Dead Space

"Ambitious, Immersive, Creepy. Excellent"

Dead Space is a highly ambitious, innovative Survival-Horror game set in space. Initially, it seems very cliched, but the story gets more and more intriguing as it goes along. You're Isaac Clarke, an engineer sent on a mission to repair and investigate the lack of communications coming from the USG Ishimura, a gigantic Mining Ship that has recently "cracked" planet Aegis 7, and apparently discovered a strange artifact known as the "Marker". You soon realize that not all is right on the Ishimura. Most of the crew are dead, and there are deadly alien-like creatures on board known colloquially as Necromorphs. These Necromorphs are reanimated from human tissue by some ugly flying pale alien things with giant suckers. You'll see...

As for the plot development, most of the interesting parts of the game are told in the backstory. Something that you have to find out for yourself through Bioshock-inspired audio and text logs of the crew before their deaths. This gives a nice lonely element to the game. No one else is on the ship except your two other surviving crew-men (who were also sent to repair this ship) Kendra and Gen. Hammond. For the majority of the game, though, you are completely alone.

The visual and audio design of this game are spectacular, reminiscent of how well Bioshock's environment was crafted, but this time in space. The set design is distinctive, disturbing, and the walls are sprawling with grafitti in strange alien languages. The audio work is brilliant, with crackling walls, disturbing radio-like ambiance, and an all around chilling musical score. Sometimes you'll even hear whispers while you stand still, turning around only to see nothing there.

The gameplay is equally brilliant, and an amalgam of the best of adventure/shooters. Similar to RE4 in the way you explore and fight, DS is entirely 3rd person. Similarly to RE4, you collect items on the map and can access them through a menu, but still spend the most of your time in real-time. The menu screen is just brilliant. DS removes the traditional HUD, and replaces it with a health meter on Isaac's back, and also a Statis (think energy) meter as well. The menu screen is a virtual projection from his visor directly in front of him. Whatever you select while browsing, Isaac's head moves to that location. It makes the game all that more immersive since it never once breaks from the action (it doesn't pause the action while in the menu screen). The lack of the HUD makes this game even more distubing.

Of course, the most important aspect of the game is how fun it is to play. And the answer is: alot. It's very freaky sometimes, and you're heart will literally race at certain encounters. The Necromorphs come in all shapes and sizes, initially looking pretty humanoid to eventually becoming an insanely disturbing combination of body parts. You're weapons perform excellently. There are about six in all, but you can only hold four at a time. Each weapon has a alternate fire mode, which actually could be considered another weapon in itself. The most basic of theses is the plasma cutter, shooting a straight line of plasma vertically or horizontally (you pick). The most efficient method of dispatching Necromorphs is not shooting them in the head, but dismembering them. That is to say, take off their limbs. With their heads gone, they just can't see, but will still surely flail insanely about hitting you. The weapons are all fitted for dismemberment, too. With the plasma cutter perfect for cutting off limbs, the ripper (read: sawblade) great for a quick decapitation and leg amputation, the force gun (read: shotgun) nice for quick, spontaneous, dismemberment,and much, much more. The gore and satisfaction you get from perfectly shooting off the arms and legs of a Necromorph and watching him squirm there is unbeatable.

Besides the standard weapons, Isaac also has the ability to Stasis (read: Freeze) his enemies (and machinery, fit for some puzzles) in place while he surgically removes their appendages. Also, Isaac has the ability to pick up objects and hurl them at his opponents via Kinesis. So grab an exploding canister or severed limb-claw and chuck it at the nearest Necromorph.

The list goes on and on at the innovations present here. This is a survival horror game unlike any I've played before. It constantly surprises you with new additions of baddies, and constantly creeps you the hell out with strange audio logs, plenty of jump-out scares, and just freaky **** Oh, and theres a whole cultish backstory going on, too. The story really pans out to a nice un-cliched, interesting Half-Life-esque tale. You know, don't tell the player TOO much but tell him just enough so his mouth is watering for the next installment.

All in all, Dead Space is a great start to (hopefully) a full-fledged series (god I hope), because it has alot of beautiful potential here. My only gripe is that sometimes the voice acting wasn't as good as the game deserved (the dialogue was brilliant, tho), and the 'interactive scenes' were sometimes clumsy. Polish the story's "real-time" presentation up (the logs and backstory were perfectly fine), and EA Redwood has a killer series going for them.

This game is seriously one of the best games I've played since Bioshock a year ago. With a little more polish, this could (and should) be the next big series. Its too bad not many will play at as it was released in a sea of hotly anticipated titles.

Give this game a chance: it'll surprise you (read: scare the hell out of you), and really make you think (why hasn't a game like this been made before...?).

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

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