2010-06-14
At least part of Dead Space 2 takes place on The Sprawl, a city located on a moon off Saturn. Despite the seemingly gloomy ending of the original Dead Space, the sequel puts you once again in the high-tech suit of engineer and up-and-coming badass Isaac Clarke. It's unclear what Isaac is doing in the Sprawl, but things in the city have gone to hell and there are necromorphs everywhere. Worse news for Isaac: developer Visceral Games is upping the gruesome kills. Not just for how you dismember necromorphs, but in how they dismember Isaac.

One of the new enemies, the Puker, spits up a sickly fluid, has spindly arms and little desire to sign a peace accord. Use stasis (a power Isaac can deploy to slow time) so you can then pick off the Puker's limbs one carefully placed shot at a time. Just don't let it get too close or it will try and take a bite out of your arm. When it does, you'll be prompted to mash a button to escape -- by ripping the thing's head off.

You can use the javelin gun to nail enemies to the wall or the gravity gun to feel like you're Gordon Freeman. No word yet on whether or not you can chuck a toilet into a necromorph's head. The gravity gun also factors into puzzles which are back in Dead Space 2. You'll use the grav gun to pull down pieces of a high-tech contraption, disconnecting a power source to turn of zero gravity.

Zero gravity, by the way, has evolved. In the first Dead Space, you leaped from wall to wall, but now you can free float in zero gravity, which adds some interesting combat elements. You'll truly be fighting from every angle in these moments, which should make for some harrowing battles.

Along with the Puker, we got to eyeball a new boss battle. A giant necromorph, the size of a small room, drops from the ceiling, and knocks Isaac to the ground. The fight is intense, as Isaac tries to scramble to his feet, but is pinned down. You'll need to dodge pincher strikes as the creature drags you closer. Your goal is to shoot out the luminescent parts of the pincher, but maybe it's more fun to fail. The death from this boss is beautifully brutal.

Take too long to free yourself and the giant necromorph knocks off Isaac's helmet. We rarely saw Isaac's face in the first Dead Space, but we'll see a lot more of him in the sequel. Like when he is about to have a pincher driven through his open mouth, slicing through the back of his head and killing him instantly. It's one hell of a death scene.

Dead Space 2 looks a whole lot like the original, but with more dismemberments, more blood, and cooler deaths for our hero. Why does 2011 have to be so far away?

©2010-06-14, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved