PAX 09: EA Omnibus 1: Dead Space: Extraction / Army of Two: The 40th Day

Just like Sony, EA had plenty of upcoming titles to take a look at during PAX this year. We saw everything from stealth spies to legends of rock and everything in between. In this first omnibus, I'll be giving you my impressions of EA's chilling Dead Space: Extraction and the brotastic Army of Two: The 40th Day.

I think it's fair to say that I'm just a little biased towards all things Dead Space. While the game didn't initially click with me, I've recently got back into it to give it a second chance and haven't put it down since. The creepy atmosphere, brilliant weapon system, and genuine scares have made me a big fan, but can Extraction create the same mood and tension as on on-rails shooter for Wii? For the most part, the answer is yes.

The term "on-rails" might lead one to think that this will be nothing but a trigger mashing shooting gallery, but Extraction does a commendable job of keeping ammo/weapon use on the forefront of the player's mind at all times. Because I'm such an easy mark for being startled by monster's jumping out of nowhere, the forced pace of the game makes it a much tighter experience than my wall crawling on the console version. Similar to the original title, the monsters aren't the only thing working against you as navigating the ship can provide more than enough health risks as well. During our playtime we also got to try out the two player mode. The addition of a second cursor made things a little bit more chaotic, but it was still fun and had more than enough enemies and objects for both players to interact with.

While this may not be the Dead Space title that many were hoping for, everything about this game was polished. Slick presentation, check. Gross and gory monsters, check. Dark and threatening atmosphere, check. If the title can keep up the energy displayed in this demo, then Wii owners are in for a treat on September 29th when the game ships.

Next up for me was Army of Two: The 40th Day. As the sequel to last year's moderately received action title, I can't exactly say that I was expecting a whole lot from this title. It's not exactly my favorite type of game and the playable characters well... let's just that the only thing that got me through the first half of the game was me pretending that they were the Ambiguously Gay Duo in "tough guy" getups. But even given my less than enthusiastic feelings going into the demo, I was actually impressed with the direction that EA has taken this title.

The overall theme that I felt with this game was that "fans and non-fans whined and EA listened." The first game's single player AI was more a hindrance than helpful battle buddy, but here it felt smarter this time around and actually did things that I wanted it to do. The visuals took me out of some unimaginative locales seen in the first game and promised more colorful settings like the rather strange zoo in Shanghai seen in the demo. My favorite new feature was how the team reexamined their cover system to make it something that the player automatically slips into, but can move out of without snapping. As someone that doesn't play a lot of Gears of War, it felt much more natural and easier for me.

Given the response that Tyson and Elliot generated in the first game, I had to ask about the main character's semi-homoerotic rapport. I was initially given a standard line that these guys had been through tough battles with each other and are close with each other however "not like that." But asking about how they felt about how the characters were received by players netted one of the best/silliest responses I've ever heard from a developer: "It's all about Bromance." The development team was aware of how many saw their characters in this light and is unafraid of playing with these themes to illicit the occasional (but not frequent) chuckle from the audience. Is it gay baiting? Maybe a little bit, but I have to admit that I thought it was funny.

The demo on the PAX floor didn't wow me into preordering the game, but it did put the game on my radar. Hopefully a solid pre-launch demo will convince me to pick up The 40th Day when it ships early next year in a January.