Expect More Horrific Head-Ripping In Dead Space 2.

One of the best things about the original Dead Space were the moments when you died. Usually, it’s extremely frustrating when you die in a video game because it’s a condition of failure. But in Dead Space, you actually got a grotesque reward for your failure – a clever little cut-scene that varied depending on the enemy showing Isaac get dismembered and pulled to pieces. One for the sadists.

With Dead Space 2, Visceral Games are looking towards you, the dear public, to come up with some particularly gross dismemberments as part of a contest.

You can submit your entry in three ways: a written description, a photograph, or a video (note: we suggest you don’t actually dismember anyone as part of your entry as the police might come knocking at your door). You’ve got until March 26th to submit your entry. Winners will get their face mapped into the game, and will subsequently enjoy watching their digital-self be ripped to pieces by a Necromorph. Cool prize, bro.

Head over to the Dead Space 2 Facebook page for more.

Visceral Are To Focus On One "Big" Game Per Year. Are Looking Into PSN.

Perhaps corroborating rumours we heard earlier this month, Visceral Games has announced they are working on PSN titles alongside their big-box release Dead Space 2.

“Just like the packaged goods space and the big AAA space, [the download PSN market] comes down to quality and innovation and being able to bring something that’s interesting to the gamer,” Visceral Games’ Nick Earl told GamaSutra.

“But yes, absolutely. I think we’ll have some interesting offerings over this year and next that show our confidence in the space.”

Nick went onto confirm that Visceral will focus on one big game per-year, rather than multiple projects.

“What I’ve learned being general manager of the studio for the past nine years is you can overload a studio, and conversely, you can do extremely well financially, and at the end of the day, we need to be able to do that to continue to attract investment and be able to do the sort of creative endeavors we want.

“I know it sounds kind of trite, but we really believe that. We’ve really taken that on board here. What we put out, we want to put out at the absolute highest quality mark. We don’t need to do three of those a year. One is plenty, if we continue to drive that kind of quality here.”

That Dead Space Extraction port is seeming more and more likely at this point though. Let’s hope it gets announced with Playstation Motion Controller support to boot.

EA's Announced It's Release Schedule For The Next 12 Months.

EA dropped some big names at their financial call last night, detailing the planned release windows for a host of killer franchises over the next 12 months or so.

Amongst the big Summer titles, EA’s announced that their big, futuristic reboot Medal Of Honor is due between July and September 2010. That means you can expect a huge push at this year’s E3.

Medal Of Honor will be followed by another huge EA shooter, as Crysis 2 is due to release in the October-December window, alongside a new entry in the Need For Speed franchise, presumably the one being handled by Burnout developers Criterion.

And if that wasn’t exciting enough, EA’s detailed that Dead Space 2 will launch in Q1 of 2011 alongside a slew of unconfirmed titles, including a new Dragon Age title, a Shooter from Epic, and an unconfirmed Need For Speed title. We’re thinking Need For Speed Shift 2.

Phew. So you can basically assume that even if you just buy EA games over the next 12 months, you’re going to be broke. There’s a lot of cool stuff there.

What are you most excited for?

Eeee, Dead Space: Extraction Could Be Coming To The PSN.

Kotaku are reporting this morning that two more entries in the Dead Space franchise are headed to the Playstation Network. Most interestingly so, one rumoured title is Dead Space: Extraction, last year’s Wii shooter that sold all of five copies worldwide.

A survey forwarded to the video games blog hints at the same “guided first-person experience” that hit the Wii, but in “full HD”, with a tentative price of $15. The survey received by Kotaku seems to be aimed at gauging interest for the products, so allow us to be the first to respond: YES PLEASE.

A second Dead Space product is hinted by the survey too. Entitled Planet Cracker, it’s described as a “resource strategy game where players will manage a CEC Mining operation”. Apparently, in-game achievements will allow you to fatten up your resources in the full version of Dead Space 2 when it launches.

Awesome. Properly awesome.

How About Getting This Hand In The Collector's Edition? Awesome.

You know what’s big in retail these days? Collector’s editions. Of bloody course. What else? So obviously, just post its announcement, EA are already considering options for a Dead Space 2 collector’s edition. In fact, they’ve been on Facebook to purposely ask what you want. “I will have our Executive Producer Steve Papoutsis comment on some of your suggestions next week,” reads the Facebook posting, ” … so make them good!”

We want a plasma cutter. And one of those weird baby things from the first game. That is all.

"Take That You Evil Marshmallow Child!"

GameInformer has the first ever screenshot of Dead Space 2. And it’s in 3D. Sorta. Head over to the GameInformer website to see what we mean. The image shows an angry Isaac Clarke moments away from punching a small, child-like, thing.

Awesome.

Dead Space 2 Will Be Set On Sprawl, A Space Station That Makes The Ishimura Look Minuscule.

RelyOnHorror’s posted up an absolute wealth of information regarding EA’s upcoming Dead Space 2 from an early subscriber’s issue of GameInformer. We don’t want to delve into too much detail (buy the magazine!), but we’ll tell you a few tid-bits.

Firstly, the game is set three years after the original on a massive space station named Sprawl. According to the magazine, EA intend to push the horror aspect, with “better pacing” being a key focus.

Interestingly, Isaac is going to speak in this game (boo!), and there’s going to be a gun called the Javelin.

Oh, and finally, there will be multiplayer. All we know is the following: “All I can say is it’s really fun, and you’ll get to strategically dismember your friends.”

There’s tons through the link. Or in the magazine. Why not buy the magazine?