With Dead Space 2's multiplayer component suffering the same fate most of its peers—namely, being entirely forgotten shortly after release—EA reckons a couple of new maps might be enough to tempt you back into the game.

The Academy and The Concourse are the maps, which will be available on Xbox Live on May 31 and the PlayStation Network on June 3. They combine to form the "Outbreak Map Pack", and unlike similar offerings from other big-budget games, will be released for free. So at least it's got that going for it.

If you bought the fancy edition of Dead Space 2, you would have got yourself a little replica plasma cutter, one of the game's more memorable weapons. As is, it's useless, but this guy will show you how to turn it into a laser gun. That can set stuff on fire.

You can see the complete how-to in the video above. If you just want to see what the fully armed and operational plasma cutter can do to a balloon and a T-800 holding a pair of matches, skip to around 2:05.

Note: if you're going to actually try this, please heed the warnings in the video. Proper lasers can be dangerous!

[via Super Punch]

A little stupid, perhaps, but a game as repetitive and oppressively dark as Dead Space 2 could have done with a few lighter moments. Like this one.

As we mentioned yesterday, today's Amazon Gold Box deals are games all day, with Dragon Age II $40 across all platforms and great deals on De Blob 2, Bulletstorm, Dead Space 2, and more.

Electronic Arts' Dead Space 2 marketing campaign is in the sights of a parents advocacy group.

Well, actually, it is, since a "parent advocacy group" is calling out the campaign for the same reason I think it's stupid: it completely overshoots (and in many ways insults) its target market, pandering to a demographic that won't (and shouldn't) even be looking at the game, let alone buying it.

If you haven't seen it, the campaign focused on the reaction of mothers to the game's gorier and scarier moments. It closes with "Dead Space 2. It's everything you love in a game, and your mom's going to hate it."

What is this, 1993? Does Dead Space 2 do what Nintendon't? Dead Space 2 is a game rated Mature, meaning it's pitched at people who at their youngest are 17 years old. But these "moms" in many cases look more like "grandmothers", which makes things worse: either EA is pitching the game at kids who think pissing off their parents is cool (kids who shouldn't be playing the game), or it thinks the children of these women - who would be in their twenties and thirties - think pissing off their parents is cool.

Neither scenario makes EA look too good.

Believing EA's intentions were more sinister than lame, Common Sense Media has urged the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to "sanction Electronic Arts for creating an ad campaign that would be irresistible to teens and younger boys".

"We think it violates the ESRB's Principles and Guidelines for Responsible Advertising Practices," Common Sense Media chief executive Jim Steyer writes. "The question is does the ESRB stick up for kids or not."

I'd say it merely violates the guidelines for making ad campaigns that don't suck, but if the ESRB want to get involved, by all means, knock yourselves out.

For its part, EA obviously believes it's done nothing wrong, saying the campaign had to be cleared by the ESRB before it could run. Which it did.

Parent advocacy group hates EA's 'Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2' ads [LA Times]

Ashley's dog broke her Xbox 360 while she was in the middle of playing Dead Space 2. That's usually grounds for a sob story, but this one has a happy ending.

The clumsy pooch knocked over her console - which was standing vertically - while Dead Space 2 was in it, ruining both the machine and the game inside.

We'll spare her the "I told you so's" related to standing an old Xbox 360 upright under any circumstances, let alone with a dog running around.

Anyway, after posting about the incident on Twitter, Ashley received a little package in the mail: a replacement copy, signed by the development team, and a custom piece of art admonishing the dog for its console-breaking deeds.

All's well that ends well! Well, except for the countless thousands of other people who have lost games in these circumstances. You guys are shit out of luck.

[the internet comes through! (thank you), via NeoGAF]

Despite its resemblance to Scientology, Unitology - Dead Space's fictitious religion - isn't a parody of the controversial church, the game's creative director told MTV Multiplayer. "I think people get that because the name is very similar," he said.

"It was really just an observation about what can happen to anybody who is fanatical and illogical about their beliefs," Wright Bagwell told MTV's Russ Frushtick.

Bagwell cited "The Demon-Haunted World," a book by Carl Sagan, as a type of inspiration for the commentary Dead Space 2 makes on religion through Unitology.

"As science took hold and modern thinking took hold, there was a lot less superstitious thinking. But now that people are not able to understand everything around them again, technology has gotten to the point where it's like magic to some people, and they're overwhelmed with the amount of knowledge and information that's out there," Bagwell said. "It's gotten people thinking illogically and superstitiously again."

That's where Unitology has its inspiration, Bagwell said. "In this complex, futuristic world, people are looking for ways to simplify their lives and put their faith in something that they don't have to think too much about."

'Dead Space 2' Creative Director On The Unitology Vs. Scientology Debate [MTV Multiplayer]

Dead Space 2 is a crazy good game, and the survival horror series is building up a sizable fan base. Know what that means?

There are rumblings of movie possibilities. The games already got the animated and graphic novel treatment as well as toys. So a big screen version seems to be the logical next step!

Dead Space co-creator Ian Milham tells the BBC, "We would love to have a live action film and we've had a lot of discussion." But Milham says that one of the reasons that Dead Space still exists and is still popular is that the developers "made sure to do everything right".

Actually, the reason why Dead Space is popular is because the games are really good. Still, if Mario can survive silly cartoons and a horrible movie version, Dead Space will be just fine. Right?

"So we're doing the same with the film," Milham adds, "not just a cheap cash-in but to do something really worthwhile, so we'll see."

Everyone goes to Hollywood with the best intentions, but Hollywood is where video games go to die. Just focus on Dead Space 3, people!

BBC - Newsbeat - Dead Space 2 film 'won't be rushed' [BBC via CVG]

Last week, I played through Dead Space 2. This week, I'll see it through to the end one more time, perhaps having more fun, feeling less stressed, better appreciating its immense technical and visual artistry. Let's hear it for New Game Plus.

Visceral Games' Dead Space 2, like the original, is an experience designed to be played more than once, if only to enjoy all of its unlockable weapons, trophies and achievements. Playing again through a horrific adventure like the Dead Space games or the Resident Evil games—another series that often benefits from a second playthrough—is cathartic. You know where the scares wait in hiding. You are a more powerful being—except in the rare circumstance in which you fight zombies as a knife-wielding piece of tofu.

It is almost impossible to sample everything in a game like Dead Space 2, with its large arsenal and extended upgrade tree, the first time through. It's better motivation for me to hold onto my video games, rather than trade them in, than any multiplayer mode attached to a strong singe-player game.

Now, the New Game Plus—or NG+, but let's not call it NGP—that I'm referring to is of the type that upon completing a video game, you are presented with an all-new way to revisit the game. Same story, same adventure (for the most part), more powerful you. In the case of Dead Space games, you'll restart your adventure from the beginning with all the upgrades, ammo and know-how from the last playthrough. Other great games like Vagrant Story for the PlayStation, Diablo II for the PC and Demon's Souls for the PS3 offer similar opportunities.

But I've appreciated other types of New Game Plus variations. In the case of many Castlevania games, an opportunity to play through Dracula's castle as someone else, someone more powerful, to sprint through an adventure previously more challenging. One great Game Boy Advance game made New Game Plus playing a requirement.

And while I often prefer the New Game Plus that makes things easier on me, as Dead Space games do, I also enjoy the ones that make things more difficult.

From Software's Demon's Souls and Blizzard's Diablo II made me a lover of the challenging type of NG+, for their systems bring players back to the beginning of a brutal role-playing experience, well-equipped but still fragile in a harsher, harder world. Those re-run experiences offer a new sensation, feeling more powerful, more versatile, but still powerless at times.

I've played through Diablo II games until I reached Hell mode. I'm getting close to my New Game Plus Plus in Demon's Souls—and replayed as a wildly different character type. Rarely have few games gripped me as do the ones that feature modes like this. We should see more of it.

We should see more creativity in its implementation, as in the case of Astro Boy: Omega Factor.

Without New Game Plus, this portable action adventure from shoot 'em up masters Treasure would have been adequate, satisfying. In fact, back in 2004, when reaching the end of Astro Boy: Omega Factor for the first time and being unaware of its NG+ mode, I wondered what the big deal was. I wondered why I was left with an unappealing ending to a short game that seemed simple.

Then I started again, seeing the rest of Astro Boy: Omega Factor, learning the other half of its story, savoring its gameplay better the second time around. It joined games like Demon's Souls, Dead Space and Vagrant Story as personal hallmarks.

As far as Dead Space 2 is concerned, I've mentally planned to play it four times. Once to review it, once to savor it, once more to see how hard Zealot difficulty will be on a fully upgraded Isaac Clarke, once to see if I can get this spectacular weapon. Few games compel me to do such things.

So, let's give thanks for our favorite New Game Plus games. Let's introduce others to the delicious second servings of video games like Dead Space and Demon's Souls by sharing our own NG+ favorites. Please do so in the comments.

A Visceral Games engineer built this Minecraftized trailer to celebrate Dead Space 2. "I put it up in time for launch but it was too dark," he writes. "Now that the partying has worn off, I remembered to brighten it."

The trailer was done by Michael Noonan, a gameplay engineer for Visceral. "The whole environment and shot set up I've done myself, though the actual scale of the marker is closer to the one in DS2," he told Kotaku. "I genned a couple worlds until I found a big mountain to put the marker inside, fortunately it was naturally hollow to begin with, I only needed to blow up a floor a bit.

"I didn't want to copy any Dead Space trailers, most of them show off the monsters which I just can't do in MineCraft, but it was definitely inspired by the 'Twinkle Twinkle' and 'Ring Around the Rosie' trailers. I'm not really good at audio stuff, so I spent a couple hours looking for a creepy a lullaby until I found that Silent Night music box melody that just seemed to fit the theme perfectly."

Stick around past the end for a special outtake involving a chicken and some necromorph shrieks. "I threw it in at the end as a sort of blooper reel gag," Noonan writes.

You may follow him on Twitter here.