ll be facing is probably the biggest way combat has changed. The Pack are smaller, physically weaker enemies that attack in large groups and can easily overwhelm you if you’re not careful. Pukers vomit an acidic substance that will not just damage you but also make you unable to run. Pukers are also very aggressive and have no problem getting right in your face. My favorite new addition are the Stalkers, though. These guys will also attack in groups of four or five but don’t just blindly charge like most other Necromorphs – Stalkers are a little smarter and use their speed and quickness to throw you off their trail and flank you. Stalkers are incredibly dangerous – I found usually the best strategy is to back yourself into a corner so at least you’ll be able to see where they’re coming from. These things are fast and vicious and have no problem hitting you over and over again, especially when you’re down.

Other, smaller improvements may not be immediately recognized but are implanted so wonderfully that you’ll think they were part of the formula all along. For instance, the (nearly incomprehensible) map is done away with and your locator can be held down to show routes to your objective, save stations, stores and benches. The melee combat was slightly upgraded, with Isaac now able to stomp crawling Necromorphs as well as to reveal dropped items. Hand-to-hand melee combat is still dangerous, with Necromorphs easily able to slice and stab at you before you can knock them back (usually).

But my favorite improvement to DS2 is the improved zero-G areas. In the original you could only jump from surface to surface in these areas whereas Isaac now has thrusters on his suit that let you maneuver a full 360-degrees. Being able to move freely in weightless areas adds a ton of fun and inventiveness to puzzles, not to mention fighting Necromorphs in zero-G is even more unnerving, since you’re never quite sure where they’re coming from.

Though the earlier environments of DS2 are new to the series, a majority of the later levels seem a little too much like the first game (one area in particular – nudge, nudge, wink, wink). While the Unitology Church, apartment and shopping areas and school are really new and colorful, too many of the later levels are all dank hallways with flickering lights or the obvious choke point areas where you can just smell an ambush coming. DS2 does a good job of keeping you on your toes and not being too obvious about when an attack is coming but a majority of the time it’ll be pretty obvious when a swarm is about to hit.

Though Normal difficulty isn’t too challenging (the last few levels can be a real pain) Survivalist and Zealot are pretty insane. You’ll pretty much always be short of ammo and using Kinesis is necessary to survive. But for the crazier fans out there, an even more intense experience exists. In Hardcore mode, you’ll be faced with the toughest enemies yet as well as the least amount of items like ammo and health to be found. But that’s not all. On Hardcore, you’ll only be able to save three times. That’s right. Throughout the entire 8-10 hour game, while facing the strongest and deadliest enemies imaginable, you’ll only be able to make a total of three saves over the course of 14 chapters. Needless to say, I did not try this mode.

DS2 also includes a multiplayer mode that’s reminiscent of Left 4 Dead but even more closely resembles Singularity’s online play. On each map, a team of Human is given a task to complete to win the round while a team of Necromorphs tries to wreak as much havoc as possible. While the idea is great in theory, the online community isn’t great. You’ll usually spend as much time searching for games as playing them. On top of that, the Human objective isn’t always very clear and more often than not, your team will wander around haplessly, getting slaughtered nonstop as they get no closer to the objective. On the flip side, it’s nearly impossible to stop a team of Humans who work together – even a well balanced team of Necromorphs will find it difficult to stop a Human team who know what they’re doing. If you have a bunch of friends willing to play it can be some great fun, especially since the Necromorph melee combat works surprisingly well (much nicer than the Infected combat in L4D2). Overall, though, I had a ton more fun in the single player, slicing up Necromorphs and achievement hunting.

It’s a testament to how great of a game DS2 is that even though the single player is pretty short (as mentioned earlier, it’s about 8-10 hours if you search every area carefully – about 6-8 if you blaze through) and the multiplayer is fun but nothing special, the excellently paced solo campaign is full of so much action and breath taking moments (like the train, the escape pod/solar array, etc.) that as soon as I finished my first play through, I felt compelled to start a second right away.

Also, the first mission DLC pack was just announced for DS2, titled “Severed.” Players will take control of Gabe Weller, a security guard aboard the Sprawl and features characters from Dead Space Extraction. Other DLC packs featuring new weapons and armor are also available now on the 360 Marketplace and PSN.

Cautiously optimistic about Dead Island

It's been more than a week since you've had you're Grizzly Gaming fix - where are my manners?

If you have eyes, been on the internet lately and are a fiend for zombie games, you’ve no doubt seen the trailer for Dead Island – the open-world, zombie FPS action RPG. Though it’s one of the most ambitious titles I’ve heard of in a long time (outside of Awakened), I’m trying not to drown in the sea of hype that its teaser trailer has unleashed on the unsuspecting masses of the interwebs. Don’t get me wrong, the trailer is amazing - the way it’s cut together and the story it tells definitely gave me chills. But the meager amount of information I’ve seen about the game so far isn’t enough for me to buy a ticket on the hype train just yet.

I’m gonna take a moment to examine the tags put on this game – open-world, zombie FPS, action-RPG. Each of those genres is great on their own but put them together and I’m not quite sure what you get. Sure, it sounds amazing in theory – but then again so did the giant controller that came with Steel Battalion (well it sounded awesome to me back then anyway). Action-RPG would be easy enough to pull off – most games (like Borderlands and even Dead Rising fits into that category) manage to integrate some kind of RPG element(s) pretty successfully. The open-world/zombie FPS aspects of Dead Island have me slightly more concerned, though.

With the info that there will be running zombies and unique zombies along with the standard shambling buggers, I’m a little wary of the FPS aspect. FPS zombie killing in Left 4 Dead is one thing, but an open world filled with zombies where you could potentially be playing solo is a whole different situation. In L4D, you have guns along with melee weapons to stave of the zombie horde, but you also always have backup. I can’t shake this feeling that in Dead Island I’d be constantly surrounded and harrassed if I were playing by myself.

Speaking of playing with myself, err… by myself, Dead Island will have drop in/drop out co-op play. You’ll allegedly have four different characters/classes to choose from and can jump into games on the fly - similar to Borderlands, I’m guessing. What concerns me is whether the game will scale to your characters or whether areas of the game will be geared toward different levels (newer characters to more leveled-up characters). Even though I loved Borderlands, the way the game scaled to your character (and the playthrough you’re on) was incredibly annoying. It basically meant you had to play with other characters the same level as you, or else the lowest level character was going to be getting stomped on quite regularly.

The FPS melee part of it kinda makes me a little nervous, too. Even the melee combat in L4D2 is spotty sometimes and that’s what they’re looking to emulate? If anything, Techland should be shooting for a gameplay style similar to the Condemned series. The combat in those games was intense and brutally satisfying where as the combat in L4D feels almost arcadey at time – like how you can just run around, swinging your weapon without looking (if you’re covered in Boomer bile, perhaps) and still manage to take out zombies.

But beyond the mechanics of the gameplay, with such a huge, persistent, open-world I’d be more than a little worried about how smoothly Dead Island would run. With such a high level of detail I’ve seen in the screens and with all the elements of RPG and exploration that will allegedly be available, I’m more than a little worried that Techland will have trouble getting it to run at a reasonable frame rate.

And if you still haven’t gotten enough of me being a Debbie Doubts-a lot, I wasn’t sure where I had heard of Techland before. Well, Wikipedia helped in giving me another reason to be uneasy – the biggest games to Techlands credit are the Call of Juarez series and the recently released nail’d. I don’t mean to be a jerk, but Call of Juarez is okay at best and I don’t even know how nail’d could translate to a game like Dead Island. It’s great they have FPS experience with the CoJ series but the first game was pretty rough and the second was decent but couldn’t really compare to bigger name FPSes (Halo, COD, etc.).

Still though, I’m holding at cautiously optimistic. Open-world games are awesome, zombies are awesome as are FPSes – it’s almost blasphemous for me to think something combining all those elements could be bad. Maybe I just want so bad for Dead Island to be mind-blowing that I can’t help but think about how easily it would be to screw up. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

For more info on Dead Island, check out this piece at Destructoid - http://www.destructoid.com/impressions-your-first-look-at-dead-island-194120.phtml. The trailer isn't on that page but I'm sure it's easy enough to find.

About time for Activision to unplug Guitar Hero

Oh my, the situation does seem to be getting dire for rhythm gaming fans. After news at the end of 2010 that Viacom had sold “Rock Band” developer Harmonix, it seems that Activision is following suit with its own rhythm franchises in a similar fashion. The company announced yesterday their plans to discontinue development on the Guitar Hero series, as well as DJ Hero and all skateboarding games. They also announced that after the DLC slated for February has been released, they won’t be supporting any games with more.

And you know what I say? It’s about time. For so long now, Activision has been flooding the market with all manner of GH games – World Tour, 5, Warriors of Rock along with countless other band specific spinoffs. It’s no wonder the games got to cost more to produce than they were bringing in – constantly having to release new packages with more plastic instruments would obviously get costly after a while too. Makes me wonder if Activision has ever heard the term “Quality over quantity.”

Admittedly, I’m a bigger fan of the Rock Band series, anyway. I have been since Harmonix lost the right to the series and created their own, superior product. RB games have always felt like they played smoother, the notes were tracked in a more entertaining manner that weren’t just fun but challenging too. Harmonix continued to innovate RB in its latest iteration, including the Pro modes as well as creating new instruments to accommodate this mode. What did GH 5 or Warriors of Rock introduce to the formula? Letting people play as Kurt Cobain and pissing off former members of Nirvana because you could use his character model to play any song you felt like?

But that’s not all. After the GH and DJ Hero DLC packs for February are released, that’s it – no more support for either series’. Even when Harmonix had to back to being an independent developer, they still support RB3 with weekly DLC releases, as well as managing the Rock Band Network so up-and-coming bands (and plenty of others, too) can produce their own RB content.

Also on the Activision chopping block were skateboarding games, which means extreme sports fans won’t have Tony Hawk Eleventy-billion to look forward to this year. This is much less surprising to me – I didn’t even realize they still made Tony Hawk games. In fact the last skating game I really enjoyed was the original Skate by EA – the sequel didn’t do much for me.

As a fan of rhythm games since the first (Harmonix produced) Guitar Hero title, I’m a little sad to see the genre in such a state of decline. I literally just got Pro Drums for RB3 a few months ago and enjoy messing around with the free play and (Indie game) drum kits almost as much as playing songs (Expert for me only, please. I’ll beat some songs off “Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying” one of these days. Actually, that’s not true, I beat “Wake Up Dead” on Expert [not Pro] once. Once.).

As long as Harmonix keeps pumping out the DLC, I’ll keep a-rocking. And yes, I totally still use my GH2 Xplorer.

Halo: CE remake a real thing, Battlefield 3 announced and some crazy controller

It was confirmed by several gaming news outlets earlier that, as reported on here, Bungie will be releasing a remake of “Halo: Combat Evolved” this winter. It is allegedly being made with “new art assets” to assuage fears that this will just be the original game running in 1080p. The remake’s development is being handled by Sabre Interactive, developers of “TimeShift” and the upcoming “Inversion.” Though it hasn’t been specified yet, the game is apparently running on an engine other than that of “Halo: Reach’s.”

Right now, the release date is set for November 15, 2011 – the ten year anniversary of Halo’s launch along side the original Xbox. No word on any multiplayer modes, though, but it will most likely feature online co-op.

I’m definitely going to be keeping my eye on this one. I might not end up picking it up in the end (since I still own a copy of the original game) but I’ll be curious to see whether this is a download-only title or if it’ll be pushed as a full, stand-alone disc. If there is multiplayer, original Halo: CE maps and the engine is similar to the original, I might end up picking up a copy of it after all.

Hot on the heels of the Halo remake announcement, EA DICE also dropped a bomb of their own – announcing that Battlefield 3 will be hitting PS3, 360 and the PC this fall. The true successor to Battlefield 2 (which was released in 2005 - remember, there have been two BF: Bad Company games since then), BF3 will see the return of jets to the game, the return of the prone position as well as 64-player multiplayer (on the PC, womp womp).

I never really played much of the Battlefield series before the first Bad Company. From what my friends have told me, I would’ve fell in love with the series from the very beginning but was one of those things I just missed out on somehow. I wasn’t too impressed with BC1’s multiplayer but thought the single player was fun enough to check out the second. Luckily I did because Bad Company 2’s multiplayer is a-maze-ing. Seriously, I’ve never had more fun in an FPS. I can jump into a game any time, by myself or with friends, and have a stupid amount of fun. Every match, be it Rush or Conquest, is intense and heart-pounding. Having vehicles and destructible environments sounds so inconsequential but the way EA DICE implemented them into BC2 is nothing short of incredible.

A short trailer was also released along with the announcement of BF3 but doesn’t really show anything. You can check it out here, along with more info, at EA’s Battlefield Blog:

http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/battlefield_bad_company/archive/2011/02/04/battlefield-3-is-coming-preorder-now.aspx##

My last bit of news for today concerns the N-Control Avenger. A more fitting name for it would be what I (and I’m guessing many others) said when they first saw it – “What is this I don’t even.” Seriously, look at that thing. What is it even supposed to do? Well, obviously that's rhetorical – it’s supposed to make it so you don’t need to take your thumbs off the joysticks to press face buttons. But, c’mon man – that thing is ridiculous. I’d be afraid to even strap it to my controller, let alone try to get used to using it.

It’s available now for the Xbox 360 for the discounted price of $39.99 (lucky us) and a PS3 version is due out later this year. All I’m saying is, if you’re serious about gaming and you’ve been doing it a while now, you should be pretty well versed in moving your fingers nimbly from one button to another. I’m pretty sure the .00025 seconds you save pulling a lever with your left index finger to hit the X button instead of just pressing it with your right thumb won’t result in your online murder. Pretty sure, anyway, because I’m never going to buy one to find out.

News tidbits: Arkham City five times bigger than Asylum and Abe's Odyssey gets HD upgrade

Though Batman is one of the most iconic superheroes, his appearances in popular culture has often been less than spectacular. "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" has helped immensely in bringing silver screen credibility back to Bats but video games bearing his likeness have been almost as bad as "Batman and Robin."

That was, until, "Batman: Arkham Asylum." AA finally managed to capture the true spirit of Batman - a hero who uses his brains just as much as his fists to bring the bad guy to justice. With a clever blend of fluid combat, gadgetry and stealth tactics, AA was not just one of the best Batman games ever made but one of the best games released in 2009. Developer Rocksteady has already announced its sequel, “Batman: Arkham City,” that will release this coming summer or fall. Honestly, AA was so good that even if AC played exactly the same with just a new story and environment, I’d probably be ok with it.

I really probably wouldn’t but you get my point – Arkham Asylum was pretty amazing. You know Rocksteady isn’t resting on its laurels and is making sure that AC will top AA in every way – as inconceivable as that sounds. Recently, Gamespot spoke with Rocksteady developer Sefton Hill who explained that the environment for AC will be five times as large as AA. The whole map will be opened to players at all times, for exploration purposes, but Hill assures that there will always be a clear indication of the task at hand. AA held many, many secrets and I can’t even fathom how much time will be wasted trying to find every last Riddler challenge.

Though the first game was set in the familiar Arkham Asylum, Arkham City takes place in a location new to the Batman universe. After the events of the first game, Warden Quincy Sharp has become mayor and, because Arkham and Blackgate Prison are both unable to house their former prison population, has turn blocks of Gotham City slums into a prison – walling off a section of the city and patrolling the walls with a private security force called Tyger. Sharp also brings in psychiatrist Hugo Strange to oversee the prison population but he almost definitely has ulterior motives. It isn’t long before Two-Face shows up and, to gain notoriety among the prisoners, begins threatening to execute Catwoman. With the prisoners being riled up and led by Two-Face and neither Strange nor Sharp doing anything to quell the uprising, Batman ventures into the criminal city.

Another interesting piece of news I saw recently dealt with a franchise I thought for sure had been laid to rest – the Oddworld series. This strange new world first appeared in 1997 on the Playstation and the first game, Abe’s Odyssey, was a side-scrolling action/puzzle game. At the end of his shift at the meat-packing plant RuptureFarms, Abe overhears his boss, Molluck the Glukkon, saying that all of their natural, animal resources have been used up and that they are going to start using Mudokons to make their Tasty Treat line of snacks. Unfortunately for Abe, he is a Mudokon. Abe takes it upon himself to escape the factory and it is up to the player to save as many Mudokons from the plant as possible.

Originally planned as a pentalogy, called the Oddworld Quintology, there, unfortunately, hasn’t been a new addition to the Oddworld series in quite some time. Recently developmental studio Just Add Water announced they are working on an HD remake of “Abe’s Odyssey” in addition to an HD remake of another Oddworld title, “Stranger’s Wrath.” More information should be surfacing on the projects in the coming months.

Also, be on the lookout for my upcoming review of “Dead Space 2” as well as my thoughts on the multiplayer demo of “Crysis 2” for the Xbox 360.