One of many highly anticipated morsels tossed out to the salivating industry-beasts at the E3 conference today was the release date for Dead Space 2, which is January 25, 2011. It's too late for the holidays, but just in time for long and cold nights with nothing to do but dismember monsters.
John Riccitiello, CEO of EA Games, confirmed in a recent interview with Industry Gamers that the alien-meets-zombie horror game would resurface as a multiplayer. He stoked the hunger, calling it “more than a worthy sequel… a monster.”
The audience at EA’s press conference, held at 2pm today at L.A.’s Orpheum Theatre, seemed to agree. EA led off with the Dead Space 2 demo on PS3, and startled audience members out of their seats within moments. Hero, Isaac Clarke, was battling Necromorphs as fiercely as when we last knew him, staring at the Church of Unitology. Stained glass windows cast an eerie light over everything. Bald, baby Necromorphs inundated Isaac, leaving him no recourse but to punch through their cute little skulls. He employed a number of weapons/mining tools to dispatch the undead beasts, then they left viewers wanting more with a cliffhanger ending. Producer Steve Papoutsis promised more would be revealed at tomorrow’s Sony presentation.
In the aforementioned Industry Gamers interview, Riccitiello compared Dead Space 2 to Portal in the way it asks its players to think. "You see you really have to think about the game," he said, "I like that kind of stuff." Today’s screening however, focused more on beheading than head-scratching. There wasn’t an opportunity to explore the multiplayer option, either. But EA knows how to please a crowd. 92% of followers of the IGN live blog of the conference rated Dead Space 2 either “Cool” or “OMG So Awesome.” Riccitiello declared, "We want to set a higher bar of quality than has been set for first-person shooter." They may not only set the bar, but also disembowel it.
