Dead Space was the first game that ever truly scared me. The combination of creepy atmosphere, thematic background score, and isolation almost immediately had me on edge, and when the first Necromorph jumped out I nearly dropped my controller. Now, surrounded by a throng of fellow gamers in a well-lit Expo hall in Earl’s Court, I was feeling brave, confident and impatient to have a go at the PlayStation 3 demo of Dead Space 2.

 

The hovering 2D hologram video calls and door switches are unchanged, as is Issac’s trademark engineer suit. The stunning visuals were a marked improvement, however. The demo began in a corridor of a space station known as “The Sprawl,” and as I took my first, tentative steps, a pipe ruptured with a blast of steam that gave me a start.  

 

Familiar interfaces and recordings ushered the demo along through The Sprawl, which could easily be mistaken for the starship Ishimura from the first Dead Space. A new form of enemy, a horde of small child-sized creatures, attacked me in what looked like what might have been a Church of Unitology, hinting at the fantatics’ potential return in the sequel. The demo also included new mechanical puzzles. In a zero-gravity section, I was required to use stasis on a pair counter-rotating, interlocked rings in order to expose a power source in the centre and destroy it. Isaac’s suit now includes a set of air jets that enable him to move around in zero G without pushing off objects.

 

Isaac still suffers from slightly restricted combat manoeuvrability, sometimes choosing to melee walls instead of Necromorphs, and was unable to block attacks that he really should have. Left unaddressed, this could easily lead to player frustration and unnecessary deaths when the player had adequately prepared to take down his targets properly. That said, the game is not yet into its final build, and the Dead Space 2 demo had all the suspense, frights, and ingenious puzzles you’d expect from the next game in the franchise. I walked away from the demo shaken, but in the best way.

Dead Space 2 is due for release in Q1 2011.