Death Jr. 2:Story, shooting, and screenshots

It’s gonna be while before we’ll be getting our hands on Death Jr. II, so Backbone Entertainment‘s Chris Opdahl has decided to shed some light on the game before release day. In his developer’s diary, he tells us all about two aspects to this game that they’ve been tweaking come the sequel: the story-telling system, and (our favorite) the revamped ranged combat system.

There’s more than one way to tell a game’s story as it moves, Chris says, and for DJ II , the developers have decided to use an in-game voice-over style – as the player goes through some of the less difficult areas, the game’s characters start talking in-game, leaving the player to continue on their adventure without having to suffer those oh-so-beautiful-yet-annoying-as-hell cutscenes that totally throw off our gaming mojo –  the MGS and Xenosaga franchise will be remembered for this.

And to add flavor to the play, the game’s dotted with incidental dialogue – characters and enemies will be saying candidly funny non-plot stuff that provides you with the occasional chuckle as you go on your Grimm way.

More on the ranged-combat system and screenshots after this jump!

It’s gonna be while before we’ll be getting our hands on Death Jr. II, so Backbone Entertainment‘s Chris Opdahl has decided to shed some light on the game before release day. In his developer’s diary, he tells us all about two aspects to this game that they’ve been tweaking come the sequel: the story-telling system, and (our favorite) the revamped ranged combat system.

There’s more than one way to tell a game’s story as it moves, Chris says, and for DJ II , the developers have decided to use an in-game voice-over style – as the player goes through some of the less difficult areas, the game’s characters start talking in-game, leaving the player to continue on their adventure without having to suffer those oh-so-beautiful-yet-annoying-as-hell cutscenes that totally throw off our gaming mojo –  the MGS and Xenosaga franchise will be remembered for this.

And to add flavor to the play, the game’s dotted with incidental dialogue – characters and enemies will be saying candidly funny non-plot stuff that provides you with the occasional chuckle as you go on your Grimm way. As for the ranged combat system, Chris has mentioned several major tweaks to help keep the game exciting and innovative:

1. Less ammo: There’s gonna be less ammo this time around, which should encourage players to start mixing up their playing styles to suit certain fights, and should keep you from becoming too dependent on one shooting iron.

2. Enemy resistance: The enemies now have resistance to certain bullets you carry –  This once again encourages players to help mix up their attacks and tactics, and while your melee attacks don’t use up ammo, it gets boring pretty fast – why chop that tree down when you can just torch it?

3. Enemy resistance 2: Careful – some of the bigger enemies here can just laugh off hits from your lighter weapons (like pistols) , and will charge you when you start pelting them with bullets. The best thing to do here it to shoot ’em with your bigger guns, or dodge them and keep blasting with the light stuff until they croak. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

4. Melee timing: As all boxers say – “Watch his shoulders.” The enemies here now have varied timing for their attack animation, and for those of you brazen enough to try CQC (Close-Quarter-Combat) work here, watching the timing on their moves will help you find an opening for your own combos.

5. Dodging: The enemies here can dodge some of your slower (and more powerful) shots, like your rocket launcher. This should   keep players on their feet when they engage the faster enemies – melee is often the best way to go here.

Well, that’s that. We hope you enjoyed  those pointers as you wait for this game’s release this winter. We’ve also  picked up these game screenshots to give you guys an idea of what we were talking about.

Via IGN