Dead Space

"A New Franchise Invigorates an Old Genre"

Dead Space. The name pretty much tells you what you're getting into when you grab the controller. Deformed monsters chase after you. Things go bump and clank in the darkness. Blood is splattered everywhere so freely, one would think it was the choice of a decorator. And lastly, let's not forget that dreadful feeling of isolation that makes you have your gun aimed and ready whenever you open a door or exit an elevator. Dead Space is the definitive return to the Survival Horror genre.

With the recent Silent Hill franchise lacking and Resident Evil gone full action/adventure. The survival horror genre has definitely seen better days. Many shouldn't be surprised that there is a large number of gamers who want to play a game that will instill a fear in them that has the possibility to make them lose their bowels. And what can I say, that feeling of fear is fun. It's actually downright awesome to be scared out of one's wits. The creator's of Dead Space gave what many of these gamers wanted in spades. And the gamers answered back with a very respectable first week sales. Dead Space has sold just under 400k after one week, (without a European release yet).

The game starts you off as an average ordinary engineer type named Isaac. You and your crew are responding to a distress call of a plant cracking ship named Ishimura. Of course stuff goes nuts and you and your pals are trapped in the confines of giant metal nightmare. Take the artistic design of Event Horizon, the creature design and horror of The Thing, and add the devious "trust-no-one" sub-story of the Aliens series and you have Dead Space. The story is a general mash of so many space horror movies, nothing will generally surprise you. But the presentation is done so brilliantly, you will become undoubtedly immersed in the game.

I must stress presentation, because this game definitely thrives off its presentation. The HUD system, the real-time menus, the rig cinema scenes. Once the game starts, nothing takes you out of the game. You are always in risk of danger. Monsters can attack you whenever they want. For Example, I was at a store purchasing and storing items, then a monster attacked me. It scared me because I was at the store for maybe three minutes before the attack. And there was no signal or anything. I jumped, I screamed like a girl and then realized this game wants me to always be on guard, and from then on I most certainly was.

Character wise, Isaac follows the "Link" (Legend of Zelda) formula. He doesn't talk, unless disturbing screams of death and pain count. This is done so as to make the player feel like they are actually Isaac. It gives more of a internal feeling playing as someone, then an external feeling playing as someone the gamer is watching. I personally enjoy when games do this, and I definitely feel it is a plus in a Survival Horror game. Feeling like you are the character, definitely insures you will feel more isolated and fearful of dying.

The Ishimura is the ship you will be trying to get off of for a majority of the game. It in itself is a character as you will get to know her and her secrets. Ishimura is a scary ship. Everything creaks and clanks. Lights flick on and off for no reason, but to obviously scare the pee out of you. The ship design makes the game special. It's almost on par with the original Resident Evil Mansion in that epic scale. Also, something you will notice immediately after starting the game is messages scrawled all over the ship walls in blood or whatever. These definitely increase the atmosphere. Read them, they're good. They are like little glimpses to the grizzly events that befell the crew.

Now let's talk gameplay. Dead Space uses the now trendy and popular over the shoulder camera and uses a button layout similar to Resident Evil 4. After that it is pretty much a simple third person shooter with a bit of strategy added on where to shoot. Plenty of weapons are available, all suitable for any player. There is an RPG like element to upgrading your weapons, skills, and suit with little things called nodes. (Little bit of advice, always carry at least one node with you, as there are secret doors that only open with a node.) There is also some advance strategy to the game. After the first play through, you find out how some monsters are created. Once knowing that, you can easily thwart some monsters from ever coming about. Also, a skill called stasis is definitely helpful, since it allows you to freeze enemies, making it easier to assess the situation and deal with them.

Boss Battles are generally easy, once the basic strategy is known. They all don't feel epic or insane, but do feel enough like a serious event to warrant them good. I found them fun, and that's really all I ask for from any boss battle in any game.

Violence and gore. This game delivers. If you ever want the pleasure of seeing old horror movie violence and gore that is no longer in current horror movies, let Isaac die to a few enemies or spinning contraptions. You'll be satisfied.

As for playing the game and hoping to get scared. I can't stress this enough. You need to play alone, in the dark, at night, with the speakers turned up. No game, and I mean no game, will scare you at four in the afternoon with the sounds of children playing outside and your friends sitting next to you talking about what girls they want to sleep with.

As for difficulty. I started on medium and quickly switched to hard before Chapter 4. I don't like any game where I can't die and medium was not providing me the fear of death. However, this is left up to your skills as a gamer.

The game runs between 10 and 15 hours. Some may see this as a negative, others like myself prefer this length. All games shouldn't be 60 hours long. If this game was 60 hours+ it would probably be an awful experience. The game has a great pace and ends just when it feels like it should.

Also, please note that all equipment and upgrades do not transfer over to different difficulties. Meaning a hard +game will not carry over to a impossible new game. Some find this as a serious flaw. I personally liked starting impossible with nothing but my knowledge and skill.

All in all Dead Space is a fantastic game that definitely delivers on its goals. Even if you have a beef with EA, (and I know many do, including myself) buy this game if you're an old RE, RE2 fan or are just looking for a good scare. With its sequel already greenlighted after first week sales numbers and rave reviews, it seems Dead Space proved that Survival Horror is back, and fans are definitely happy about it.

PRESENTATION - 9 - Total game immersion, all due to the presentation of the games everything real-time dynamic.

GAMEPLAY - 8 - Nothing revolutionary. Everything works and controls great. Classic Survival Horror gameplay with new next-gen features (Over-the-shoulder camera).

GRAPHICS - 8 - Great. But definitely not defining or the new standard. However, looks genuinely next-gen beautiful.

SOUND - 10 - The sound designers deserve an award for keeping gamers spooked for an entire 10+ hour game. Voice actors are decent. Isacc's death screams are epic.

LASTING APPEAL - 8 - You'll probably play it twice. If you are a Survival Horror fan you'll probably play it four to five times and definitely once more before the sequel release.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/27/08

Game Release: Dead Space (US, 10/13/08)