Dead Space 2 Demo

So I finally got a chance to play the Dead Space 2 Demo.

First, let me gripe.

I didn't finally get a chance to play the demo because I was busy and couldn't find the time to play the thing. I couldn't play the demo because I wasn't a Gold Member on Xbox Live. That annoyed me. That annoyed me a lot. I was really looking forward to the demo, and on release day I ran to my XBox like a small child runs to the tree on Christmas (Merry Christmas, BTW) to play the game as soon as I possibly could. Then I had to read all the Facebook posts asking me how much I enjoyed the game. I was truly a tortured soul.

That last part was embellishment. I was a smidgen annoyed in truth.

The demo itself is very fun. It exists to give you a very small taste of what the game is going to be. A very small taste. You can probably run through the level in 15 minutes or so.

You get to check out a new weapon, the harpoon gun, and figure out how to use the thing. It's pretty nifty. When it would normally kill an enemy, it sends them flying back into the nearest wall (or floor, depending on the angle of the shot) and pins them to it. Then, you can press the alt fire button and enemies near the harpoon will get zapped with a fairly powerful electric burst. This comes in handy, especially against the new enemy type.

The new enemy type is called, I believe, The Pack. Basically a bunch of zombie children who run at you screaming and hungry. They're terrifying. Not hard to kill, but they just keep coming, and coming, and they're children, and the animation for their kill on Isaac is straight out of the most terrible imagining of Lord of the Flies. It's awesome.

Theirs also the new suit that Isaac wears. I'm not in love with it. The old suit was perfect for the game. Kind of rugged looking. Mid-evil in a futuristic kind of way. The new suit is very streamlined, like a modern Gundam. It's not bad, but it doesn't say horror to me, it says action. I liked the Engineering suit because, even without the other bits of atmosphere in Dead Space, I really felt like I was in trouble in the game.

The story bits are nice as well. Isaac is still insane, probably moreso than he was last game, and you get one awesome hallucination scene that really drives that home. Apparently the government is after Isaac as well, which makes perfect sense if you've read the Dead Space book, and Isaac is working with someone new, whose motive I was left unaware of. Good stuff.

While it was a rather short experience, I was extremely happy with it. It felt very true to the first game, and that's really all I want out the new experience. There's no need to reinvent this wheel.

Dead Irons and the Zombie Cowboy Epic

I was walking through Newbury Comics the other day and it came to me: conceptually the idea of a zombie cowboy is awesome. I'm willing to bet the idea popped in my head because I glanced the trade paperback for Dead Irons (Dynamite Entertainment, written by James Kuhoric, art by Jason Shawn Alexander) as I was walking out. Being a responsible consumer of ideas and entertainment, I decided it was high time I read Dead Irons, since the gorgeous Jae Lee covers had been calling to me for some time.


So I read the book later in the day.

In hindsight, it's a good read with an interesting an engaging storyline. The characters could have used some fleshing out, but that wasn't entirely needed when one considers that Dead Irons is primarily a revenge/redemption story. However, my problem with Dead Irons, the problem I had while I was reading it anyway, was that it wasn't the kind of Zombie Cowboy story I wanted to read at the time. No, that's not fair to the book. I don't care about being fair in my judging of entertainment. The book was good enough that I was happy with it even though it didn't give me what I wanted, take that as pretty solid praise. (This paragraph is a mess, but I'm comfortable with that too, it sums up my thoughts on the matter pretty well, I think, being a mess.)

I wanted to find an Old West Clint Eastwood style protagonist who just happened to be a zombie. Think about it. The quick draw wouldn't be quick. He couldn't be quick, he's a zombie. He would lose the quick draw every time, but unless you shoot him in the head (and let's be fair, quick draws usually ended with a chest shot [bigger mass]) he's probably going to kill his opponent. There wouldn't be much in the way of sweaty men squinting in the sunlight, zombies don't like the sun. I think the lone supernatural element would work wonders. I guess you could think of it as a slower version of the backup story in American Vampire (Scott Snyder, Stephen King, Rafael Albuquerque), less attitude, since we're following a hero, and slower paced action, since we're following a corpsier corpse.

Dead Irons focused a bit too much on the supernatural for what I was looking for. Both the protagonist and the antagonists as well as the thrust of the plot were steeped in the paranormal. Nothing wrong with that, nothing at all, just not what I wanted at that time.

Speaking of all this, I really need to play Undead Redemption. But that's going to have to wait until I've played Red Dead Redemption. I think that would really add to my education on the concept. The perfect concept.

Bits and Pieces, November was Pretty Awesome

There was a lot of stuff that I missed writing about in November. Bummer. It was on my mind the whole time, but, hey, I was busy... weak excuse. Anywho, in sexy list format, here's the awesome that dropped in November:

Kanye West's Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Fantastic album. I am a Kanye West fan. Absolutely. I like the way the man carries himself and I love the way he stays motivated and interested in his craft. This album is well worth a few listens. It's epic, and not in the way that the word is overused nowadays, it's epic in the actual sense of the word.

Cee Lo Green's The Lady Killer - I don't have any real basis for this comparison, but this album feels like the bombastic sexy 70's to me. It's romantic and soulful, loud and playful, and goddamn can Cee Lo sing.

Super Meat Boy on XBox Live Arcade - The most difficult and fun platforming game that I have ever had the privilege of playing. The levels take no more than 30 seconds to beat... if you don't factor in the insane amount of death that you will experience. If you have any kind of competitive edge, you'll want to play this game until you hurt. It's happened to me plenty of times.

There's probably more, but, I'm kind of lazy, and they aren't rolling off the of my head like they should.

Potential new direction

I've given this much thought, I really have.

I'm thinking of a bold new direction for my fun little blog here. And by bold new direction I simply mean an expansion of the content which I choose to write about. Make this bad boy into a real E and N blog, because god knows the world needs one more of those, am I right?

This is by no means a referendum on the initial goal of this blog. It got me to a place that I needed to be in, so I'm very grateful for that. I'm not going to stop writing super-happy-fun-shine articles about entertainment. Oh no. I really do enjoy the hell out of that. I just want to not feel limited. Which I do. I've limited myself in a way.

I just want to write stuff and pretend that other people read the stuff that I write.

Thanks!