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The original Dead Space introduced us to engineer Isaac Clarke, an outer-space Gordon Freeman with an even gorier monster problem. Though his journey was long and rough, Isaac was able to battle his way out of the spaceship from hell and into an uncertain future. Dead Space 2 picks up more or less where the player left off; Isaac has no idea where he is or how he got there. He only knows that he’s back in the bowels of hell, on a strange ship, and he needs to run. This is where Dead Space 2 drops us off, and for the next 8-10 hours, never lets us rest.

Get away from me!

The gameplay in Dead Space 2 is, pardon my pun, out of this world. It’s truly unbelievable how easy they’ve made the controls for the player. While there were a few times I was panicking and kept using health packs that I didn’t need to, overall the game flowed beautifully. The same weapon selection is back from the first game, and honestly I’m glad they didn’t tinker around too much. Something about the 3-laser sighted Plasma Cutter makes me feel safe; like I could remove a fair amount of monster limbs before they had a chance to get to me. There are relatively few games that I’ve beaten and wanted to restart again immediately, but despite the challenges of the final boss battle, the minute my screen hit the ‘Game +’ menu I was ready to get back into things on a harder difficulty. Overall, I’d say the actual gameplay of Dead Space 2 was pretty close to perfect. Of course there were areas that presented more of a challenge than others, but getting through them requires the player to simply think about the challenge differently.

I could go on for days about how fun Dead Space 2 is, but I’d much rather go on for days about how much it scared me. If you played the first game and weren’t scared at all, that’s fine; neither was I. Dead Space 2 plays like it was developed by a system of computers that was powered by full-grown adult nightmares. I am not exaggerating when I say that on my first time through, I spent roughly 80% of it with my gun drawn, inching slowly forward. Whether they’re manipulating shadows and light, making noises and movements just off-camera, or hinting you’re about to be attacked, the game keeps the player on the edge of their seat nearly the entire game. I’m no stranger to the survival horror genre, and this game had me making sure I didn’t play it before I went to sleep.

Gross.

The beloved Necromorphs from the first game are back, but this time they really flesh them out and give them some depth. Within the first 5 minutes of gameplay, a guy who is talking to you is attacked and transformed into a monster right in front of your eyes. Some may call showing the process depraved, but I loved that the developers didn’t shy away from confronting the player so graphically. There are even more disgusting parts later in the game that I don’t want to spoil for you (I hope you’re not squeamish about eyeballs), but some of the game’s best moments come from the subtle scares, like when you first witness the exploding babies in the nursery, or when you meet the raptors in the church – an encounter that ranks in my Top Ten Most Stressful Moments in Gaming. The game also added an interesting element of tunnel-crawling this time around, which fits with the environment while at the same time delivering a brand new level of claustrophobia.

I don’t know how many Xbox 360 games have gone this route, but Dead Space 2 is the first game I’ve owned that has spanned two discs. They give you one hell of a lengthy romp through outer space for your money, which I appreciated. Though at times the story itself seemed a bit jerky (“hurry up and meet this person! Okay, cool – now go meet this other person!”), it was a satisfying tie-in to the first installment. Again, I don’t want to give too much away, but the driving motivation for Isaac Clarke in the first game is back again. Well… kind of.

At times, the original Dead Space suffered from a clunky inability to distinguish between something that’s “challenging” and something that’s “unbearable to the point I don’t want to play anymore”.  Fortunately this was fixed with its sequel, and I never found myself faced with an insurmountable obstacle or an area that wouldn’t let me pass until I honed my cat-like reflexes and ability to memorize a level. Dead Space 2 masters the fine line between thrills and challenges, and rewards the player in key moments of desperation. It doesn’t fall for the same tired mechanic of “no ammo = survival horror”, but instead trains a player on how to manipulate what they find into something that will help them stay alive.

Like I explained earlier, Dead Space 2 had me completing the game and then jumping right back in for more like a darn fool, so I feel like it would be redundant of me to emphasize just how critical this game is for your collection. The folks who made it know what they’re doing; they know how to make a game scary but playable, disgusting but manageable, and challenging but worth it. Dead Space 2 is truly scary, truly twisted, and amazingly fun.

This free PC game, winner of ‘Top 10 Games of the Year in China (2007)’, takes place in a fantasy world where you can create and customize your own character, and then race them against other players from around the world. The game’s locale, Weimar Island, is a theme park hub for skaters to style themselves and test their characters on diverse skating tracks. In addition to clothing and tracks, Weimar Island also offers adorable pets that can help you during races.

Rhythm racing is a new style of gameplay exclusive to R2Beat. Simplifying the controls down to the 4 arrow keys, the player simply has to jump, dodge, and power through obstacles in their racing path to generate tones. The tones complement the background beat, and as soon as you’ve begun, you’re effortlessly making beautiful music. Don’t believe it’s as simple as it sounds? Check it out in action:

Developed by Seed 9, R2Beat has several thrilling gameplay modes to keep the player interested.

• Team Battle: Join up with friends and select either the blue or red team and go head-to-head
• Solo Battle: Be your own hero as you battle up to 5 other players individually
• Relay Battle: Just like a real race, play a part and pass the baton off to teammates
• Item Mode: Items populate the track, making the race that much more interesting!
• Speed Mode: Speed is the name of this game – try to beat the race on your own, hurry!

While this may sound like fun on its own, R2Beat also offers a leveling system designed to keep the player challenging themselves on different modes and missions. For example, different gameplay types offer more or less XP. As you gain experience, you can then use your new levels to unlock things unavailable to other players, like licenses for other channels with a wider variety of music. The music becomes harder to play to at higher levels so the player is always kept on their toes. By adding an allure of challenge and reward, R2Beat entices the player to keep pushing themselves to be the first with the best. Some clothing items and pets are only available by completing these in-game challenges, so the payoff is tangible!

With a combination of ease of control, an adorable MMO aspect, customizable characters, collectable trinkets, and loveable pets, there is no real reason to not play R2Beat. As a music lover, I enjoy the ability to control the action with my character on screen, rather than having my actions and the game’s subsequent reaction disembodied or mechanical. There is nothing more fun than strapping on a pair of roller blades and skating down the street to your favorite songs, and R2Beat gives you this at the comfort of your computer.

After an obscenely long time stuck in development hell, Alan Wake made its debut earlier this year. Though it chose a lousy release date (the same day as Red Dead Redemption), critics and gamers seemed satisfied with the long-awaited project. For most, it was a “yeah, it was good” reaction. I feel like anyone coming away from the game with such a non-committal attitude towards it should give the romp through Bright Falls another chance. Alan Wake could be the greatest survival horror game ever made, and if you keep reading, I’ll tell you why.

Atmosphere

Silent Hill is probably the world-class leader in literal and figurative atmosphere. The thick fog that blankets each Silent Hill installment obscures the ever-present horde of enemies, while the static blaring from the radio reminded the player of the menace that waited just out of sight. With Alan Wake, the player spends 90% of the game battling the dark and foreboding endlessness of the forest. Maybe it’s the native Washingtonian in me, but the woods at night have always been a terrifying presence. There were several times during Alan Wake where he’d stumble upon an empty campsite mere feet from waiting enemies. If you’ve ever been camping in the deep woods, where nighttime is at its darkest and most pure, you certainly won’t be hopping in the family camper for another outdoor adventure too quickly after playing. Fog can roll in and roll back out, but the forest is always there, waiting silently. Just hope you’re out before the sun goes down…

Superior because: While Silent Hill and Resident Evil can each build amazing tension, I feel like the instances of terror are moderately obvious when compared to Alan Wake. In Wake you are safe in the light, sure, but that’s dependent on battery life and light bulb integrity. Too many times I ran towards a lamppost expecting safety, only to have it go out and instead receive more panic and a need to rethink my escape plan. To me, these scares far outweighed the shambling horror of early Resident Evils, or the dramatic Light Silent Hill/Dark Silent Hill shifts that made it obvious when you were in a position to be heavily screwed over.

Enemies

Alan Wake is as much psychological terror as it is “these people are actively trying to kill me” terror. As human beings, we are more likely to find off-kilter or damaged human beings scarier than monsters or aliens, hence the surge of zombie-centric movies and media of the past ten years. What makes the enemies of Alan Wake so great is the mystery they bring with the threat. When you begin the game, you are faced with someone that appears to be possessed, but you don’t know why this person is chasing you or whether it’s a manifestation of something else or not. Halfway through my first play I was worried that the end of the game it would turn out that I was the monster the whole time; having lost my mind, I was running around this place that was unfamiliar to me and mowing down innocent civilians. I don’t want to give away too much for those who have yet to play the game (and shame on you if you haven’t!), but when the very nature of the entities you’re fighting gives you pause and a second thought, well, that’s a game I want to invest my time in. On top of all this, the enemies literally materialize all around you, and until you learn the subtle visual and audio clues, it’s a genuine shock. The way the developers blended the monsters in with the movement of the trees and the shadows of the forest and unpredictable winds, you can see why such a game took so long to make.

Superior because: Even though I’m taking Resident Evil off the table on this one entirely (sorry, Resident Evil 4), I don’t want to discredit the amount of thought that goes into Silent Hill monsters. Pyramid Head isn’t just a weird looking nightmare ghoul, he is the personification of lead protagonist James’s inner guilt and self-judgment, Siam is sexuality combined with domestic abuse, etc. However, sometimes the simple answer of “these people were taken over by darkness” can be quite scary, and something we are all capable of succumbing to. Normal NPCs that have interacted with Alan are overtaken and changed into grotesque and threatening versions of what they were, and it leaves the player feeling very vulnerable and alone.

Combat

Part of what distinguished Alan Wake from his survival horror counterparts, was the ability to use light in combat. In a world where the dark is closing in from every side, the character makes use of flare guns and generators to stay alive. There is even a level in the Signal DLC where Alan uses a lighthouse on his enemies to work his way up a mountain. Let me say that again: he uses a lighthouse as a weapon. There is usually a cool moment in any game where the player thinks to themselves, “hey, that was pretty neat”. The lighthouse area of Alan Wake left me grinning ear to ear as soon as I realized what my objective was and how I was going to pull it off. Well done, Remedy.

Superior because: Too often games find themselves unintentionally overburdening the player with items. I get very tired of having to decide between weapon A, weapon B, or weapon Z, weighing it against efficacy and ammo availability, and then which enemies are vulnerable to which kind of bullets, if I should use melee instead, and so on. While these challenges are fun in certain types of games, like first person shooters, they don’t add to the joy of my staying alive in Horror Town, USA. I want to be able to focus on being scared and frantically reloading, not whether I should use my SMG on the boss or my grenade launcher. Alan Wake gives you several types of flares, varied environmental things to utilize, a heavy weapon, and a pistol. For once, a game heeds its title of “survival” and knows that it’s not a “shooter”.

Content

Alan Wake blows every other survival horror boat out of the water in this category. The originally released game was so full of exposition and character development that it was almost impossible to absorb it all in the first play through; not only was the story thick and rich by itself, but there was a narrator leaving pages of a novel out for our hero to read. If you took the time to read these (and I highly recommend that you read them the minute you pick them up), it would add layers onto an already engrossing story. With the release of the two DLC chapters available at this point, the team has taken the story in an entirely new direction that heavily complements the out-of-box experience. What may strike you as a normal “this little town is crazy!” storyline, by the end of the game you are so heavily invested in the town’s inhabitants and back-story that your brain is running a mile a minute trying to piece together the open-ended conclusion. With an ending like Wake’s, I was puzzled as to where the DLC could possibly go from a finale like that. The Writer and The Signal embrace Alan’s fragile mental state and inner turmoil, and give the player a surreal field trip through his waking nightmare.

Superior because: Alan Wake, the man, is a writer, and a best-selling one at that. Alan Wake, the game, needed us to believe every minute of what was unfolding. It’s as if I claimed to be a world-class heart surgeon and was then asked to fully perform heart surgery. With the many characters in both Silent Hill and Resident Evil, they never claim to be anything and then need to back it up. While I never expected any less, the writing in Alan Wake lives up to what standards I’d expect from a professional writer. It’s a bold and ambitious gamble to take, and if it had fallen short the game would have disappointed nearly everyone invested. Just as the game opens with a Stephen King quote, the entire experience felt like I was participating in something he would’ve written.

Potential

This is a hard topic to talk about, since I’m comparing it to franchises with dozens of installments under their belts, and Alan Wake has only had one full game with two additional chapters. It’s also tricky because I’ve watched my beloved survival horror gems fall into disrepair and neglect (the quality of Resident Evil 4 vs. Resident Evil 5, Silent Hill 2 vs. Silent Hill 4, etc.) at the hands of unprepared and careless developers. While I couldn’t possibly guess where Alan Wake is going, and frankly I don’t know where he is currently (literally – where are you, Alan?), I have hope. Remedy has the system in place now, the setting, the genre, the direction, to where the next installment of Alan’s journey won’t take 5 years to develop. Alan’s story is unique in that it can go nearly anywhere and make sense. As a player, the prospect of that thrills me. If the team plays their cards right and makes well thought-out decisions (please don’t send Alan to Africa, guys), I have hope that Alan Wake can become a commanding force in the survival horror genre. It has a lot to live up to, and I know that if it can weather comparisons to its elders and still come out looking good, that the Alan Wake series will be something special for years to come.

It's a Winter Wonderfuland!

Grubbins On Ice takes place in real-time after the events of the original story; Everett and Lucy are wandering around the neighborhood looking for any evidence of the invasion the adults seem to have conveniently missed, when Lucy is sucked into a vortex to the Grubbins world. Everett freaks out (because he likes Lucy… cute) and enlists Wren and Reynold to help him find his best gal. This time there’s a whole new species of bad guys, and you must go door-to-door collecting candy to fuel the resistance effort with the bad guys you fought from the first game. They’re cool now, don’t worry about it.

As far as gameplay goes, Grubbins On Ice is mostly the same as Costume Quest, though it’s smaller so there is only one world (with many levels), and much less exploring. Fortunately, it’s a “game+” situation, where you’re still equipped with everything you had on you at the end of the first episode. For those of us who beat Costume Quest the day it came out and then put it down until Grubbins On Ice was released, it’s a tad frustrating forgetting simple things like “the French fry costume smells like French fries”, though I do appreciate their effort to incorporate previously acquired skills in the new chapter. I don’t want to give anything away, but the three new costumes (okay, they’re a pirate, vampire, and Yeti) are a lot of fun and great to fight with. The combat is essentially the same, but they finally added commands for the B button, which is nice. The attack attached to the B button is related to certain Battle Stamps, so I don’t know if I just didn’t use proper Battle Stamps in the first game or if it’s a new feature, but it’s quite useful now that I’m aware of it. And bobbing for apples is back, only this time it’s much easier, and they changed it to bobbing for candied eyeballs. Yes, you read that right.

Arrrr... Here be pleasure!

The entire game lasts about 1-3 hours, depending on how you play. Personally, I beat it in around 2 because I got stuck, briefly (remember: the French fry costume smells like French fries). While that may not seem like a substantial amount of play time, it’s available on XBL for a whopping $5. I highly recommend this genius add-on for anyone who enjoyed the first go-round with Wren and Reynold. For Double Fine fans, there’s also a secret Easter egg for their new game, Stacking, which looks fun and amazing. Enjoy!

Review copy provided by the publisher and does not affect the outcome of this review

Look at how amazing this is.

Back To the Future: The Game started out the same way most good ideas do; a brainstorming session of “oh man, wouldn’t it be sweet if we did this?” Fortunately for the gaming populous, making a BTTF game 25 years after the movies was entirely possible, so Telltale went for it. They managed to wrangle Bob Gale, co-creator and co-writer of the original movies, to work with the team to help keep the Back to the Future experience seem authentic. While they do a fair amount of their own editing, Bob is always there to explain character motivations, potential professions, desires, etc. Though getting an original piece of the BTTF pie back in the fold isn’t an instant guarantee this game will be incredible, Telltale assures us, “if you’ve seen the films, you’ll really appreciate it”. As for why would you make a Back to the Future game? “They had a really good idea, and that’s all we need”.

While the game isn’t set for release until this winter, we’ve already been given a lot to look forward to. Doc and Marty will be the game’s main protagonists again, and rumors have been floated as to Christopher Lloyd reprising his role as the eccentric old inventor who spends his time hanging out with teenage time travelers. Even though it’s not a “direct” sequel, the game will still take place in Hill Valley, 1985, and be in the same universe as the original movies. When asked when our heroes might travel to, they simply replied, “they will be going through time”. Gosh, thanks!

Those guys at Hothead Games sure are a fantastic group of people. They made an amazing game, are releasing a second game within mere months of the first installment (9/21 for PSN and 9/22 for XBL!), and top it all off with being super nice and friendly. GamingAngel Manda and I got to steal some of their time at PAX to ask them about this non-DLC.

The Good News:

• Playtime will clock in at “about 50% longer than the first game”. For all you math-phobes, that’s around 15 hours worth of gameplay.
• That teaser of an ending to DeathSpank was kind of weird, wasn’t it? For Thongs of Virtue: “You’ve been captured as a prisoner of war; you need to fight your way out of there. As soon as you break out of the POW camp you’re exactly back where the first game ends”.
• More of that ambiguous redhead.
• Sparkles has been replace by a ninja named Steve! While the new sidekick isn’t more robust (I asked), Steve rides a unicorn, has a Scorpion-style attack, summons rainbows, and even has a button for singing his own name.
• Wow.
• Levels start back at one. The reasoning? DeathSpank was already a full hero in the first game where you started at one, so bringing people back to the same level playing field for the second game seemed to work.

Wonderful things like this.

Stephanie was lucky enough and brave enough to take our hosts up on the offer to play co-op during the demo. Here are her thoughts:

I was pretty excited when offered the chance to demo Portal 2 with one of the guys from Valve. It was a walkthrough of the tutorial stage in the game, but it was still pretty fun! If you’ve already played Portal the controls will be easy to pick up. And having the ability to play with a partner adds a lot to the game. There are some fun puzzle solving parts of the game, and I really enjoyed the added bonus of having emotes that you can perform with each other (like hugging it out!). I think that making the playthrough co-operative will make for some interesting levels to get through further on in the game and I wished that we could have advanced outside of just the tutorial. But I can safely say that I think Portal fans will be very happy with Portal 2.

Dinosaur unrelated.

Even in just observing the game, I’m super pumped to get to play this through Live with one of my friends. The characters are oddly lovable, and GLaDOS is back for a bit of friendly ribbing and threats. Valve has promised more complicated puzzles (all require 4 portals this time), new gun effects, and I’m interested in seeing how “nature reclaims the facility”.  They’ve also said the game will be twice as long and it was great to see that they’ve kept some of the interesting puzzle elements (like the infinite jump) and added a few new ones in as well (including some of the ones in co-op).

Though we won’t be getting it by the end of 2010 (Valve will keep us busy with some DLC for one of their other games I’m sure…), have your smartest friend penciled in for February 9th 2011.  Keep an eye on us here at GamingAngels.com or at the Portal 2 website: http://www.thinkwithportals.com for more!

Full Games

Halo: Reach – For those who are unfamiliar with the monster that is Halo: hello, welcome, please take a seat, 2001 will be with you in a moment. For the rest of you, Halo: Reach is making waves as the darkest Halo yet. Though I’m sad that no one from Firefly is starring in this installment, I’m still holding out hope they’ll be supplementing my nerd desires with other cult TV heroes.

Fallout: New Vegas – While 2008 was seriously a phenomenal year for gaming (both Bioshock and Left 4 Dead debuted that year, wow), Fallout 3 led the pack by bringing back the franchise with a vengeance. Two autumns later and we have another pleasant stroll through a post-nuclear wasteland, which looks to rival the sheer awesomeness that is Fallout 3. If it’s possible to love something so much, but still want subsequent releases to be even better, then I’m afraid that’s just how I feel, Fallout. Don’t let me down.

Victory!

Costume Quest – Though it doesn’t have a colon anywhere in its name, Double Fine’s Costume Quest is going to be super amazing. I wish I could just fill this blurb with adjectives on how fantastical and wonderful it’s going to be, but I’ll restrain myself for your sake. From the mind of Double Fine’s lead animator comes this potential classic, which I’m hoping will successfully fill the obvious Halloween-themed-games hole. I’ve been overwhelmed with excitement at the thought of becoming your Halloween costume, in addition to the magical unicorn (sweet, dude). Support creativity! Get this when it comes out!

Add-ons

Bioshock: Minerva’s Den– Don’t let the trailer for Bioshock: Infinite lead you to believe that 2K is done with Rapture just let. Minerva’s Den finds Rapture crawling with an all-new type of Big Daddy, and once again the crime fighting team of Player 1 and Brigid Tenenbaum is called back on the case. I’m thinking it’s going to be brilliant, and I’m sure I’m right.

Borderlands: Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution – Borderlands is, ironically, like a cockroach, in that it will keep releasing DLC until we’ve all joined them in their post-apocalyptic Mad Max world of the future. Not that I’m complaining about being on the receiving end of more stuff that I love, goodness no. I just hope that an add-on based entirely around the most annoying character in the game (or any game, really) is much more fun than it could be.

Ten bucks says this one takes place in the woods as well.

Alan Wake: The Writer – The Signal was the first Alan Wake DLC released this year, and it was quite enjoyable because they continued the story beyond its ambiguous ending. While there’s no closure yet, Alan is still locked in a fierce mental battle with his inner crazy and the Darkness, so hopefully we’ll see some resolution to that and much more Barry.

Rating: T for Teen
Genre: Fantasy RPG
Number of Players: 1-2
Publisher: Hothead Games
Release Date: July 14, 2010

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DeathSpank Dispenser of Justice, Vanquisher of Evil, is an action RPG set in medieval fantasy times where everything is bright colors and adorable violence is the norm. The character of DeathSpank must battle his way through armies of your stereotypical fantasy villains (orcs, demons, witches, etc.) in hopes of eventually defeating the evil and annoying Lord Von Prong. For those familiar with Ron Gilbert’s work, he’s not necessarily breaking new ground with the story or comedy, but it certainly makes for a fun and engaging experience; the first time I sat down to play it I burned through 10 straight hours without even realizing it. Set aside the time!

Poop, darn you! Poooooooop!

The gameplay itself is super easy to pick up and go with, since Hot Head Games has made the normally frustratingly ridiculous RPG inventory system manageable for the RPG-lite among us. The quests range from the weirdly simple (walk over there and pick up that thing) to the quite challenging (try to collect some poop from that swarm of unicorns that are 10 levels higher than you), and as long as you use your cache of potions and health foods correctly (is pizza a health food?), anyone of any gameplay experience should be able to work their way through DeathSpank with limited cursing/controller throwing. For the completionists out there, DeathSpank makes the 100% Achievement goal actually achievable, so it’s worth buying for the 200GP alone. The summer is usually a drought for games with any substance, so at only $15, there is really no good reason for not buying one this fun.

Though I’m not still holding a grudge against DeathSpank for last year’s Unicorn Poop Shirt Debacle at PAX 09 (yes I am), I do have a couple valid and unrelated gripes with the game. While it offers the option of playing along with a friend, make sure you grab the P1 controller and not P2, so you don’t have to spend the entire game as that damned Wizard. If you are slower than your friend and are stuck with Sparkles the Wizard, congratulations! Welcome to the next several hours of a couple lackluster attacks and a minor healing spell. I feel like they really missed out on the opportunity to take multiplayability to a new level; I would’ve loved to have played as mysterious redhead Sandy Bravitor, or even as that crotchety-but-interesting old miser Eubrick. I also found the difficulty settings to be a bit weird, but I don’t want to commit too much to this criticism because, as I mentioned early, I’m not really very good at RPGs.

You bore me, Sparkles.

DeathSpank is fun, clever, and annoyingly endearing. It’s seriously quite addicting and very hard to put down once you’ve started, regardless of any minor problems it may have. If you’re looking for a game to distract you from the autumn chill that’s engulfing our waning summer, seriously, please try DeathSpank. You’ll thank me by the time you’ve slain your 100^th Vicious Chicken.