Dead Space 2 on the horizon!!!

Picked up the first issue of Game Informer Australia the other day. It featured a cover story on Dead Space 2. Its a great article (in fact its a pretty impressive magazine) and it shed some light onto the thought process of the creative folk at Visceral Games. The article served to further heighten my respect for this studio.
It was so refreshing to hear a studio speak about narrative structure and plot pacing. It mad a nice change from the typical "and we have developed this cool new weapon". It is reassuring to hear that a studio puts that much emphasis on character and plot. After all, video games are often touted as being an interactive and cinematic experience, and therefore you would think that plot and narrative pacing should be crucial elements. Kudos to Visceral for recognising this.
The first Dead Space was amazing. It gave a stiff kick up the pants to the waning survival horror genre. It introduced a game that was genuiinely scary, unrelenting, had good controls and had a story that made me want to play till the end. To hear the direction they are going with the sequel just makes me hungry for the next game even more.

Dead Space Fan art: WIP 02

sigh...I'm missing the xmas party due to circumstances beyond my control :(

Dead Space Fan Art: WIP 01

Read a post the other day about EA confirming the sequel to Dead Space. Was extremely excitied. Dead Space was on of the best games I played this year and Visceral Games (then EA Redwood) created one of the best survival horror games of all time.

It was funny: I almost didn't even buy it as i thought it would just be another Resident Evil meets Doom hybrid, but wow was I mistaken.

A strong, tense narrative, awesome setting, fantastic design, great pacing and impressive controls: this game defied all of my preconceived skepticism. What was even better is that it made me go back and play on the hardest difficuty - something very few games have ever done. While I wait with baited breath for the sequel I have just started playing through the original again. I played it in the dark the other nite and it was still scary! It inspired me to start on this little fan piece homage. Only just started and have only put in about 20 or so minutes do far.