Dead Space Afterthoughts

Dead Space Afterthoughts

Dead Space Afterthoughts
EA Redwood Shores talks about the good, bad, and confusing elements of its critically-acclaimed horror game.

By Philip Kollar

Along with Mirror's Edge and Spore, Dead Space established Electronic Arts as a top tier publisher of original intellectual properties in 2008. We fought our fears and conquered the creatures on the USG Ishimura, and then hunted down EA Redwood Shores executive producer Glen Schofield. This interview contains spoilers, though, so be wary if you'd like to save the thrills you haven't yet experienced.

1UP: It seems that fewer publishers are taking chances on original intellectual properties these days. Did this make Dead Space a hard sell?

Glen Schofield: Not really. It wasn't easy, but I talked with the execs about the concept, and it was a solid idea -- a known yet underdeveloped genre, in my opinion, and one which Electronic Arts wasn't in yet. There was also a groundswell of talk within the company that we needed more new IPs. They also saw the passion the team had for making this game, and that goes a long way. Put these things together and it's a daring call to green light a game like this. But everyone was on board. Once people saw our first playable vertical slice [of the game], I think they all breathed a huge sigh of relief, knowing we made the right call.

LocoRoco 2 Priced at $20

Heads up, LocoRoco fans. We already heard prior to the holiday break that LocoRoco 2 was set to ship on February 10, but today the PlayStation.Blog has issued one additional, particularly delectable detail about the game's release: it'll only cost $20.

Naturally, they framed the announcement around the idea of giving consumers a break in this sagging economy: "In a time where it can be tough to spend money on games, we're definitely excited to bring PSP players the world of LocoRoco for this super-low price," wrote SCEA Santa Monica producer Tsubasa Inaba. Sure, you could also argue the low price is in Sony's own interest to get as many people to actually buy the thing as possible, but whatever -- we'll take a deal anywhere we can get it, these days.

Inaba also announced in the post that anyone who pre-orders the game through Amazon, GameStop, or GameCrazy (or other, unspecified participating retailers) will get a voucher to download a demo of the game through the PlayStation Network "weeks before the game releases." That's as specific as the post gets, but if you were planning on buying the game anyway, may as well give in to those annoying sales clerk pleas and get your pre-order in soon.