Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Isaac, what have you been up to?


Oh, GameInformer - how you do tease.

A few days ago, the popular gaming magazine GameInformer announced on their website that their January issue would elaborate on the few details presently offered on the subject of this sequel to one of the best survival horror games I have ever played. I certainly wasn't the only person who enjoyed this white-knuckle misadventure through the doomed USG Ishimura so let's be frank, a sequel was bound to happen and let's be even more frank, this game could very well be a disaster. Still, at this point there certainly is no need to be anything but excited. Dead Space was such a credit to the genre that it would be lucky to have an installment half as good but hopefully EA and Visceral will be able to recapture the horror, grace, and beauty of the first.

Hmm . . . thinking about it is making me want to play it again. If only I didn’t sweat just thinking about it.

9 comments:

  1. Not sure if you've seen it yet but details from the content in the magazine have been published at various places, revealing some of the stuff incoming for the sequel. I like the sound of Sprawl -- that alone has me looking forward to the sequel. Everything else is just an added bonus really, as regardless of what they reveal for weapons and enemies, I was always going to be keen on a sequel. Definitely want to see what happens next in the narrative. It might not be on par with other games out there, but it was still decent enough, so continuing it is fine by me.

    Also, been a while since I've commented so let me take the time to say nice work on what you've been doing here as well as congrats on the various links you two have been receiving on other sites. I've been behind the times a little when it comes to the blogsphere lately, making commenting pointless by the time I get to posts, but yeah it's been great reading your posts when I've had the time. Keep it up. :)

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  2. God, I feel the same way about Dead Space. It's so inexpensive online right now that I'm half considering getting it again and finally trying on hard... but then I remember how I, like, grow ulcers OUTSIDE my body when ten of those shrieking limb sandwiches are charging me, and I'm not sure I've got what it takes.

    The multiplayer aspect of the sequel has me concerned. Same goes for Bioshock 2. I thought that Dead Space was far, far scarier than than RE5 and the co-op factor was a huge part of why.

    But then again, with the rate at which sequels have been improving this generation, by the time these franchises' "part 3"s are rolling around, we may well see the platonic ideal of a "game."

    PS in no small part due to Cary's recommendation, I totally got L4D2, and it is insane-o

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  3. Steven - I hadn't! I just looked it up though and holy crap, multi-player?! I just had to wipe drool off my keyboard. And thank you so very, very much for the kind words - we've missed you around here :)

    Kirk - There is no way I could handle that game on hard. No way. Let me know if you give it a shot though, I'm curious just how much harder it is. And yeah, Dead Space is terrifying while Resident Evil 5 is much, much more adventure. And yay! So glad to hear you're enjoying L4D2!! If you play on the 360, you should ad our gamertags - we're always playing.

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  4. I've also been considering another playthrough on hard -- both as a completionist and as someone interested in how the difficulty has increased -- but I wonder if the challenge will be misleading, in a way, due to the upgraded weapons that can carry over into a new playthrough. Would such upgrades make it easier, or will Dead Space's difficulty increase just by shoving onslaughts of Necromorphs in your face instead?

    Y'know, instead of theorising about it I could actually, y'know, go and find out...

    Hm...

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  5. I played it on both (though Hard got too hard, so I had to switch halfway through and start again). Though I'm not the first to say it, it is incredibly accurate to describe it thusly: On hard, the game is Alien, and on medium it's AlienS.

    It's a very different experience, and much, much scarier on hard. In a good way.

    The saddest missing aspect of Dead Space is that even though you can do a new game+ sorta thing where after beating it you play again with all your upgraded gear, you can't change the difficulty, which just seems so weak. Wha? I would have loved to give it another go with all my upgraded gear on hard. Alas.

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  6. Oh wow, I didn't know that. Here I was thinking that I could mop up everything completion related in the second playthrough on hard, but if you can't take your upgrades with you when you change the difficulty then it appears a third run will be necessary for full completion.

    Lucky the game is enjoyable enough to warrant subsequent playthroughs, then. So long as they are broken up by a few weeks, or even months...

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  7. I actually played on Hard all the way my first time through. It made for a great experience, but my new playthrough on Medium is a lot more fun. Whenever I booted up the game on Hard, I was perpetually on the verge of having a heart attack until I finally die one too many times and give myself a break. That said, I absolutely loved the game on both settings, and if you have access to a Wii, Dead Space Extraction is actually a really cool look into more of the game's mythology.

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  8. Oh yeah, Dead Space: Extraction is most certainly on my list of future titles to purchase.

    All in good time...

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