Whenever a WoW expansion pack is imminent, the forum chat among players veers from hysterical expectation to, well, "Meh!" Blizzard's claim to have 12 million players is tempered by the belief among some of the massively multiplayer online community that the game is in decline in the west, while gaining popularity in the far east. Whether true or not, Cataclysm is a clear attempt to reinvigorate the brand, to attract and retain new gamers, to re-engage with lapsing or lapsed players and to keep the hardcore raiders happy. It's a tall order.
However, the biggest change introduced is to the Old World. The realms that were there from WoW's birth six years ago have been completely overhauled. They needed to be. The life of a new player prior to Cataclysm would be dull indeed as the areas for those on levels 1 to 60 showed their age. Now the quests have been rebooted and the environment completely changed. A greater use of phasing makes the journey through Azeroth that much more personal. The world has been rendered beautifully and the effects are top-notch.
There are two new races to try out. Become a Goblin and your starting zone is like Goodfellas meets The Simpsons: Hit & Run. Become a Worgen and start questing in a kind of Olde London (basically a werewolf zone already populated by Twilight fans) where the women sport stovepipe hats. Both are great fun, and just what Blizzard wanted – engaging gameplay that keeps people entertained enough to stay.
And that's something it's also achieved on the social side – revamping the guild system, introducing guild reputation levelling and rewards for co-operation. The difficulty of the dungeons means completing them with fellow guildies is more rewarding than with a group of randoms.
Flaws in this iteration will, no doubt, become clearer over time, but for the moment, Cataclysm is new, and it is improved – a very successful stab at the tough task Blizzard had set itself. Get ready to roll.
We've recently written about the Dead Space 2 demo, now available, and we've posted the latest trailer to the game, too. And our first impressions hands-on preview is here.
But we know you want more, so we tapped art director Ian Milham to give us a few other goodies about the game to look forward to.
Falling to pieces. Enemy parts sometimes make the best weapons. One of the best strategies in Dead Space 2 is to use the Necromorph's dismembered talons against them. A very good player could use one shot from his plasma cutter to cut off the spear from a Necromorph slasher, and then use his TK (telekinesis) ability to pick up and fire that spear at the Necro to finish him off. This greatly conserves ammo, which is a huge advantage in a game like this.
No product placement. More than 20 fake brands and products were created, along with their logos and advertising campaigns, to populate world of "The Sprawl," the city in space in which Dead Space 2 takes place. From "Lightspeed Hard Bar" the futuristic snack cake, to "Lemon Gun" the refreshing drink bar to "Levitations," the telekinetic bed company, all the brands the player sees on the billboards had to be created from scratch. Most of them are based on inside jokes for the team. The woman pictured in the poster for "Kitty Kitty Bang Bang" is actually one of the voice actors for the game. Posters for the movie "The Clogger" came from team drama about someone …er…. breaking the social rules of the men's room.
Head case. Isaac's helmet was a single solid piece in the first Dead Space, but in Dead Space 2 he needs to talk and emote, so a fully-folding helmet for each suit was engineered. His Advanced Suit helmet features over 40 pieces. If you look closely, you can see little arms extend from his suit and pull the helmet parts down for storage.
You're so random. If you think you'll get the jump on the Necromorphs by playing through an area again after you die, think again. They don't always come from the same "boo!" points this time around. Necros choose new areas to come bursting out of different times.
Get yer goat. Among the expenses incurred in the making of the game: a goat. The artists bought a butchered goat, which was used for reference and filming to provide flashes of imagery for Isaac's nightmare sequences.
By Marc Saltzman
