Dead Space

"Dare you venture into Dead Space ?"

Dead Space is a big new IP for EA, a company generally known for not doing much but spew out sequel after sequel to their intensive line-up of sports titles. A game like this then is quite surprising. Did they manage to pull it off?

On the surface, and judging by the first few hours it would seem that they certainly did. Dead Space looks brilliant, there's no two ways about it. The environments look wonderful, and on a whole so do the character models. I won't dwell on the graphics any longer; all you need to know is that they look great.

As I briefly mentioned the first few hours of game play are very intense. You play as Isaac. He's an engineer on a mission to do routine work on a huge mining vessel. Unfortunately for poor Isaac, things quickly turn bad. You soon find yourself surrounded by aliens and fighting for your life at every dark corner. The first few chapters really do feel intense as you shoot you way through the ship, finding new weapons and buying upgrades, whether they be for your suit or your weapons. The upgrade system works by the way of power nodes. You find these throughout your adventure and can also buy them at stores, which also let you buy ammo and health packs.

As well as the third-person shooting and running, Isaac can also conveniently slow down enemies with stasis packs and you kinesis to throw objects at the alien scum. This takes a bit of the backseat to the main action for the most part though. What does stand out are the zero-g sections however in which Isaac can jump huge distances and has a habit of being chased by just as jump happy enemies. These sections are pretty fun, and are only hampered by the slightly annoying camera angle in these sections. I also enjoyed the areas where there was no oxygen, forcing you to rush to find air packs and find a way out quickly.

All these things feel awesome at the start, but after a while things seem to get a tad predictable. You got bossed around and sent to do something to help fix the ship and find a way out, fight aliens, have a zero-g section before back-tracking back to the tram to go to the next chapter. This formula repeats until the game is done, and by that time things don't really feel as exciting anymore.

Sure there are a few new aliens, some different zero-g puzzles but at its basics it just never changes. As a result it looses some of its intensity, which is a shame.

I should however quickly mention the boss battles. These are some of the best moments of the whole game, and they really do feel epic. They are just plain fun, and your opponents are simply huge.

I started on the hard mode difficulty, and to my pleasant surprise it posed a decent challenge. I was constantly having to find new ammo or use stasis and melee attacks when I had nothing, and it just generally felt like a proper survival horror. After the game is done, you can start a new game plus option on the same difficulty and keep all your upgrades, or start again on a harder difficulty. The choice is yours, but bear in mind it takes multiple play thoughts to upgrade Isaac as much as possible.

So we've talked about the game play in detail, let's discuss the story. I found this one of the weakest parts of Dead Space. It's presented in a great way to you, through audio logs and superb voice acting, but at the end of the day that doesn't save it from feeling generic. It's not great, and it's a real shame because the way they presented it was fantastic.

Presentation in general is done really well. There is no main H.U.D; everything along with your inventory is presented as a holographic display In front of Isaac. This really helps with some of the immersion. On top of that the ship feels alive and has real character. This is helped by the fantastic sound. The music and sound effects are as good as you'll get in a survival horror, and really help in terms of building up the atmosphere and delivering scares.

Aside from saying it gets monotonous and the story, I have nothing but praise for this game. That said, it does just get to repetitive. I felt like I couldn't be bothered to play it again and get all the upgrades due to this reason alone. Besides, the replay value isn't fantastic anyway aside from the new game plus options.

Still, Dead Space is a very ambitious new game and it has the potential to become a huge new franchise. I recommend giving it a try to anyone, especially horror fans,

8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/02/09

Game Release: Dead Space (EU, 10/24/08)