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Science picks Dead Space 2 as 360's scariest game
You could rely on your friends, game critics or helpful GameStop sales associates to tell you which games are scary, but that's so two-thousand-and-late. We're sticking with science, thanks to this helpful feature from Gamasutra, which used player feedback and biometric data to rate not only the most frightening games, but their most horrifying moments. [Update: The study itself was conducted by Vertical Slice, so if you're looking for dream jobs in the research field, that's where we'd start.) A victor was picked, but some of the study's other conclusions were more interesting. For instance: The threat of combat was typically scarier than combat itself. Also, gore, while provocative, wasn't, particularly frightening. The game that understood those concepts the best? Well, that would be Dead Space 2, which took the brass ring over Condemned, Alan Wake and Resident Evil 5. Presumably, Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis was not in the running.
Pre-order Battlefield 3 on Origin and get a free game
We already knew that pre-ordering Battlefield 3 on Origin (the only place on PC to offer the game digitally) would net gamers access to an early beta in September, but it would seem EA is sweetening the pot with another offer: a free game. According to Ars Technica, one individual was sent the following statement via email after pre-ordering the game through Origin: As a special thank you for pre-ordering Battlefield 3 early at Origin, we're offering you a bonus PC digital download game. Please apply the code below at the shopping cart to redeem one PC Digital version of one of our recommended shooter titles: Mass Effect 2, Dead Space 2 or Medal of Honor. The price will be reduced to $0 after applying the code at your shopping cart. Hurry-this offer is only good for the month of August, and is exclusive to Origin customers only. See below for more details. Regardless of how you feel about EA's new platform, the publisher has given you another reason to consider it.
Weekend Sale Roundup: Origin and Direct2Drive
For a lot of people, Friday means pay-day, which means a weekend full of extravagant spending: a little boutique shopping, perhaps a night at da club, etc. If you're like us though, and the majority of your pay checks are followed by staying in rather than going out, fear not. Huge weekend sales mean you can still feel like a big spender without having to blow an entire check, all from the comfort of your own home. Origin's $5 PC offerings are back, along with a slew of fairly-recent console titles like Dead Space 2 and Portal 2 for 40 percent off. Both sales run until August 9, and every console game purchased comes with a complimentary PC copy of Need for Speed Shift. Direct2Drive, not to be left out of the fun, has both Bulletstorm and Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition marked down to $11.95 a piece. No sale expiration date is listed for either title, which could mean that both are ending right this very second, the thought of which instills a primal fear directly into the shopping cortex of your brain.
Crysis 2 ships 3 million
The most memorable sales numbers we've heard about an EA game recently were not good (see: Shadows of the Damned's disappointing debut). EA has some much happier numbers to report (about other games) in its latest quarterly earnings report. According to the report, Crysis 2 has "sold in" (shipped) "approximately three million units" since its March release, adding another million since last quarter. You want some more big numbers? How about 15 million FIFA 11 shipments (including various mobile and downloadable versions), and 9 million of Battlefield Bad Company 2? The document is full of large numbers in various denominations; we'll talk about some of the others soon.
Gaikai partners with Walmart.com
If you're a game streaming service like Gaikai that's looking to partner with online retailers, Walmart.com seems like a pretty good option. (In case you're reading this on a mobile platform that can't see italics, we put them on those last three words to emphasize that were were understating the point. Classic Joystiq!) The retailer has, according to VentureBeat, added Gaikai in-browser game streaming to its GameCenter page for Dead Space 2 and possibly other titles. At the moment, none of us on staff can see the option to stream the game, but we know it's automatically disabled if you don't have the requisite bandwidth. Maybe we all just need to get fatter pipes? Assuming it'll all work as designed sooner or later, this could set a pretty important preceden for online game shopping. We just selfishly hope you'll still read our reviews when Skynet lets you try everything before you buy it.
Dead Space 2 adding free multiplayer maps
EA is adding two new multiplayer maps for free to Dead Space 2 in a couple weeks. The "Outbreak Map Pack," which includes The Academy and The Concourse, will send players back to survive multiplayer evisceration in The Sprawl on May 31 and June 3 for Xbox 360 and PS3, respectively. The sci-fi horror sequel has done well for EA, shipping over 2 million units and the DS2:Severed DLC mentioned as a digital sales highlight for the publisher. EA makes no mention of the Outbreak Map Pack for the PC version of the game.
Dead Space series' price dismembered on Steam
Steam's week of Electronic Arts franchise discounts continues today with big reductions on the prices of its interstellar Necromorph surgery series. If you've never indulged in Dead Space or Dead Space 2, you can grab both on Steam for $4.99 and $23.99, respectively.
EA Store offers scary good discount on Dead Space series for PC
The EA Store has taken a plasma cutter to the price of the Dead Space series. The downloadable PC versions of Dead Space and Dead Space 2 can be had for $12 and $24, respectively. The sale runs through Sunday, at which point prices will regenerate to their more terrifying original forms.
Replica Dead Space plasma cutter filled with deadly lasers
Is your interplanetary mining platform infested with swarms of horrific, mutated Necromorphs? We've got nothing for you, sadly. However, if it's filled with swarms of helpless balloons, YouTube user Kipkay's got the tool you need: a super-powered replica Dead Space 2 plasma cutter.
EA grows digital sales in Q4, stems losses for fiscal year
EA enjoyed solid growth in the final quarter of its 2011 fiscal year (ending March 31), thanks in large part to a bump in digital revenue. Digital sales were up $67 million from the same period a year ago to $211 million. Good ol' boxed games weren't slouching though, as packaged goods revenue increased $44 million up to $838 million. In all, EA rebounded from its rough Q3 to record $151 million in profit during the fiscal fourth quarter. The engine for that growth was a surprisingly impressive quarterly lineup for the company. Seven of its titles from fiscal Q4 have surpassed 1 million units shipped, with Crysis 2, Dead Space 2 and Dragon Age 2 all over the 2-million-shipped mark. DLC for those titles (like Dead Space 2's "Severed" add-on) was the cornerstone of digital profits, as well. Over its entire 2011 fiscal year, EA shipped 12 million units of FIFA 11, 7 million copies of Bad Company 2 (released at the tail end of FY10), and five million each of Medal of Honor, Hot Pursuit and Madden 11. But it seems that, in the grand scheme, these titles weren't enough to alter EA's fortunes for the fiscal year, which ended in a $267 million loss for the company. We suppose there's still a bit of a silver lining, however -- those losses would seem to sting considerably less than the $677 million lost by EA just one year prior.
EA's various studios raise over a million dollars in charity for Japan
EA says that thanks to a variety of promotions and initiatives from quite a few of its studios, the company has raised over a million dollars for helping those affected by the recent natural disasters in Japan. There were quite a few different efforts going, from selling FIFA 11 DLC to auctioning off Dead Space 2 gear and even selling a brand new iOS app called Frog Minutes. Employees at the Canada Burnaby campus also assisted by packing 100,000 meals with Kids Against Hunger, which were then sent out to affected areas in Japan. If you'd like to donate to the Red Cross and its efforts in Japan, you can do so right here.
Direct2Drive knocking 15% off March's best sellers
In celebration of, um, March, Direct2Drive is reducing the price of this month's top fifteen games by fifteen percent. The list of titles includes the likes of Dead Space 2, Rift, Shogun 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm. Fifteen percent amounts to a reasonably hefty $9 discount on $60 titles and around $7.50 on $50 titles, and it also has the effect of lowering Magicka's already ridiculously low $10 price to just $8.50. Head over to Direct2Drive to see the full list of titles, and enter the promo code "MARCHMAYHEM" at checkout to receive the discount.
Gaikai is live with streaming demos of Mass Effect 2, Dead Space 2 and more
Following more than a year of media demos and beta testing, cloud gaming startup Gaikai is letting the public try out the fruits of its efforts: Demos of Mass Effect 2, Dead Space 2, Spore and The Sims 3 are all playable from within your web browser. That is, if you have the bandwidth -- we don't, apparently. (Granted, we're on gratis Wi-Fi here at GDC.) You might have better luck at home: You can visit Gaikai's site where you'll be prompted to launch Mass Effect 2. "Just wait and if your connection quality to our Server is fast enough," instructs CEO David Perry, "one of several pop-up designs will appear." Additionally, taking a survey about the service will grant you access to the Dead Space 2 demo. Spore and The Sims 3 trials can be found here and here, respectively.
Dead Space 2 PC patch released, adds more suits and buttons
Oh dear Dead Space 2 PC players, don't be jealous of your console colleagues clad in all that fresh attire. A patch for your particular version of the game has been released, adding the weapon and armor packs that are available as premium DLC for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. These new armaments will simply show up in the in-game store for free; a sweet little bonus, and perhaps a minor act of contrition, considering the "Severed" expansion won't be coming to your native platform. The patch also fixes an error with the limited save function of Hardcore mode and adds support for input binding for up to eight mouse buttons. Wait, eight mouse buttons? What kind of monstrosity are you guys clicking that has eight mouse buttons?
Dead Space 2: Severed DLC lopping off limbs on March 1
We know that, following a week of intense psychotherapy, the shaken nerves and disturbed dreams you developed after playing through Dead Space 2 have started to disperse -- which is why we hate to share this news with you. Visceral Games has announced that the game's two-chapter-long expansion, Severed, will be available on the North American Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Store on March 1 for 560 Microsoft Points ($6.99), and will arrive in Europe the following day. Check out a trailer after the jump to see the brand of horrors waiting for the pack's purchasers. Sure, you could heed the advice of your thereputic advisor and pass on the add-on altogether -- but aren't you curious exactly whose and which limbs are going to get titularly dismembered? We certainly hope they don't belong to our dear, dear Dead Space Girl. You hear us, Necromorphs? Not a finger.
The Demise of Dead Space 2's Franco Delille: How Visceral Killed a Man in One Minute
Joystiq interviews Visceral Games and finds out how one gruesome minute of Dead Space 2 was made. In the future, our starship captains won't be as blindly heroic as their television counterparts. Their years of virtual training -- inside holo-capsule games like Dead Space 13: Amputheater -- will impart every single reason to avoid stranded ships and suspect space colonies. Even here, in 2011, Dead Space 2 provides an uncomfortable glimpse at the scary doors, inadequate fluorescent lighting and snarling horrors that await us off-planet. And that's before you die and come back to vicious near-life as a necrotized bag of flesh, running around wildly with scissors for hands. The inhospitable world of Dead Space 2 and the creatures that make a rickety existence within it hardly seem worthy of care or devotion, yet it's all you see in every fuggy, expertly lit scene. There's no better way to see the detail-driven efforts of developer Visceral Games than by narrowing your focus to just one minute of the game, in which you're forced to watch a man shed every semblance of humanity and transform into a grotesque mess of flesh. It's probably not as painful as it looks, I found out, because the poor guy doesn't have a brain.
Black Ops outmaneuvers Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on UK charts
Call of Duty: Black Ops received some marketing reinforcements last week in the UK to regain the top spot, its eighth time as king of the hill. The move stole Marvel vs. Capcom 3's premiere Thor thunder, as the fighter debuted in second place. Don't feel too bad for MvC3, though -- Chart-Track notes that the title sold as many copies in its first week as its predecessor did in its lifetime on PS2 and Xbox (the company doesn't have access to the XBLA and PSN figures). Dead Space 2 stomped the space yard at third, with Test Drive Unlimited 2 downshifting its top gear premiere into fourth. The fifth and sixth spots are occupied by chart stalwarts FIFA 11 and Just Dance 2, respectively. Check out the full UK top ten after the break.
Visceral on the believability of Dead Space's Isaac Clarke
In its continuing series on profiling character design in games, IndustryGamers has posted a chat with Visceral creative director Wright Bagwell on Dead Space 2 protagonist, Isaac Clarke. According to Bagwell, it was very important from the beginning that Dead Space's main character was a "normal everyday kind of guy" and that he made logical sense in the game's universe. "We didn't want you to play a superhero, and we didn't want your character to be a space marine as well," said Bagwell, which led to the idea of an engineer sent to help an abandoned space ship. Not only did this help players identify with Isaac, but it also gave him "a lot of interesting things to do in this world as well." Dead Space 2 presented new challenges, thanks to Isaac's newfound ability to speak. According to Bagwell, the team at Visceral tried to prevent Isaac's dialogue from pulling players out of the game. Thus the team "focused a lot on having him say things that [the team] thought were situationally appropriate." Speaking from personal experience, we can certainly identify with Isaac hurling expletives during the more shocking moments in Dead Space 2. Head over to IndustryGamers to read the whole piece, which includes insights on the characters of Nicole and Stross, as well as Visceral's insistence on using creepy nursery rhymes.
Video: Why Dead Space Aftermath is like a Kurosawa film
Comparing the Dead Space Aftermath to the works of Akira Kurosawa might seem strange but, believe it or not, this video explains that the animated film borrows from Kurosawa's Rashomon. Specifically, it's told through flashbacks. Also, it totally rips off the space zombie scene.
Riccitiello says it would take 'Dead Space 3' for franchise to produce a 5-million seller
EA CEO John Riccitiello believes that the Dead Space franchise could reach the "five million unit cadence" with "Dead Space 3," though he didn't outright confirm the next sequel. Riccitiello was listing off the company's "strong, growing franchises" at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, reports CVG, when he footnoted Dead Space as a franchise close to becoming one of EA's biggest. After rifling off names like Madden, FIFA and Need for Speed, the exec said, "That excludes Dead Space because I think it will probably take Dead Space 3 before we get into that five million unit cadence versus say three, four." EA has already invested quite a lot in Dead Space, making it an expansive, transmedia property (spanning animated films, comics and a novel). That commitment seemingly paid off with the release of Dead Space 2 last month. The sequel trumped the first game's launch sales "2-to-1," according to EA. Now, if only there was room in EA's purse to support just one more franchise.
