According to IGN, Dead Space 3 will feature optional co-op play. It'll be drop-in, drop-out. Their source also describes the game's setting as a "desolate snow planet," which confirms the rumor we reported last year.
It sounds as though the second co-op character might be a figment of protagonist Isaac Clarke's imagination, as IGN describes the game seamlessly adding the co-op character, or hiding him. There will also be the expected co-op mechanics such as using the telekenisis together and sharing ammo Resident Evil 5-style.
The enemies in the game will be freshened up somewhat, and Isaac will face non-Necromoprh enemies on the ice planet, including... Human! Beings! My, that sounds… like an action game. Hrm.
Lastly, IGN reports that "Skyscraper-sized enemies may also come into play." Well, I certainly hope they come into play. It wouldn't be much fun to have giant enemies that you don't get to dismember, after all.
As we learned from The Thing, Snow can sure be scary… but co-op? Man, I've never played a scary co-op game. We'll find out more soon, I'm sure.
A lot of games set out to tell engaging stories. Some use a narrator, lots of cutscenes or branching dialogue systems. Others embed plot points in the environment. Success rates vary, of course. But what's the worst storytelling in video games? Why, Gears of War, says Dead Space story producer Chuck Beaver.
Eurogamer pulls out a few quotes from an interview on EA's official blog where Beaver slams Epic's shooter series for its writing. In the original article, Beaver says the following:
Story can only ruin a game for those people who care about story, so it's a conditional answer. For instance, Gears of War. It contains atrocious, offensive violations of story basics. Yet it doesn't seem to ruin it for many, many people. It's literally the worst writing in games, but seems to have no ill effects.
He also takes the publisher's own efforts with Dead Space to task as well, though:
We knew so little about story back then, and overruled our writers on a lot. Dead Space was just a simple haunted house story that we later pasted a personal aspect on top of – a lost girlfriend who is really dead.
Dead Space 2 was a huge challenge. All these elements from the original game that were poorly thought through, like the Marker Lore, Necro ecology, etc., had to move coherently forward into the next narrative. The first story we had was a wreck of unrelated events and broken structure, so we cut our teeth getting that into shape, and didn't fully make it.
Plus, we got lost a bit in complicated lore and plot elements that didn't come through. And don't even get me started on the final boss sequence that they put in without me in the meeting! That was fun.
However, Beaver's most telling quote isn't about any one game:
Games are games first, and need to engage on that level. Story is a giant competitive edge to add to your offering, but pure story can't rescue craptastic game design.
That makes a weird sort of sense when I think back to the Dead Space games. They're more triumphs of tone and atmosphere than narrative successes. Similarly, Gears of War's success comes from delivering adrenaline-rush action sequences where you feel threatened from all sides. You don't need a good impetus to be drawn into those experiences but a video game can be more memorable when it has one.
UPDATE:
EA reached out to Kotaku with a statement from Chuck Beaver regarding the remarks he made about Gears of War:
"First, let me say that I'm a huge fan [of Gears of War]. It is an epic franchise that has trail-blazed more than a few industry-leading player experiences and mechanics. It is deservedly recognized as a top-tier title. Its success as a property is evidenced by its giant sales and rabid fan base. The industry is far better for Epic's contributions, and we all owe a great deal of inspiration to their work."
It's also worth noting that the original interview quoted by both Kotaku and Eurogamer has been taken down of EA's site.
Forget NECA's official Dead Space figures, which make Isaac look like was born disfigured. Remember the Dead Space hero as he should be remembered, with this intricately-detailed, custom-made action figure.
A Korean fan the series' official Facebook account only calls "이호갑" is to thank for it, and included alongside the finished shots some images of the figure as a work-in-progress.
Even if you're not the biggest fan of the games, this is still some incredible craftsmanship to behold.
If Dead Space is to be remembered for one thing, it should be its navigation system, where pressing a button triggers an illuminated "path" in the game world showing you your destination. I don't know if it was the first game to do this, but it was certainly the first to do it so prominently/so well.
That system is now working, albeit in a very crude form, thanks to work done by MIT's Media Lab, which using a phone and a projector has built an in-house guide to...everyone's desk.
While the walking around bit isn't as nice as video games have managed, the way it changes when you point it at a door is a great idea that developers should totally steal.
Opus Artz is a concept studio in London which specialises in production art for the video game industry. Among its artists are guys like Bjorn Hurri and Theo Stylianides, so yeah, we're about to see some good stuff.
The studio has worked with clients such as EA, 2K, Paradox and Square Enix, on games like Dead Space 2, BioShock 2, InFamous 2 and, to complete the pattern, Sniper 2.
Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists. If you're in the business and have some concept, environment or character art you'd like to share, drop us a line!
Sideshow is bringing out a limited edition statue of Dead Space hero Isaac Clarke, dressed in his workman's duds from the first game, not his space policeman outfit from the sequel.
There will be two versions available, one with interchangeable hands, the other without. Oh, and his rig lights up. Both will cost the same, and will be out sometime later this year.
2011 saw its share of disappointments, but it was also a year that contained a good number of nice surprises. Some were games we just didn't see coming—they snuck up on us and grabbed us with their excellence. Others were games that we thought were going to be terrible or at best so-so, but which would up being terrific.
I polled my fellow Kotaku editors and assembled a list of some of the most pleasant surprises of 2011.
Bulletstorm
I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't sold on Bulletstorm. It looked juvenile and boring, like a generic FPS dressed up with some color and silly language. I played a bit of it at a press event and remained unimpressed. I wrote a skeptical, critical preview.
As it turns out, I should have given Bulletstorm, and by extension its developers at People Can Fly, much more credit. Our reviewer back at Paste loved the game, and when I finally really sat down and played it, I found that I loved it too. It's genuinely funny in its brash dumbness, and it plays like a dream. The slide-kick alone is one of the most satisfying, endlessly fun gameplay mechanics of the year. I am still surprised at how much I love this game.
SpaceChem
An iPad/PC game based around making chemical compounds certainly doesn't sound fun, but boy is it ever. As Stephen Totilo wrote in his Review, it is "a stellar puzzle game well worth your time and brain cells." Easily one of the best iOS games of the year, and the most fun I've ever had nerding right the hell on out.
Pixeljunk Sidescroller
This one was a surprise mainly because it came out with so little preamble, pomp, or circumstance. And yet it was a fantastic game, utterly worth buying in every way. Ashcraft called it "his new favorite shooter," while Totilo described it as "the total package of retro-chic style and substance," and one of his favorite PlayStation 3 games of the year. (!!) That alone puts it on the "surprises" list.
Superman on iOS
When Totilo wrote this game up, he said that it's not perfect, but simply surprising that it's so good, given the crappiness of most Superman games. I haven't played it, but I'm actually surprised that a Superman iOS game is good at all, so it makes the list!
The Witcher 2
It wasn't so much a surprise that The Witcher 2 was good—its predecessor had also been a fantastic game that got better and better the more you played it. The surprise was the way that The Witcher 2 was good. The Witcher had been a fairly niche game, a stat-based hardcore CRPG that made those of us who love that sort of thing very happy, but didn't have much mainstream appeal. With a new engine and control scheme, The Witcher 2 arrived on PCs loaded for bear, a game that was ambitious not only in its scope and storytelling, but in its mainstream accessibility. In fact, it was the game that the very-mainstream Dragon Age II wished it could be, a complex, hugely branching tale of moral intrigue loaded with great characters, cheap thrills, and fun action combat (once you got past the first few levels.)
I'll be very interested to see how its coming Xbox 360 port does—provided it's a console translation of the amazing game we PC gamers played in 2011, The Witcher 2 will surprise a whole new crop of console gamers in 2012.
From Dust
What looked like a somewhat strange god-game from Eric Chahi wound up surprising us with is depth, difficulty, and satisfying gameplay loop. Stephen Totilo described it as "a very good video game that starts badly," going on to say that it crept up on him, and as he wrapped up the campaign, he was in love with it.
Trenched
Trenched, of course, is now known as Iron Brigade, a humorous action/tower-defense game from Tim Schafer's Double Fine Productions. I remember when Schafer unveiled it at the end of the GDC awards in March, and I felt… underwhelmed. It was weird, the tone was kinda bro-y, there was this guy yelling, and I wasn't clear on what the game was. Then, it came out, and I played it—and fell in love with it. Double Fine has a reputation for making games that favor art and story over gameplay, but project lead Brad Muir's design chops made Trenched arguably the best-playing Double Fine game of all time. It's great in single-player and even more fun in co-op, and was one of the summer's most enjoyable surprises.
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
So obviously, I loved this game a whole lot, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a surprise. I knew next to nothing about it before it came out, and it sure took me by surprise.
As our own Brian Ashcraft put it, "I had no idea iPhone games could do that." Indeed, Ash.
Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars
When the 3DS launched, the pickings were pretty slim. I had a bunch of the launch titles, but there were very few that I wanted to play for more than five or so minutes at a time. Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars was the exception in a big, big way. A combination of Ghost Recon and X-Com, it was a top-down tactical strategy game with an emphasis on troop positioning and canny battlefield exploitation. It was also supremely addictive. Our own Brian Crecente agreed, calling it a 3DS Must-Buy. Later games like Super Mario 3D Land and Cave Story 3D replaced in in my regular rotation, but I still play Shadow Wars quite a bit.
Dead Space 2
I'm putting this one in because I was all but convinced that it was going to suck. I had liked the first Dead Space no small amount, largely because of its isolation and genuine scares. Seeing trailers (like the one at the left, actually) with Isaac talking, stupid rock music playing, Uncharted-ish action sequences… it left me thinking they were going to amp up the game and wreck it. Little did I know that Dead Space 2 would be one of the most polished and enjoyable mainstream action games of the year, a near-seamless blend of horror and action that was almost impossible to stop playing. Bravo, Visceral.
Gunstringer
Man, did I not see this one coming. Who did, really? I'd been kept in the loop by Microsoft PR, and when they finally sent me a copy, it was right after I got a Kinect. So, I plugged it in, thinking "This will be a silly kids' game for sure," and what did I get but one of the two or three funniest games of the year. It worked great with the Kinect tech, it was hilariously written, and it was really fun to play. As it turned out, the origin story for the game was a hilarious case of last-ditch improvisation. I can only say I'm glad the guys at Twisted Pixel faked it like they did—the result was a game that all but proved that the Kinect could have super-fun games.
Saints Row: The Third
This one certainly snuck up on me—I'd liked the first two Saints Row games fine, but I was most certainly not expecting the third one to be as polished, smart, hilarious, and balls-out fun as it was. I tried to articulate that as best I could in my review of the game—this was a game that was generous, funny, and would go to almost any length to show the player a good time. At times, I couldn't even figure out how they were getting away with the things they were, but there ya go. Saints Row: The Third was easily one of the most welcome surprises of the year.
But those are just a few of the things that surprised us. What games pleasantly surprised you this year?
EA has plans to uproot its survival horror series Dead Space after next instalment Dead Space 3, a new report suggests.
A Dead Space first-person shooter, a flight-based spin-off, and an "Uncharted-like game" are all being planned, according to Kotaku.
New management at EA apparently told the Dead Space team it needed to consider new ways of expanding the series, and "nearly killed off" the series' planned threequel Dead Space 3.
This year's Dead Space 2 sold more than two million copies, faring better than Dead Space 1, but EA has said series sales can still improve.
"I think it will probably take Dead Space 3 before we get into that five million unit cadence versus say three, four," EA boss John Riccitello remarked in February.
Dead Space 3 remains in production, however. As previouslyrumoured, the game will be set on an icy planet where dark corners will be replaced by blinding white snow.
Dead Space 3 will apparently complete the story of central protagonist Isaac Clarke, rounding off the original series as a trilogy and allowing EA to expand Dead Space into further genres.
The new report is not surprising - EA has a history of pushing Dead Space beyond the core console instalments, albeit with mixed results. On-rails 8/10 Wii shooter Dead Space: Extraction was developed as a prequel to the original Dead Space game, while awful 3/10 downloadable puzzler Dead Space Ignition was released to accompany Dead Space 2.
There have also been comic books, novels and animated film tie-ins produced.
According to IGN, Dead Space 3 will feature optional co-op play. It'll be drop-in, drop-out. Their source also describes the game's setting as a "desolate snow planet," which confirms the rumor we reported last year.
Forget NECA's official Dead Space figures, which make Isaac look like was born disfigured. Remember the Dead Space hero as he should be remembered, with this intricately-detailed, custom-made action figure.
Sideshow is bringing out a limited edition statue of Dead Space hero Isaac Clarke, dressed in his workman's duds from the first game, not his space policeman outfit from the sequel.
