An innovative and addictive horror survival game where head shots don't count.
You play as Isaac Clarke, who is sent on the USG Kellion, to help repair and investigate a distress signal sent out from the USG Ishimura, a ship that went on a mining mission to a planet, and never returned, or was ever heard from again. Upon boarding the Ishimura, the Kellion is severely damaged on impact. After exploring a tiny portion of the Ishimura, Clarke is sent into a room to fix a computer, he is locked in, and witnesses his whole crew wiped out by grotesque and horrific looking 'Necromorphs', blood thirsty aliens that take over human bodies. Clarke and 2 others are the only survivors, and must try to find a way off the Ishimura before it's too late. The story here is innovative, addicting, and is somewhat like other horror plots, but better, and it sucks you right in straight from the beginning until the last minute of gameplay. It has a ton of twists that will most likely surprise a lot of people, although some of them are predictable. It'll take the average gamer about 10-15 hours to get through this game, but every minute is worth it, and at the end you'll be satisfied you got through the game, and will cause a lot of people to start 2nd playthroughs right away. This is probably also one of the best, if not the best atmosphere I've ever experienced in a game to date, since it sucks you right in with plenty of blood, psycho enemies, and crazy people.
The combat and gameplay here is one of the major highpoints of the game. It's very gory, intense, and gives a new realization that headshots don't really work here, and instead you have to shoot off the limbs of your foes to slow them down, run in for a curbstomp, or just cut their head off, and it is still satisfying every single time. The weapons are pretty good and range from the Plasma Cutter, Pulse Rifle, and Line Gun. The game also has a more cinematic feel to it, and instead of having a HUD everything thing you need to know is displayed on Clarke's body, like the ammo is displayed on the weapon you are carrying, and your health bar is displayed on Clarke's spine. It also displays you in realtime when you go into menus, and leaves you right open for enemies and give people a scarier feeling, especially if you're in the middle of an ambush of Necromorphs. There are no cutscenes, and instead stuff is displayed through Audio, Video, and Text logs that help you progress further into the story.
The graphics and sound here are down right phenomenal. Everything is beautiful, and you'll sometimes just stare outside and watch an asteroid storm fall onto the planet below, or after killing a lot of enemies, the blood all over the walls, which is disturbing but is kind of cool at the same time. The sound is among the best I've ever heard in a video game. You'll hear everything from Clarke's heavy footsteps, stomps, breathing, screaming, enemies coming towards you, blood curdling effects, and so, so much more. The best way to experience this is to turn off all lights, and turn the volume way up, it's quite an unique experience.
The A.I. is also really intuitive, and will attack you mostly out of nowhere, since most of the Necromorphs make their way through the ventilation shafts of the Ishimura. Some of the aliens may even flank you, some hide and ambush you, and some other strategies. Overall some pretty good A.I. here.
The game is scary, very scary. Enemies will pop out of nowhere. The sound of the aliens is creepy. You'll most likely run into some creepy and crazy people, like 1 woman I found crying over a pool of blood on a chair, and you can tell that the people on the Ishimura are really messed up. But the gory effects of the game make you feel even more disturbed and crazed by this intense atmosphere.
All in all, this is one of the best Horror games I've played to date, and I'm currently already on my 2nd playthrough. The only flaw I had was that after beating the game and regaining all of your equipment, you can't change to a higher difficulty on the 2nd time through, and you have to keep playing on that same difficulty level, which let me down a bit. But besides that this game has an amazing atmosphere, lots of blood, a good story, many memorable moments, and so much more to maintain a good balance of Horror and good platforming into one game. Definitely one every horror fan, or gamer fan alike, should pick up and try at least one time. You won't be disappointed. A 9 out of 10.
-horrorboy