Dead Space is a masterpiece in survival horror genre.
There are only few games in the survival horror genre that can actually represent what they are supposed to be - a horrific and terrifying experience. Nowadays, survival horror games are not scary anymore. Your character usually has a huge arsenal of guns to help them fight the enemies, thus the feeling of being completely defenceless isn't present in the game.
So between all these not-so-scary "horror" titles in this day and age, Dead Space was something that really impressed me. The camera angles and shooting mechanics are exactly the same as Resident Evil 4 and 5, only this time the controls are smoother, and also there are a couple of other cool tweaks in the gameplay (we will talk more about these tweaks in the gameplay section of the review). But the main reason that Dead Space is different from other games in the genre (i.e. RE4) is that the game ACTUALLY scares you, and trust me, it does it extremely well.
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Storyline: A+
Plot Summary:
In Dead Space, you play as an engineer named Issac Clark. The game starts off when Issac and two other people are traveling to the Ishimura space ship because of the distress signal that had been sent from that ship. According to this signal, there was something wrong with the ship and it needed to be fixed. Once Issac arrives to the ship, he immediately realizes that there is something wrong with the place, and he is indeed right. These three people have no idea that by entering this ship, they have just bought three one way tickets for a ride in a place more horrifying than the hell itself.
Thumbs Up:
+ A really gripping opening
+ Good characters
+ The history of Ishimura is told to the player via the different audio, video, and text logs that Issac finds throughout the levels. Although it's not a new method, it's still a really effective way of storytelling.
+ The ending was absolutely fantastic.
+ There are enough turns and twists that can keep you interested in the plot.
+ The dialogues in the game were very well written.
Thumbs Down:
N/A
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Gameplay: A+
This is, in my opinion, one of the strongest aspects of the game. Like I mentioned before in the prologue of this review, Dead Space plays almost exactly the same as Resident Evil 4 and 5 with a couple of minor changes. While these differences are not huge, they still impact the gameplay a lot and help to keep this game away from being just a cheap copy of RE 4 and 5.
1) One of the major differences is the fact that Issac can move while he's holding up his gun , and this is a huge plus for me because it makes the gameplay a lot smoother than RE4.
2) The second difference that separates Dead Space from not only Resident Evil 4, but also other survival horror/third person shooters is the fact that there is no HUD on the screen to distract you. Your health meter is built into the back of Issac's suite and your ammo is displayed on a small monitor that will pop up above your gun once you hold it up.
3) Other than the two factors that we talked about in the last paragraph, there is also another original feature presented in Dead Space: Zero -Gravity. During the game, you'll enter several rooms and chambers where there is no gravity in the air, thus all the objects and dismembered limbs are floating above Issac's head! This is not only cool and disturbing to look at, but also it has a noticeable impact on the gameplay. Once the gravity is offline, Issac is able to preform a zero-gravity jump which allows him to reach surfaces that he normally wouldn't be able to get to. For example, you can jump from the ground to the ceiling, and since the gravity doesn't exist, you are able to actually walk on the ceilings or any other surface that you want without falling down. Also, in most of these rooms, you have to solve puzzles that are zero-gravity related. These puzzles might be a bit easy, but they definitely add variety to the gameplay.
4) The last trick that Dead Space has up its sleeve is the dismembering strategy. Dismembering basically means that in this game, you can't just mindlessly shoot your enemies. You need to carefully aim for their limbs, and shoot those limbs in order to kill the Necromorphs (that's what they call the monsters in the game) as fast as possible. You can just fire your gun without carefully aiming, but you'll waste a lot of ammo by doing this because this way, it takes way longer for your enemies to die. The dismembering strategy adds a lot of depth to the gameplay.
Now that we got these three elements out of the way, let's quickly go over the pros and cons of the gameplay.
Thumbs Up:
+ The dismembering strategy
+ Zero-Gravity sections
+ The innovative HUD system
+ Issac's arsenal consists of some of the best guns I've ever used in a videogame.
+ All the guns have two types of
+ All the weapons and also Issac's RIG can be upgraded by the nods that are scattered around the ship.
+ There is a decent variety of enemy types in the game.
+ Necromorphs are very intelligent.
+ The game is challenging, yet not frustrating.
+ Innovative interface: To access your inventory, map, etc. you don't have to pause the game. Just press the inventory button or the map button, and a monitor will pop up in front of Issac's face. You can choose everything from there without even having to pause. This makes the game not only more realistic, but also a lot more intense. For example, if you want to check to see how much ammo do you have left for a certain gun and you're being attacked by thousands of Necromorphs at the same time, you can't pause the game, check your ammo, and then resume the game. You have to check it while you are being attacked!
+ You can buy, sell, and store your stuff via shops.
+ Issac's suite is upgradeable as well (each upgrade will change the suite's looks and will also add a certain number of inventory slots).
+ Fantastic boss battles.
Thumbs Down:
- While Dead Space separated itself from other third person shooter titles by adding features like dismembering enemies and zero-gravity chambers, the game doesn't do anything ground breaking, and no matter how you look at it, the style of gameplay is very similar to a game like Resident Evil 4.
(0.5 points reduced).
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Visuals and sound design: A+
This section of the game gets a perfect score from me. The graphics of Dead Space are so beautiful and realistic. The amount of detail is noticeable in every single thing in the game. The space looks absolutely perfect, enemies are very well-designed, every single room in th ship looks disturbing, brilliant, and very detailed, Issac's suite and weapons look awesome, the gore is very realistic, lighting effects are superb,and overall, the visual presentation in Dead Space is flawless.
Every sound effect in the game is fantastic, from the realistic sound of the guns to disturbing laughters and screams, corpses banging their heads against a metal wall (!), flesh being cut in half, and hair straightening noises of Necromorphs. The sound design definitely contributes a lot in making the atmosphere of the game creepier.
The voice acting is good; it's nothing special, but I didn't have a problem with it either. Issac did not have a voice actor tho, which I thought was a really wise decision.
One thing that in my opinion has the most effect on the atmosphere of Dead Space is Issac running into the crazy survivors of Ishimura. There is only three or four of them throughout the game, but when I met them for the first time in my first playthrough of Dead Space, I was speechless! They don't want you to do anything and you can't even talk to them, but all of them scared the hell out of me!
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IN CONCLUSION:
Dead Space is was a fantastic experience from beginning to end. While it's not ground breaking by any means, it has a unique atmosphere and it offers some original features that definitely save the game from falling into the category of "just another generic third person shooter". I highly recommend it to everyone, although if you are not a game collector or a survival horror fan, just rent the game or borrow it from a friend because it's not that long.
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OVERALL SCORE:
9.5/10
A+
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